On this episode I talk with David and Dee Simpson about their Florida birding, Dee’s daily blog where she posts a photo and a poem about the photo, and more.
I got my start as a birder in Florida, and tell about this briefly on the episode, and was headed to visit my brother in Florida when this episode was recorded. That prompted me to look for a Florida birder for the podcast. I have previously had David and Tammy McQuade on the podcast, who are Florida birders, but who are better known for their lower-48 big years every year recently. David is a lifelong Floridian, who has birded every county in the state, and is a wealth of information about everything about Florida birding. This comes out clearly in the episode where you’ll hear in detail about some of his birding escapades and his interest in everything about Florida natural history.
Here is a screenshot of David’s Florida eBird profile map. As you can see the map is all red and orange, indicating a really lot of species seen in every county.
Dee is the technical expertise behind their website, and has a knack for bringing the technical aspects of birding and nature to a level where everyong can understand and enjoy the knowledge. She was really fun to talk with also. A example of Dee’s daily posts on her blog.
Whooper Swan
I had resigned myself today to not birding as we are packing and preparing to fly off tomorrow. I declined an invite from Bruce to chase the Tennessee Warbler and other FOY birds in SW WA. Then this morning I learned of the Whooper Swan only 90 miniutes north at teh Monroe Prison Farm Pond in Snohomish County.
Wooper Swan is not just a lifer WA bird, it’s a lifer world bird. This species is found in the northern parts of Europe and Asia, and rarely in the lower-48.
I had a lunch committment, so after lunch I skipped off to chase the bird. After some minor panic as I looked over maybe 250 Trumpeter Swans and 1 Tundra Swan on the main road, I was told of the proper place by Brian Bell and another birder, and dashed over to get killer views from near the farm pond.
The big yellow base of the bill, the large size, more or less the same as the TRSWs. It was an impressive bird, and a pretty easy lifer right here in WA! Check out the yellow underside of the bill!
On The Bird Banter Podcast #122 Tiffany Kersten and I talk about her record breaking Lower 48 United States birding big year, as well as her efforts to raise awareness for the safety of women in nature. During her big year she gave away over 250 personal safety devices.
Tiffany works as a personal guide in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and you can contact her either on her website Birdie Big Year: Elevating Women Birders or on her Facebook page @natureninjatours.
The record breaking species for Tiffany was fittingly found at her home turf place, the Santa Ana refuge in the Rio Grande Valley where she has worked and continues as a conservation advocate.
Hear other episodes about birders and their big years on any of these episodes:
Thanks for listening and until next time, good birding and good day!
Jason Miller and Ken Brown are hoping to do Mason County Big Days in each month of 2022. John Riegsecker and I joined them on the Jan day, and we all had a great day. Starting at Jason’s family Skokomish Valley Farms at 7:30 and making many stops in their side of the county, we managed 85 species, with 81 seen or heard by all. Highlights were the Glaucous Gull that remained at Eell’s Trout Hatchery, two separate Ruffed Grouse, a county lifer for John, and good fellowship and pretty good weather for the whole day. Here is the eBird Trip report link.
I know I’ll miss the Feb day as I’ll be travelling, but hope to join up for many of the remaining Big Days in 2022.
On this episode Will, Jason and I talk about their 2021 big years. Jason did a 2021 Lower-48 States big year and Will did a 2021 Washington State Big Year. Will broke the record for Washington getting 376 species, and Jason saw the 9th highest lower 48 states total ever while visiting most states, 21 National Parks, many other areas of natural beauty, and trying to keep it fun and not too stressful. It sounds to me like both accomplished their goals exceptionally, and it was really fun to have good friends on the show to talk birding.
Below are links to related and I think interesting information.
Jason’s Instagram feed, @jason2012bigyear. Check out not just the great photos but the dialogue too.
Ken Brown, Bruce LaBar, Bryan Hanson, Jacob Miller, Liam Hutchinson met at 6 AM on Saturday Jan 14 in Tacoma and headed east. We were headed for some county birding in SE WA, with a focus on Garfield, Columbia, Whitman and Asotin counties. In most years we do a winter trip to North Central WA, but in 2019 Ken, Bryan, myself and Ryan Weise came to SE WA instead and had a great trip, so we convinced Bruce to come this way this year, and Liam and Jacob, both young and very keen birders, were excited to join us. We split very comfortabluy into 2 cars, 3-to-a-car. Jacob and Liam rode with Ken, and Bruce and Bryan came in my car. We headed straigt to the Rye Grass reststop on I-90, then on east, leaving I-90 after crossing the Columbia at Vantage and heading onto Hwy-26. Liam and Jacob took on the eBirding, and we had a few lists on the way. Notable enroute birds were a flock of 60 Cackling Geese seen by all but me (driving and didn’t see) in Franklin County off Hwy 260, and several raptors from the car including Golden Eagles, Rough-legged and Red-tailed Hawks, Northern Harrier.
