Pacific County Kickoff! - January 4th

Happy 2026, y'all!

Highway 6 views

My Pacific County birding year has officially begun. 

I was hosting karaoke a couple of nights prior to this departure. Trying to pay attention to sound levels, add someone to the list, and. . . King Tides?? Two different TVs with two different channels on were both showing the weather. And a lot of the focus was on the Pacific Coast, with winds coming in, weather systems pushing in, and King Tides.

Science time! I'm more of an astronomy guy than an earth science guy, but this all tracked. You usually get bigger tide differences near full and new moons - higher highs, lower lows - because of Earth, the sun, and the moon all lining up (syzygy is the associated Scrabble word, should you find yourself with a blank tile for that third y). Those are called spring tides. Full moon was on Jan 3rd. Add to that, we are closest to the sun every year around Jan 4th (aphelion won't score you as many points, but it's still fun to know). Spring tide plus aphelion gives you a king tide. Highs are higher, lows are lower. Very tide-y.

I looked at my list of birds. Would chickadees care? Would murrelets? Would a Short-eared Owl give a hoot about a king tide?? I started to think on this, but the list of birds was way too long to justify too much thought. I focused on Good Weather. Do birds like good weather? Yes. Yes, they do. Do I like good weather too? Kind of yeah. It's easier to look at birds through dry binoculars, and it's easier to look at birds through a spotting scope that is not getting tossed around by the wind. So, I made the decision:  Sunday would be a go!

Getting Ready

I'd gotten home after 2AM the night before this trip, so I wasn't exactly packed and ready to go. But by 11:45 the next morning (well, *that* morning, I suppose), I'd gotten (I believe) everything together, and gotten out the door. My oil has been changed recently. My tires are behaving. Gosh, I think I even left with all of the various things that I forgot to pack on different trips last year. Maps, battery chargers, my laptop. . . all of them made it into my car. I even came with some food tucked into tupperware to ensure I'd be squared away for some breakfasts and lunches along the way. 

The front seat rundown

1. Camera - with charged batteries this time!

2. This camping pillow makes roadside naps so much better. 

3. Birder's Guide to Washington! Great for specific directions - a little in need of updates, but mostly just amazing. 

4. My gazetteer of Washington State - must must must.

5. Binocs (and 6, the tape holding them together lol)

7. So many miscellaneous lists and charts!

8. Water. Hydrate or die-drate.

9. Coffee. Caffeinate or angry.

10. More coffee.

11. So many colored pens. More on that later.

I was pretty happy with my pre-year lists this time around. It was a good process. Worth sharing. 

Of course, it all starts with a blank county list. All birds that have been seen in Pacific County, with codes for each: Code 1 birds - hard not to find 'em. Code 2 birds - not hard to find 'em. (yes, those are different things!) Code 3 - hard to find them, but they WILL be there. Code 4 - Hard to find them, and they just might not be there. Code 5 - Ha. They've been here, but good luck, buddy.

These checklists are updated annually, but there are a lot of lists and a lot of birds, so they're not perfect! 

My next step was to hop into eBird. This is the site I use to track my observations. These get saved and shared, giving us a huge database of bird sightings. Useful for people out looking for birds, and even useful to scientists. I went into the "Explore" tab, and clicked on "Target Species", which allows you to see what birds you might find in an area that you need for this list or that list. Given that I hadn't birded in Pacific County at all in 2026 (or 2025, when I started planning), I could just pull up the full list of birds. The added bonus? It shows how frequently these birds have shown up on lists. You get a frequency number that gives a feel for how likely it is that you'll find a bird with some effort. 

I printed out that year list, and then the same list for January: 

This list was used to decorate a printed copy of the checklist above. Birds seen in more than 10 percent of the checklists? Highlighted in pink. 5 percent or more? Yellow. 1 percent or more? Green. This gave me a picture of what I could expect in January. 

By changing the months, I could see how these numbers change over time. Some birds might be easier to find in January than other months of the year. Those are the birds that I wanted to highlight. Or they might just be difficult to find in *all* months but are always present. If a bird was code 3-5 and it had a real peak during winter months, it got a red box around it as a Target Species for my trip. Code 1 and 2 birds? Most of those got ignored, BUT I made a few exceptions. Some of the code 2 birds on the checklist show up pretty far down on the frequency list on eBird. Those got little black dots next to them. 

Finally, I put little eyeball markings next to a lot of the rare birds that like. . . *could* show up? Just a reminder to keep my eyes open, but they were not the birds to guide my plans. End product (including cross-outs for birds that I found!):

How's that for a mess? :)

And as messy as it seems, gosh this helped me on the trip. On the extreme ends, it means that I wasn't making plans around American Crows (which are extremely difficult to avoid) or Golden Eagles (hardly ever seen). This makes a 200-bird list far more manageable! And it kept my focus on some of the hard-to-find birds at a time when they were a little easier to find. Between the red boxes and the little black dots in the margins? About 50-60 birds. 

Getting there

Where is that Pacific County sign? Somewhere around Pluvius! (snip from revisitwa.org)

The first, most exciting piece of information? I can get to Pacific County in under 2 hours. It's about an hour to the south end of Thurston County... another 20-30 minutes to the turnoff for Highway 6... and 15 minutes or so beyond that to get into Pacific County. After a year of birding Walla Walla and Columbia Counties, which are, for all intents and purposes, twice as far away, this was a nice break! 

I hopped out of the car, excited to see (or hear) what the first bird would be.... Steller's Jay (1)! I'll keep a note of the year list totals in parentheses throughout the blog. 

