 |
| Two Lesser Scaup, one of which is a Bufflehead, naturally. Hang with me - I swear I'll explain this theory. |
Of course, I went Owling
I'm a decade or so into this little project. I've seen over 150 species in a year in King County, my home, several times over the years. In 2012, I repeated the task in Thurston County. 2013, Island; 2014 Kittitas; and then I started blogging it all in 2015 in Mason County. In all of these efforts, I have loved going after owls as early as possible in the year. Most of them are present year-round, many of them are calling early in the year, and most of all. . . it's dark out for a lot of hours!
I'd gone to bed early the previous evening, so I woke up on a good 2/3 night sleep around 2 in the morning. 25 birds was a good start to the year, especially since it was just the trip in. I was pretty excited to see what birds would come my way, given the fabulous weather forecast.
I packed up some coffee, some yogurt and granola, and booped out the door. On my way to the Willapa Harbor Airport, I spied a road to the right that looked like it might be good for owls. I did my standard owling routine - stopping every 1/3 of a mile or so up Hammond Road, calling for little owls, listening for a bit, calling for bigger owls, moving along. At nearly the end of the road, my Northern Saw-whet Owl call got a "skiew!" response. (26 species for the year in Pacific County! I'll track this number parenthetically as I go.)
I slipped back down the hill and went to the airport. Here I got a Great Horned Owl (27) to respond almost immediately. Despite being fairly close to the freeway, there was almost no noise. Nearly no wind. Stars above.
What other owls to try for? I was leaning towards Western Screech and Barred. As I continued up the road towards Tokeland, I saw an easy pullout. As soon as I got out, I heard a female Great Horned Owl calling. After calling the bird back, I got a response from a male. My final stop looked like great habitat for my other two targets. Wet habitat with good cover on the edges... not bad-looking for Western Screech. Dense trees behind it all looked good for Barred.
I was convinced enough at this spot (it very well may have been the entrance to Cedar River), that I stayed for a good bit, allowing for some long waits after I called. I don't think a single car passed for the entire 20 minutes I was there.
Visibility is a word we use. It's a great way to describe seeing conditions. What's our equivalent word for hearing? Saying that there is visibility for 30 feet, or a half-mile, or more, paints such a vivid picture of conditions. I would just love to have this magical corresponding word for hearing. I'd like to believe, at any rate, that I'd have heard a Barred Owl from a mile away, had there been one. And it would have heard me.
The final stops for owls happened along Smith Anderson Road. I got one more Great Horned Owl before I decided it was time to head to Grayland Beach State Park.
Grayland Beach State Park
Clouds drifted in and out of the sky overhead. I may have even been drizzled on. But lord, it was a gorgeous morning. Overall, it remained fairly quiet, so it was easy to pick up on some birds as soon as I got out of the car. Red-winged Blackbirds (28) and American Crows (29) were some of the first sounds to hit my ears. I even heard a Killdeer (30), although I never got eyes on it. But right next to my car was a vast puddle on the sand, and it was chock full of shorebirds. I scanned them with my binoculars, then grabbed my scope. Walking out to get a better view, nearly one of the first birds I found was a Snowy Plover (31).
My camera was back in my car. . . and I knew how this would go. . . I looked at the Snowy Plover. It looked calmly back at me, and skittered around a little in the sand. I turned one of my feet towards my car. I paused. The plover paused. We paused. . . and I made a break for the car, and it flew away laughing. I'd love to have a picture to drop in here, but this felt very rewarding.
So, I studied. And I'm still going to get surprised by birds on this trip or confused by birds on this trip. It's a journey! But one of those birds that I stared at quite a bit was Snowy Plover. It's funny, but this felt like my first *real* Snowy Plover. Getting one on the beach, in the epicenter of their breeding range was very satisfying!
