January 14th - Totally not Chasing Birds

Yeah, I'll freely admit that I TOO can do math. And I looked at January 6th (my last day down), and January 14th. And goodness, that's a small number of days in between! 

Snowy Owl sightings
from over the years
at Leadbetter State Park, 
Long Beach Peninsula

Balance is at the heart of the years that I do. I'm going to stand by that. . . but I'm going to be taking advantage of opportunities as well. This trip was a combination of a few things. Writing projects were a few days from ramping up, the weather was supposed to be delightful, I've got some less mobile weeks coming up, and. . . 

To be chasing birds requires birds... in a place... that you go to. I was only chasing hunches. In a Facebook group, someone posted a picture of a Snowy Owl with no location. I think it was stipulated that it was from the coast, but no other information was given. I thought this over... where could a Snowy Owl hide from birders? What's a place where a Snowy Owl would love to be, but also a place that gets very little traffic? My answer was Leadbetter Point.

What a magical destination! Drive out to the southern-most point on the Washington Coast - Ilwaco and Long Beach - and only from there can you turn north up this long narrow peninsula. 28 miles long. 1.5 miles narrow (on average). Driving will take you to the parking lot on the bay side, a hike up the bay side takes you to a trail that lets you walk to the ocean side, and a hike along the ocean, up and around the tip, brings you to some of the richest, most unexplored birding areas in the state. I'd never been, and the weather was telling me I should make my first run! Chasing weather on a bird hunch. That's my stand.

Out the door

I did some cooking in the morning - making up some chicken flautas that would be my lunches. I had another clean round of packing; This was especially impressive because I was essentially packing for a hike that would take over half a day, including a spotting scope and camera supplies. 

I came into Pacific, not over Highway 6 as I did on my first trip of the year, but over Highway 101. It's a long haul to Ilwaco - 3 hours! So, I had cautioned myself to keep the dilly out of my dally. But the highway had a few clearcuts that grabbed my attention. I stopped at one. 

"I love clearcuts"? Is that what I'm claiming? I always hesitate, because they are at least cosmetically and also ecologically unattractive. But are they all bad? I also hesitate there. What trees are coming down? How many? How would they otherwise have obtained those trees? 

Selective thinning is a practice that could probably be done in larger areas for the same number of trees, escaping the notice of many drivers-by. But that is a disruption to a much larger area. Compacting soil and removing some understory over much wider swaths of land. And in a larger forest, it doesn't always *add* to species diversity to selectively thin. A clearcut leaves behind habitat that is used by wrens (especially house), bluebirds, woodpeckers, raptors, and some warblers (especially MacGillivray's and Orange Crowned) that would otherwise not do well with deeply forested habitat. 

Any loss of habitat is a hard thing, but I've just come across too many interesting species along the way that are thriving in clearcuts, so I've found some beauty in them. 

On this run, on a late clear morning in mid-January? Nothing, really! I got a couple Pacific Wrens, a couple of Song Sparrows, and not much else! Traffic noise was a little problem, and at one point when I thought I heard a harsh call from a Hermit Thrush, I was unable to confirm it. 

Potter's Slough

The river is visible distantly on the far edge of this huge field. 
On my last trip, the parking spaces were dry islands in the middle of water.

Yowzer. Getting to see this at nearly low tide rather than at a +11 tide was interesting. The entire right half of the road had simply been the Willapa River on my first trip. This time, it was a wide-open field. A Rough-legged Hawk had been seen in this area recently, so I did my due-diligence, inspecting all of the fenceposts and other low perches across the field. While I didn't find one, I did find some ducks in the ponds forest-side of the highway. This is where I picked up my first new species for the trip, Ring-necked Ducks (90, a number I'll keep tallying parenthetically). 

All the other sloughs... and rivers...

Almost always some beautiful water outside my window as I took 101 south. It took me over rivers and sloughs. It took me past Long Island Passage - a splash of water that separates Long Island from the mainland. I have dreams of making the paddle across later in the year, hitting another little-explored area in this county. 

Cape Disappointment - North Jetty

This was one of the first places that I really didn't get to bird on my previous trip. I had gotten up to the lighthouse, but when I came down to North Jetty, it seemed too windy and wet to warrant a walk on the jetty itself. This time I was met with clear weather and calm skies. On the way in, I stopped for some Bushtits (91) at the entrance, working the many deciduous trees. I parked, and spotted some ducks on the Jetty pond, some Mallards, Buffleheads, and numerous Green-winged Teal. 

Then my first. . . give me a break, it was my first, trip up the jetty began. I climbed up the rocks, and there wasn't anyone to tell me that there was a path at the top. I just got part of the way up and peered out at the birds below. Cormorants flew by... but mostly Pelagic, with one Double-crested. I was short a Brandt's Cormorant for the year and couldn't seem to pick any out. Close looks at a loon did give me another species for the year - Pacific Loon! (92)

Clambering back down, I looked along the jetty and thought it would make sense to walk further down it, hoping to maybe catch some rocky shorebirds playing on the land side of the rocks. This is how I eventually found out that the jetty had a path on top! I walked up and started hiking towards the end. 

