28 ABCers back at the dock after a beautiful late afternoon trip to Smith Island
On Sunday August 8th we met Captain Matt Stolmeier at the dock of Outer Island Excursions Blackfish Tours to head out to Smith Island. There has been a Horned Puffin seen in that area off and on for this summer, and really the last 3 summers. For most of the trip participants this would have been a lifer, or WA first species. The weather was perfect with sunshine, flat seas, and we had a great trip. No Horned Puffin was located, but lots more birds and scenery was there as consolation prizes.
Horned Puffin, our resident breeding puffin in the Salish Sea.
Smith Island was alive with birds. The Bull Kelp beds looked massive and healthy, and a number of “Bait Balls” of birds were enjoyed.
How may species can you find?
There were lots of other alcids.
Common MurreRhinoceros Auklet, or as skipper Matt calls them for his kids, the unicorn puffin. Puffin incomingPuffin fly-by
Skipper Matt gave us extra time to explore the Williamson’s Rocks on the trip back into port, with great looks at various birds with red hard parts.
Black Oystercatchers with red bill, Pigeon Guillemot with red feed (and gape – not shown) and Heermann’s Gull with red bill. An adult Glaucous-winged (or “Olympic”) Gull with young. This marker buoy, a.k.a. the Pelagic Cormorant condo, had nests on every shelf, and the young were at varying stages of development, from quite small to nearly adult size.
Overall a great way to get together outdoors and have fun birding.
Hope is for lots more ABC trips if we the pandemic situation allows.
Richard, Mary, Kathryn and Ken near Kettle Falls Campground
ABC had a group trip, finally. With all participants immunized and able to get away on a short-notice smaller-than-usual-group trip, 8 ABCers headed for the North East corner of the state on Tuesday June 8th. Ken put the trip together with my encouragement and the group met at the usual Travelers Rest Stop at Snoqualmie Pass at 7:30 to get out birding and try for the NE corner specialties plus a few more.
Butterflies were not as abundant as expected on this trip, likely because it was not very warm. Loraquin’s Admiral here.
The big change in this trip was the addition of Jacob Miller, a young Mason County birder that Ken has been encouraging. He managed to break away from his family farm, Skykomish Valley Farms, and his enthusiasm as well as talented eyes and ears added lots to the trip. On the way across I-90 east we made a stop at the Ginkgo State Park Backcountry Trail spot to see the Black-throated Sparrow that had been sighted there the day prior. It was singing from prominent perches on the east side of the entry road, across from where it had been seen some years ago. This was lifer #1 for Jacob and some others, and a FOY for all but me, as the Pierce County second record bird on May 14 was a county first and FOY for me. Rock wrens were numerous there too and singing loudly.
White-tailed Deer are another eastern species seen in the NW corner of WA.
From here we spent much of the morning around Sprague Lake, in both Lincoln and Adams counties, after a quick stop at Peninsula Park at Moses Lake for Clark’s Grebe with several Forester’s Terns as an unexpected bonus and lifers #2 and #3 for Jacob. At the Lincoln County end of Sprague Lake we added Black Tern (#4) and Gray Catbird (#5) as well as Canvasback and a good variety of ducks and passerines including many Eastern Kingbirds (#6)
Western Tanager
On the Adams County end by the boat ramp two Black-crowned Night Herons flew past (#7) and we joked that we were hitting a rut, with between 43-47 species at every stop. We made a Grasshopper Sparrow (#8) stop in grassy fields along SR -231 on the way out of Sprague, adding Vesper Sparrows along with Swainson’s Hawks there too.
American White Pelicans
Stops at Reardon Pond added our first of many Bank Swallows, and at Hafer Road in Steven’s County we managed to find a pair of Clay-colored Sparrows (#9) along with the Dusky Flycatchers (#10) before heading to dinner in Colville at a Mexican place with decent food but incredibly slow service. After a 2-hjour dinner stop we got to Cottonwood Campground just after sunset, pitching tents in the last light. Singing Veery (#11) and drumming Ruffed Grouse were nice bedtime additions.
Red-eyed Vireo, one of the eastern species more often heard than seen.
It drizzled much of the night, making for damp camping gear for the rest of the trip, but the morning birding made up for it, with a mother Ruffed Grouse keeping a close eye on us as her young hid in the roadside brush on the campground driveway. Red-eyed Vireo and American Redstart (#12-13) were easily seen in camp, as well as more calling and singing Veery, and a White-breasted Nuthatch (#14). At the HQ we got our first looks at Calliope (#15) and Black-chinned Hummingbirds (#16) and then we headed around the auto loop at Pend Oreille NWR. It was not that birdy but Nashville Warbler (#17) was found on Bear Creek Road, and at lunch at the McDowell Lake Trailhead a soaring Northern Goshawk (#18) entertained and amazed all of us while Jacob had the presence of mind to carefully look at a woodpecker that we all saw fly in front of us but didn’t look away from the Goshawk, getting White-headed Woodpecker (#19) as a “Jacob only” bird of the trip. On a hike to the lake a Golden Eagle was another trip highlight.