Returning with my camera (as well as my Sibley's), I started picking my way through the other peeps in front of me. Dunlin (32), Least (33), and Western Sandpipers (34) all worked the sand in front of me. Some of them came quite near, hardly minding the giant human pointing a camera at them.
 |
| Dunlin |
 |
| Western Sandpiper |
 |
| Least Sandpiper |
The water didn't look like it had anything of interest... so I turned the scope out there and scanned for a bit. Western Grebe (35), Common Loon (36), Red-throated Loon (37), and Surf Scoter (38) were all distant, but identifiable birds. Turning my attention along the shore itself, I found one more new bird - a Horned Lark! (39). This was not totally unexpected, but was still a nice surprise. Content, I thought I'd try the camping areas.
I checked in at the gate. A ranger was up and working the booth. She confirmed that it would be fine to park at the restrooms, and to walk the grounds, as long as I didn't intrude on any campsites. Fair enough! Out of curiosity, I asked about the January campers. I was told that they were here for the "Clam Tide".
In my last post, I had explained ... lol, probably too much about tides. But yaknow what? Let's do it again. Ya got yer high tides when the water moves up towards the land, and the low tides when it moves back out to sea. Two of each of those every day. You also get two spring tides and two neap tides every *month*. Spring tides give you higher high tides and lower low tides, because the sun and moon are lined up and making things more tide-y. Neap tides give you far less excitement, with not much of a high tide, and not much of a low tide, because the sun and moon are very much *not* working together.
King tides - these are spring tides that are even more extreme, either because the Earth and Sun are close to each other (as they are around Jan 2-4 every year), or because the Earth and Moon are close to each other (once every 28 days or so, and not the case on this trip). And extreme tides are good for clamming! Lower low tides just mean that there is more exposed beach, and people DO plan around these things.
Let me apologize for that really long ramble with the best bird - a Varied Thrush:
 |
| Varied Thrush!!! (40) |
If nothing else, the tide ramble saved you from a ramble on Varied Thrushes - my favorite bird. One such ramble can be found here, for those that are curious about this little jack-o-lantern thrush. If you just want to see one, and you're in Washington State? You probably don't have to go too far. There were about a dozen of them in the trees at the park. Also added to the list: American Robin (41) and a Hairy Woodpecker (42).
Zombie by the cranberries
My next stop was the area east of... good lord, what highway. A few days removed, and I can't even remember which highway this was. 105! I clearly spent all of my time following signs to towns, rather than freeways. If you're in Raymond, and you want to get to Aberdeen without the nuisance of being close to the ocean - you take 101. If you LIKE the beach, you take 105, which loopity-loops around through Tokeland, Grayland, and Westport, among other hamlets.
 |
| I was at the marker :) |
 |
| Rainbow over the bogs |
Interesting. Even before you get berries on them, cranberry plants are red stemmed, which made this a beautiful drive. Most of the fields were filled with cranberries, but you did get these ponds mixed in. An awful lot of them would have a Bufflehead or two. These are pretty common ducks in most parts of Western Washington. And they're not all that picky. Put out the kiddie pool - Bufflehead habitat!
My search was justified! I ended up finding a pond with a Lesser Scaup, my 43rd species for the day.
And did I see things as they were already? I'm not sure. I can't expect you to see what's going on in Pacific County... not yet... but here we go. I'm going to give you my hypothesis about the ducks down here in Pacific County. Buffleheads down here are actually infected with some kind of zombie virus. They touch other ducks, and it turns them into Buffleheads.
Why would I come up with a silly claim like this. Because I know what I saw!!!
Let's step back and think about... any other Western Washington County. They've got ducks. Lots of them! There's ... I dunno, maybe 15 species that you can find in the hundreds. Including Buffleheads. Last year, by comparison, I went to Columbia County. They just have less water, less habitat, and fewer ducks. However many ducks you have of this species or that species, just divide it by 100.
Here in Pacific County, it felt like most ducks were similar in abundance to what you'd find in Columbia Couty. Maybe a little higher, let's be fair, but like... closer to Columbia County than King! The only exception? Buffleheads! No harder to find Buffleheads than anywhere else. It's only harder to find every other species.