And what a fun bird to start with! During the previous evening, as I was watching the Seahawks at the bar before setting up for karaoke, I was in a conversation with Bill, one of the regulars. "We get a lot of those blue jays in the back yard. A lot of people hate them, but I kinda like them!" 

I did a great job here - didn't even push the glasses up from the end of my nose to announce, "Aaaaaactually, they're not Blue Jays in Washington, they're Steller's Jays." I... it doesn't matter. I mean, it does. I can't wait to see my first Blue Jay in Washington State! They do wander West now and then, but I have not yet caught one. I just nodded and added that my kids are on opposite sides of this line. My son's favorite bird? Steller's Jay. I don't think it's even close. He loves how ebullient and wacky they are, loves their black and blue coloring. 

My daughter? She hates 'em. She is at the University of Washington, living in the dorms, and she gets Steller's Jays on her balcony. They're loud, and not in a sweet way. More of a SHAAACK SHAAACK SHAAACK!!! kind of way. So, outside of the name, Bill knew all of the important things there are to know about Steller's Jays, really. 

While the magic of this magical turnoff from Highway 6 was undeniable. . . the lack of any other birds was also undeniable. I sat, listened, and eventually gave up on this particular spot. Several other pullouts grabbed my eye, one of which was up against a little pond. The Willapa Hills Trail could be accessed from many of these spots - a 56-mile trail running from Chehalis to South Bend. At these other spots, I started to add birds. Common Ravens (2), Pacific Wrens (3), and Song Sparrows (4) were some of the first to join the list. Then I found a nice little sparrow patch, adding Spotted Towhee (5) and Fox Sparrow (6).

Fox Sparrow, showing off the chevrons

Buffleheads! (7)

One of many rainbows during the trip

Other birds along the way: Bald Eagle (8), Red-tailed Hawk (9), Chestnut-backed Chickadee (10), Northern Flicker (11) and a loud bunch of Red Crossbills passing overhead (12).

Elk Prairie Road

I love this lil' road! It took a second to realize it, but I'd been here an age ago, back in 2011, when I did my first blog, trying to see 39 species of birds in 39 counties during the year to celebrate turning 39. There's a dipper spot here. I'd checked eBird, and... remember that ebird report you can run, giving the frequency of observations? American Dipper has been reported on 0.2% or so of all lists. There's 220 or so birds that have been seen more frequently, including all but 10 or so of the code 3 birds. So, this was definitely a target bird!

Would not be shocked if my feet were standing less than a couple of feet from 
here 15 years ago!

I looked... I listened... I moved along. 

There was some nice farmland to survey as I continued along the road. This brought me two raptors in the drizzle. 

Cooper's Hawk (13)

American Kestrel (14)

The kestrel was not the last of the day. It wasn't even the last for this bit of road. They're listed as Code 3 birds, but they are seen more frequently than ten or so Code 1 birds! As I described, there are a lot of ways to look at these numbers to help guide expectations and planning. It was still nice to get this species located - and they're really pretty birds!

A much more distant tree-topper Kestrel in the rain

I returned along the same path and made another stop to check for American Dipper. Yahtzee.

American Dipper - bird 15 for the year. 

These guys are fun to watch. They get their name from their constant habit of doing squats. Dipping up and down. They're not much to look at when it comes to color, but that's how they like it - need to make sure the caddisfly larvae don't see them hunting from the rocks!

Onward to Raymond

I pressed on, stopping now and then, when things seemed birdy. One house in particular was pretty productive. The Golden-crowned Sparrows (16), Dark-eyed Juncos (17), and Eurasian Collared-Doves (18) around their property hinted that there might be a feeder in the back yard. I found my first European Starlings (19) here as well.

Eurasian Collared Doves

A Ruby-crowned Kinglet here (20), a single Canada Goose (21) in a field, and I finally entered Raymond. Case Pond was an easy stop, and I got my first Belted Kingfisher here (22) along with another Bufflehead on the pond. 

Rock Pigeons (23) - not a difficult bird in the county, 
but not as ubiquitous here as in other counties

I found the motel, got to the lobby, and waited. The radio played operatic pieces, and I just kind of dozed off to it in a chair next to the "Be right back!" sign. I texted the number at the desk and decided to make a quick run up to the airport for some birds before I lost light for the day. 

Snow Geese! (24)

These are so easy to pick out, even in poor light, in the middle of countless Canada and Cackling Geese (25). I wasn't shocked to find them - I knew that Snow Geese had been seen now and then in local flocks - but every tougher bird just means more time to look for others! I called the hotel, and this got an immediate response (looks like this is greatly preferred over texts). I headed right back and got checked in at the Golden Lion. 

Comfortable place to stay for the night, outside of the wifi problems

I tried to connect to the wifi, but gave up on it and just walked across the street to the Pitchwood Inn and Tavern. Pretty hungry at this point, I knocked back a pizza, a pint of beer, and an oyster shooter (not my last of the trip!). Somehow, in life I have never had an oyster shooter. Plenty of oysters, and I love slurping them down. But this was my first time doing it with a cocktail sauce-and-lemon escort. Good lord, just typing about it, and I can taste it again. It's oyster heaven down here, so I'm excited for the year. 

Maybe hard to see, but the checklist on the left shows how colored pens saved my bacon.
I would use a different color each time I made a stop, and could just enter the number of birds
of each species seen at that stop. 
This is officially my new no-smart-phone solution for keeping accurate records!

I got some eBird entry done, checked emails, settled up, and went back across the street. I got to bed fairly early. The dreams were the same dreams I always have at the start of these years - dreams of owls!