Wood Duck
After leaving the NWR we birded Amazon Marsh. It was difficult, but finally we managed to get onto a singing Northern Waterthrush (#20) along with American Redstart and several more Gray Catbirds.
Northern Waterthrush
At Aladin Road not much was new, and we headed for Big Meadow Campground to pitch camp. It was disappointing there that every Alder tree in the usual camping spot had been cut down, and on the hike many trees required maneuvering over, under or around making the 2 ½ mile hike seem especially long. Also zero of either species of 3-toed woodpeckers disappointed. Singing Common loons and Wilson’s snipe calling and winnowing kept us entertained though.
The Big Meadow
This night was colder to camp out, but everyone survived, and after a hike alongside the lake without Three-toed or Black-backed Woodpeckers, we headed to our boreal high elevation stop of the trip with high hopes.
Bunchgrass Meadow
Bunchgrass Meadow was a new place for most of us on the trip. It is at high elevation, up a 10-mile road NF 1935 Sullivan lake Road near Ione, WA. Here is a link to the eBird list we had from there where you can also access the details of the eBird hotspot. Here we had big flocks of White-winged Crossbills, many Red Crossbills, at least 3 Boreal Chickadees, and a great experience of seeing a new beautiful place.
After this we stopped briefly at Noisy Creek Campground near Sullivan Lake and worked our way to the hotel of the trip, a really nice place called the Ione Riverview Motel. It is right on the Pend Oreille River, has good rooms and beds, a deck right by the river, and was great. A warm dry bed was just the thing after 2 nights camping.
Least Flycatcher
The next morning we headed for maybe our most anticipated stop of the trip, Calispel Lake, where my guests on Episode #100, Scott and Sierra Downes had 90 species on a recent loop. We were hoping to do that well, and worked the area thoroughly, taking 7 ½ hours to complete the loop, taking our time, looking for every bird, and finishing with a crazy 104 species as a group. I think I saw 102 of these, missing two swift species, Black seen only by Jacob, and Vaux seen by several of us. Highlights were close up Northern Waterthrush at a lunch stop by a bridge, FOY Least Flycatcher near the Jct. of Middle-fork Road, and good numbers of Bobolinks in a couple of wet fields. A family of Say’s Phoebes, 10 species of warblers (really great for WA) and a slow paced day made for great birding.
Ferruginous Hawk
Our last night of camping was at the Kettle Falls Campground, where we battled some high winds to set up camp before the wind died back at dusk, and outboard motors very early the next morning as fishermen took to Lake Roosevelt. Highlights here were found by Jacob after the rest of us called it a night. Lark Sparrow and another at least two Least Flycatchers were on the peninsula behind the marina, and we got back out to see them the next morning. Pygmy Nuthatches were in a snag right in camp, and we headed for home with more birding to do on Saturday.
Ferruginous Hawk
The way home was all about finding a few lifers for Jacob (and great looks at great birds for the rest of us) Ferruginous Hawks were found in two places, at mile post 82 on State Road 28 is a dilapidated windmill with a nest on the platform. Three chicks and a soaring adult Ferruginous Hawk gave great looks. Another two adults were seen later at Wilson Creek.
Lark Sparrow
Road W near Krupp yielded Sagebrush Sparrow and Brewer’s Sparrows, Sage Thrasher, and Vesper Sparrow. Lunch in Krupp preceded Wilson Creek where a Barn Owl was found by Ken in the canyon wall, the pair of FEHA worked the fields, and we all headed for home satisfied and happy, our state/life/year lists enhanced and feeling really good.
On the way home I spotted a Great Egret in a field off I-90 near Ellensburg, and we all got back to my place to head for home by about 6:30PM.
A great trip! Thanks to all participants and especially to Ken.
Jacob, Teri (in front), Ed, Ken, Mary, Richard, Kathryn
(Photo/Laurel)
Chambers Bay area Ospreys have arrived from migration on April first every year for quite some time and have usually reclaimed existing territories and nests. But this year, a non-migratory female Canada Goose had earlier taken possession of a well-established pole nest near the Chambers Bay Dam and refused to give it up to a returning Osprey Pair. This behavior by geese had been noted in the area sporadically before.
Goose takes over Osprey nest
After a day or two, the Ospreys decided to build a new nest nearby, right on top of a utility pole with many energized wires attached, and went at it vigorously. This being a hazard both to birds and potentially to power transmission, Tacoma Power and the Department of Fish and Wildlife were notified. A day or two later the new Osprey nest was removed, apparently with a permit allowing this because of safety concerns. Anti-nesting devices were placed on the pole and a nearby one.
New Osprey Nest The Anti-Osprey Apparatus erected to save Osprey from electrocution
But the Goose remained on the original nest and indeed was plucking breast down and lining the nest with it. However, in the next two or three days she and her pile of down were removed and the Ospreys, who had been hanging around stubbornly, reclaimed their home and have proudly remained on it ever since.