One thought could be that it's just not great habitat down here for Common Mergansers, Northern Pintails, Green-winged Teals, etc etc etc. This explanation a dozen times. OR, it's fine habitat for all of these ducks. . . and the Buffleheads are just zombifying them into Buffleheads. Believe what you will, but please try to view the rest of this trip through that lens. We may be able to stop them, but you just. have. to believe me.
And if it's not what's going on? How do you explain the song Zombie by the Cranberries with your just-not-good-habitat for Gadwall theories?
Continuing down 105
Midway Beach confused me. I may need to inquire with other birders, but the signs proclaiming "No Beach Access" seemed to tell me that I couldn't access the beach. There may be a more nuanced read of this sign that I wasn't picking up, but for now I just didn't want to run afoul of any local ordinances.
Warrenton Cannery Road was a bit more welcoming. I drove down to the beach, past a small puddle with four Buffleheads, and immediately got looks at some new shorebirds.
 |
| Semipalmated Plovers (44) |
 |
| Sanderling (45) |
There were healthy numbers of both species running up and down the beach, playing in the surf. A puddle farther up from the surf contained more Least Sandpipers and Dunlin. They were joined quite abruptly by a flock of 20-30 House Finches (46).
 |
| House Finches |
These and the Crossbills from day 1 were the only finches I found on the entire trip! On a far less conspiratorial note, some years are just like that. Cone crops in different regions are variable from year to year, so you actually get a "Finch Forecast" every year, predicting what finches may show up in different parts of the United States. Well...by "different parts", I guess that just means different parts of the Eastern United States? I didn't do an exhaustive search, but all of the finch forecasting I viewed was very heavily skewed towards Eastern US predictions. What a weird choice to exclude half of the US! :D
 |
| Surf rolling in off of Old Highway 105 |
Old Highway was a wonderful stop that gave me no birds of note. The waves were really crashing in on the rocks as we got closer to high tide. There was also a surprise in the form of a telephone:
It's a wind phone! Kaze no denwa is the original Japanese name. Their purpose? To give you a chance to pick up the phone and have a talk with loved ones you've lost. The idea is that your words are picked up by the wind and will go where they need to go. I'm sure that the wind would not discriminate between people you've lost due to time, death, or distance. If you need one of these phones, I can report that there is one on Old Highway 105 in a very beautiful spot. Come say what you need to say. I did.
Tokeland
I'm going to freely admit. I went into Tokeland thinking that I knew how to bird Tokeland, where to go, etc. etc., and I do not believe that I *actually* knew how to bird in Tokeland. Despite this fact, I found some birds! From behind the Tradewinds Hotel (I got permission from the desk), I took a look at Graveyard Spit. There were some Mallards (47), my first Northern Pintails of the day (48), and some Buffleheads.
There were shorebirds aplenty in the water and on the far shore. More Dunlin, and smaller peeps. There were also numerous Black-bellied Plovers (49). The weather continued to cooperate, so I kept a window down as I drove, picking up a Downy Woodpecker (50), Golden-crowned Kinglet (51) and Black-capped Chickadee (52) on the way out to the main road.
Another pullout and a scan of the water gave me a Red-necked Grebe (53). It was funny how long it took my brain to give me the name of this bird. It's been two years since I've seen one! The final addition on the way to the marina was a loudly calling Bewick's Wren (54).
 |
| Getting this picture felt like skeet shooting - even told the guy "Pull!" |
The Tokeland Marina was packed. People were out trying for crabs along the dock, under the watchful gaze of some gulls, including a Glaucous-winged (55), a Ring-billed (56), and at least a couple Western Gulls (57) that seemed free of hybridization. Brewer's Blackbirds (58) poked around on the dock as well.
 |
| Western Gulls have these dark mantles and dark primaries pink legs, and a clean white head hybridization can show up with lighter features, or a smudgy head |
Honestly pretty fun to watch them flinging the crab pots out, pulling them in, checking the crabs over, and most commonly releasing them (wrong species, too small, or female). So, I got some good views of live crabs skittering around on the dock and getting guided back into the water.