I'm curious now about exactly how far it is to the end of that jetty. I pushed on for a bit, but I definitely got to a point where it seemed unlikely that I was going to get any new birds - just wet. I stopped short of the end (the path was also getting rougher) and watched the waves crash into the jetty and into each other. 

On my return, I hopped down from the jetty and explored the beach, where a big pile of gulls was congregating. Most of the gulls were Short-billed Gulls (93), with a small number of Glaucous-winged and Western Gulls, and quite a few more that looked like hybrids of the two. Then I caught a bird with a sizable smudge on its face. Black-legged Kittiwake (94)! 

Beach, with many-a-gull, and North Head Lighthouse in the distance. 

It's just a code 2 bird, so by code it's not all that unexpected. By frequency of sightings on eBird, it's sitting at 168th, only 6 code 2 birds are seen less frequently. I wanted to get closer to get sharper images, and of course the bird stood (showing off the black legs) and flew to parts unknown.

Cape Disappointment Light in the other direction

Interesting! Glad I got the shot and asked the googles.

Northward

I was happy to still have some sunlight, so I looked over my list of possible stops. In the end, I chose to visit a spot in Long Beach where there were, at the very least, some hummingbird feeders, so that I could try for Anna's. The spot did not disappoint! There were a few Anna's Hummingbirds (95) in the neighborhood, some visiting feeders, and one going into a big J-dive. I also picked up another species that will become much easier in the months to come - White-crowned Sparrow (96). 

Interesting... I thought I caught a flash of white throat patch on one of them, so I spent some time getting pics and inspecting them more closely. Some of these included birds that just would not face towards me, making the throat details invisible. Now... the facial patterning is also a help, but what I didn't realize at the time (but realized after giving my photos and field guides a closer look) was that White-throated Sparrows have a gray, never yellow/orange, bill. 

My attention had just always been elsewhere, so it was kind of nice that most of the elsewheres were hidden in the photos. 

Continuing north on Sandridge Road, I came across some Mourning Doves (97). 

Heavily altered just to be able to see any details on these backlit/dimly lit doves

These make for an interesting comparison with the Kittiwakes I mentioned above. Mourning Doves are a code 3 bird but are seen more frequently than Black-legged Kittiwakes, a code 2 bird. They're very similar in frequency! So, it's not like... a glaring error in coding. But it is just a good example of why I use the codes as a start, then eBird to dig a little deeper. 

I continued to 227th. What an amazing little road! There were several points along this road where one could stop and view ponds. At one of the first ones, I thought I had a Gadwall. At a later stop, I *knew* I had a Gadwall (98). My third code 3 bird for the evening. (Anna's Hummingbird - 50th most commonly seen species in the county year-round; Gadwall - 145; Mourning Dove - 156).

Dinner

I stopped in at the Cove - a restaurant tied to a golf course. I stared at my options and was of course surprised that there were no oyster shooters available, although they did advertise that their clam chowder had won first prize at a recent Razor Clam Festival. I swear, every restaurant, and likely every laundromat, every vacation home rental agency. . . seemed to have the best chowder in town. 

I veered off course, however, from my try-every-chowder plans. There was a sandwich calling my name - a Reuben.

Was it a Reuben? It was pastrami snuck in there, rather than corned beef, so I know some purists would be vehemently opposed. But... there was sauerkraut, not slaw, so it wasn't quite a Rachel. Why should this matter? My fellow listers will understand as soon as I add the distinction - this would be a lifer. 

And just as we can't leave well enough alone and simply enjoy a warbler with beautiful combinations of different streaks and washes borrowed from Townsend's and Hermit Warbler parents, I can't "count" this as a lifer sandwich. Hybridization. But it really was a tasty sandwich. Interesting - I barely noticed any of the individual ingredients. It wasn't dripping with thousand island dressing, it wasn't a big gooey mess of Swiss. But all of it worked together. Good sammy. Would recommend. 

And there are recommendations out there about not trusting a skinny chef... the kitchen was open, and I could see everything getting tossed around by a mountain of a man at the flat top. It engendered trust. 

The conversation wasn't bad either. The night was just slow enough for conversations to happen between two of the staff. I got mixed into the conversation and got to hear a little of the local gossip, local concerns. It's part of why I do these trips - to see the things that are common across the state - to see the things that affect specific parts more than others. It's not a bad bit of amateur sociology. 

I wrapped up dinner and started back towards Ilwaco where I had a room waiting. One stop at Black Lake, trying for Barred Owls - nada limonada, as they say. I figured the drive back up the peninsula the next morning might give me some more good chances to try for Barred, Northern Pygmy- and Western Screech-Owls.

98? 98! Quite a few species picked up for the day, with promises of pleasant skies the next day.