I learned yesterday that our ABCBirding website has been broken, and today I finally managed to get it back up. Hope soon we can be back to meetings and field trips. Here are some photos to tide you over.
On eBird prior to the latest update you could use the summarize findings to create a trip list. I cannot figure out how to use that feature now, but Chazz Hesselein answered an Facebook query with a link to a cool website that allows an eBird user to create an Excel spreadsheet with a trip list by just copying the ebird list urls from eBird, pasting them into a box on the site, clicking to create a list, and presto, an Excel spreadsheet is automatically downloaded with your trip list. See the screen shots below if you don’t understand this, but the directions are all there, and pretty simple. I believe you can use Google Sheets or other free tools to open the Excel Spreadsheet if you don’t have Excel.
At this spooky time of year, crows signify the bird identity of Halloween spirits, which is why Adam and I always choose October to go see the crow spectacle in Bothell. The University of Washington’s Bothell campus is host to thousands of crows with one of the biggest, if not the very biggest, nighttime roost in the state. They have become very well known on campus, and the University sponsors their very own webpage (https://www.uwb.edu/visitors/crows), plus students are now studying this bonanza that just landed in their lap due to their choice of college. Much media has been focused on these Corvids in the greater Seattle area, but the roost is less well known in the south Sound. We have our own crow roosts, but really nothing like this.
Diane at UW-Bothell in crow regalia
It was a balmy evening when we drove up on October 17th to an empty campus due to the coronavirus pandemic. We drove to the top of the north parking terrace as usual and waited. At first we saw a few crows. As it started to get dark, more crows came in, and soon it was apparent that there really were more crows, not just the same bunch circling us. Just at sunset, the numbers increased logarithmically. We couldn’t really get a good count because it was getting so dark, and these are very dark sinister-looking birds, but we put 10,000 down as our count on eBird, and eBird didn’t even blink. Might have been twice that number.
Adam cringes under onslaught of Crows
Adam and I were very happy to have this pandemic-safe outing with just us. Most of the time we were there, there were no others on the parking garage roof, so we were able to push our masks down and breathe freely. The only protective equipment we might have wanted would have been earplugs to blunt the crow symphony a bit. But just as in previous visits, a half-hour after sunset, the noise suddenly ceased, as if some demonic conductor had put down his baton.
We noticed people down on the ball field just south of where we were, and one of them came up and told us that crows line up on the east side of the field, then when their social group has all arrived, they just seem to fall down into the swamp/wetland there. We saw a bit of that, but we were so busy looking up that we couldn’t really enjoy that part. The woman who told us that was a local, and she brought dry cat food and sprinkled some out on the parking garage floor. We knew she was a regular because They Were Waiting for Her! Maybe they’d already sent a contingent to her house to threaten her if she didn’t show up with the goods
Dark bird on a dark night
We cast our own magical spell for Corvids (Corvus brachyrhynchos) to beat off Covid-19. And we think the spell will work. Once the coronavirus has passed, we predict the numbers of crows in Puget Sound will be higher than ever. A safe bet since there are always more and more crows as the numbers of Homo sapiens increase and unwittingly invite them. So bet on Corvids, not Covid.
I spent most of the last week at Wapato Point in Manson, near Chelan on the lake. It was really hot, so decent birding was an early morning thing, and a drive up the very steep road to Chelan Butte was a highlight. FOY Dusky Grouse, Gray Flycatcher, and many Lewis’s Woodpeckers were highlights. The really steep road was fun to drive both up and down, and the vistas were stunning. So the grouse makes Best Bird of the Last Week for me. How about you? Tell the club about your best bird of the last week in a comment below. Good birding!
Sorry about no post last week, it just got by me. So if you want this to be your best bird if the last 2 weeks I’m not going to be the calander police. For me no one bird stood out particularly, but the hike at Sunrise that seemed to have almost all juvenile passerines was most memorable. Bruce LaBar and I went on Tuesday and got an early start, avoiding the crouds of later in the day. We had great, if initially at times confusing looks at several juvenile species.
Hormed LarkGray-crowned Rosy FinchAmerican PipitTwo young Hoary Marmots playing in the sun.
Leave a comment with your favorite birds of the last week. Good birding. Good Day!
It’s tough to say for me. Just yesterday I had three FOY Pierce birds in one day. Starting with Will Brooks texting that he had a pretty-near-in Cassin’s Auklet in the rip just off Dune’s Peninsula. I dashed right over and got nice looks for a bird usually seen only on Pelagic trips. Then the immature Brown Pelican finally showed itself to me at the mouth of the Puyallup River when I looked up from gorging on ripe blackberries. Then after dinner I headed to Puyallup to see the juv. Pectoral Sandpiper seen earlier in the day at Levee Pond. A great three-bird day.
Pectoral Sandpiper
Leave a comment with your best bird of the last week. Good birding.