The water was chock full of loons. I gave each of them the once over and was only able to come up with Common and Red-throated Loons. No Pacific yet!
 |
| Common Loon |
I even picked up some new ducks! Naturally, there were some Buffleheads in and around the marina, but there were a few other survivors, including Red-breasted Merganser (59), and Greater Scaup (60).
 |
| Red-breasted Merganser |
Three shorebirds popped up from... I have no idea where. They whirled around and I started snapping pictures. In the end, I never figured out where they had come from or where they went to, but they were species that I expected at the marina. Talk about a nice bit of blind luck!
 |
| Two Willets (61) and a Marbled Godwit (62) |
I'm fully expecting to see more of the Godwits, especially, as the year goes along. Hundreds can be found here at the right times and places, with a few rare species of godwits sometimes mixed in (Hudsonian and Bar-tailed).
 |
| Willets again - seen later en route from somewhere to somewhere |
I was headed back to Nelson Crab. Although I had packed a lunch, I figured I could make that my dinner and take advantage of some wifi. I couldn't get any in the morning from the motel, and it seemed like a good idea to check emails, perhaps to look for any new sightings to follow. But hey. . . what's this grebe?
I am going to run into some identification challenges this year, and I've really tried to do my homework. This particular challenge is fortunately one I've run into a few times over the last year or two! This is an Eared Grebe (63), a code 4 bird on my county checklist. So, there's patterns of occurrence, but they're not necessarily birds you can expect to be reported every year. In winter, they can be easy to mix up with Horned Grebes, a much more common bird, and they're not always sitting quite so close by!
 |
| Not the last rainbow of the day! |
I grabbed these two shots out of many that I took in order to get the most diagnostic pieces - both bill-related. The top shot shows that there is no white tip to the bill (as is found in Horned Grebes), and the bottom one shows the slight upturned look to the bill, which comes from a little taper on the bottom half of the bill. Most of the other features track: smudgy neck, dark cheek patch, and a compact build. The head is more peaked than flat, although in Eared it often appears farther forward - peaking over the eye. Those latter marks, and even the more compact build have a lot to do with posture.
 |
| Inside Nelson Crab Company - yes, I was able to secure my Pacific County mug here! |
I didn't find any new, surprising sightings on eBird, but I did get some good reminders of what birds I should be targeting as I continued through the day. There had already been a nice handful of Code 3 and higher birds during the day, but there were more lying ahead of me! The chowder was probably the best of the trip, and the oyster shooters were... tiny, inexpensively obtained (not even a buck and a half each), and delicious.
On the way out of Tokeland, I grabbed two more species - Double-crested Cormorant (64), and House Sparrow (65). Not super-tough birds, but I never stopped being thankful for the weather, and how easy it made to find new things during the day.
Cedar River
Being from Renton, the name here will probably throw me off all year. The Cedar River in King County is a great spot to look at gulls, ducks, and shorebirds in season. At *this* Cedar River, it appeared that all seasons may just be shorebird season!
 |
| Clouds of Dunlin |
One of the first things that I saw upon arrival was a pile of swans. I had seen Trumpeter reported here, and was able to hike close enough to get good confirming views (66). I tried to pull a Tundra Swan out of the group, but I coudn't find any good candidates.
 |
Shorebirds aplenty. The best views were of Greater Yellowlegs (68), and Long-billed Dowitchers (69). Could there have been a Short-billed Dowitcher mixed in here? Yep! They've been reported very rarely in winter. Could there have been two of them?? Extremely unlikely. And most of these dowitchers had the hunch-backed feel that I'd use during migration to start sorting out groups.
 |
| So... many... shorebirds... Long-billed Dowitchers, Greater Yellowlegs, and Dunlin |
Also added here - a Great Blue Heron (70), a Pied-billed Grebe (71), and a single American Wigeon (72). Buffleheads? Four more of them.
 |
| This path was dry when I first crossed it!! Hello, tides. |
Potter Slough
 |
| Potter Slough - Northern Harrier making a departure |
I passed through Raymond and found a spot to park for Potter Slough. The tide was approaching a high of 11.85, so nothing north of the road was going to be walkable! I scanned the Willapa River, getting excited briefly at some ducks seen diving. They came up, and turned out to be Buffleheads, surprise. What a productive walk! I immediately spotted a Northern Harrier (73), and heard a weakly calling raptor. I was pretty excited and hopeful that it might be a Red-shouldered Hawk. My brain certainly was prepared for them, and may have wanted to turn this Red-tailed Hawk (which it turned out to be), into a Red-shouldered!
But the sun was in my eyes, and I'd need to walk the trail towards the south ridge to be able to get binoculars on the bird. As I tromped, I added other birds! Marsh Wrens (74) were "check"ing everywhere. Some Western Meadowlarks (75) erupted from one part of the field, a couple of them pausing on a tree for a quick photo-op.
 |
| "A couple" of Western Meadowlarks... lol Count them yourself and see how many you can find in here. It's more than two. |
I did find the Red-tail, and it flew once I got in good view. At this point, I thought it a good time to try my Virginia Rail call. Success! It pulled up at least four of them calling from the surrounding marsh. (76). I had not been pishing all that much, so I did try some. It largely pulled up a lot of Golden-crowned and Song Sparrows, although on one occasion, I found a different bird. It was half-hidden by thin tree branch. I peeked around saw buffy sides, sharp streaking on the breast, and finally the familiar face of a Lincoln's Sparrow (77). I'd love to come back here and do a more thorough look for Swamp Sparrows and Palm Warblers!
Carruthers Slough
Bay Center
Interesting drive... It was getting just late enough here that I had to be mindful of time. I kept thinking the sun would finally dip too low, and make for an end of my birding day. During the first stretch, there were huge fields to my left, but nearly nowhere to pull over and look through the mixed flocks of geese. Some of the few stops I made in the first stretch gave me views of Willapa Bay, with Common Loons and Buffleheads. At a greater distance, I spotted three Horned Grebes (79). Near the end of the drive, I came across a nice little pond with a few Buffleheads attending a Common Goldeneye (80).
It never felt like I had a wonderful, obvious place to pull over and do some searching. So, it wasn't too long before I ended up back out on Highway 101. Here, there was a parking area for the Palix River Boat Ramp. This ended up being a nice stop! A Hooded Merganser (81) - my only one of the day - realized it had been spotted, and quickly took flight. I had a Great Egret (82) here as well. The most exciting bird for this stop was a Merlin (83)! It zipped past me as I stood scanning with my binoculars. It continued to the far shore of the Palix, where it stirred up hundreds of shorebirds. It had to have gotten a good meal out of the deal! Briefly thought that I had some more interesting birds out at a distance... but they were not. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me 73 times, you're a Bufflehead.
From here, I returned to the Golden Lion. I called the manager and asked if he could text me the wifi server and password. He read them to me again instead. I got off of the phone, tried them again, and got no connection. I called back, let him know, and drifted off to sleep, pretty exhausted after a long day. A little after 8, I got a knock at the door, with the manager checking in to see if I had gotten a connection yet. It was pretty exhausting, just trying to manage this. I did get back to sleep, and it was a comfortable room otherwise, but what a bummer it was to count on Wi-Fi on a trip like this, and to end up without.
83 species!! And I found 77 of them on this glorious day. This felt like a pretty good start for my Pacific County year. It had been beautiful all day. I got some nice surprises along the way, and. . . I'd hardly gotten through half of the county! I feel like this is the reality of a trip based in Raymond. There's plenty to visit in the northern end of the county. I had plans to do some morning birding the next day, before heading home. But clearly, I wasn't going to get up to Leadbetter!
Even now, with that third day in the books, I'm sitting at home scratching my head, and trying to design a visit that will get me into the Long Beach Peninsula for a good day of birding!
No comments:
Post a Comment