Our first real out-of-the-car birding was a brief stop at Washtucna, WA at the city park, for a 15 minute brief look around and leg-stretch. Lesseer Goldfinches and a 15-species list got us going. From there more driving before our first real stop at the Central Ferry HMU in Whitman County, just before crossing the Snake River. We had planned to go on Hwy 261 to Lyon’s Ferry and cross there into Garfield County, but a sink-hole had the road closed, and so we detoured north to Central Ferry, and Ken quickly adapted our schedule so we could do some of Day 2 birding on Day 1, and switch most of Day 1 to Day 2. More driving day 1, but a good on-the-ground adaptation.At Central Ferry HMU I added 8 new Whitman County birds, and everyone was happy to be out of the cars birding after a long drive. Most of the county birds were typical winter waterbirds like some ducks, Horned Grebe, but also White-crowned Sparrow and Downy Woodpecker.
From there we crossed into Garfield County, with additional stops for the day across the bridge at Central Ferry (Garfield County), Deadman Creek Road, Ilia Landing, beofre getting our hotel in Dayton at a barely passable place, Blue Mountain Motel, having dinner and then going owling at the Lewis & Clark Trail State Park. We had been there on our prior trip, and this time again got two calling Western Screech Owls, followed by two hooting Great Horned Owls to finish a strong Day 1. For me the day gave 5 new Garfield County birds, 11 new Whitman County birds, as well as 2 new Adams County birds, Golden Eagle while driving and Spotted Towhee at Washtucna.
On Day 2 we started with driving around Dayton and then walking some neighborhoods, adding 3 Columbia County first for me, Townsend’s Solitare, Mountain Chickadee and Bewick’s Wren. From here we drove some back roads adding 4 more species, Northern Shrike and Steller’s Jay on Petit Road and American Dipper and White-breasted Nuthatch at the Wooten WMA. After that we found some of the “best” birds of the day at the Little Goose Dam area. Two species rare for Columbia County were the 3rd county records of Red-breasted Merganser and Red-necked Greve, and we also added county firsts for 3 more common birds, Common Loon, Horned Grebe and Common Goldeneye. A quick stop in waning light at Texas Rapids added a pair of GHOWs as well as county first for me Gadwall. We closed the day with a spectacular flock of European Starlings and Red-winged Blackbirds, estimated at over 10,000 total birds, and at least a couple Brown-headed Cowbirds mixed in the massive flock, for the last county first of a good day.
For the last 2 nights we drove to Clarkston to stay at the Rivertree Inn, a nice and affordable hotel right on Hwy 12, Bridge Street. We had dinner at Rooster’s Landing, a nice place on the Snake River, with TVs showing the NFL football playoff games and with a good Humus Plate and fries for me (vegan) and good options for all. We had listened off and on to the Seahawks loss the day prior to the 49ers.
Day 3 was a day for Asotin County, and we had high hopes for birds both on the river and the higher plateaus. The difference between our prior trip and this time was the for this trip toere was no snow cover. On the prior trip all of the fields were snow covered, and we had nice flocks of HOLA with many GRPA, RNPH in the fields and around any cattle areas. On this trip we had almost none of these species. We saw a rare single Horned Lark, had no Gray Partridge, and only one flock of Chukar seen by the second car only huddled under a guard rail as a RTHA watched form a nearby perch. We did see good numbers of Golden Eagles, Routh-legged Hawks, RTHA including a nice dark Harlan’s, Northern Shrikes, and on the river a smattering of water birds. Really though overall not as birdy as hoped. We finished the day at the Asotin City Cemetery hoping for a Long-eared Owl seen there yesterday, but not to be. We settled for a pair of Great Horned Owls, hooting and one flew in to a tree nearby.
We had dinner again at the Rooster’s Landing and watched Dallas cruch Tampa Bay and Tom Brady. It was a wierd game, with the Dallas kicker, Brett Maher missing 4 consecutive PAT kicks. as the Cowboys won 31-14.
Smiles all around after finally finding the Snowy Owl on H Road. Lifer for Jacob.
Last weekend Ken Brown, Bruce LaBar and I headed east for our annual winter trip to the Waterville Plateau and Okanogan areas in search for the wiinter specialty birds of the area. This year Jacob Miller joined us. Over the years this has been a trip Ken took his birding class on every winter, and then after he retired from teaching the TAS class our ABC Birding group took. For the last 2 years it has been a smaller group due to Covid concerns. Last year it was just the three of us plus Will Brooks. This year Jacob joined us. Jacob is a keen 16 year-old birder from Mason County who has been getting out with Ken from time to time, and this trip held the possibility of 5 ABA lifers for him.
We met at my house in Tacoma at 6 AM, and headed over the mountain. The passes were back open after the big snowfalls recently, and we cleared Snoqualmie and Bluett Passes uneventfully before our first stop at the Wenachee Confluence Park for a toilet stop and a quick look at the Columbia River. There was a lot of snow and we made it a very brief stop before heading north along the river and up onto the Waterville Plateau through McNeil Canyon. Jacob took on the eBirding task, and by then had already completed 8 checklists mostly travelling. I think Black-billed Magpie was the first of many FOY species for all of us.
Once on the plateau we encountered patchy fog that seemed to come and go as we travelled. Our first stop was on D road where Ring-necked Pheaasnt and American Tree Sparrow were our top birds. American Tree Sparrow
As we travelled the plateau Horned Larks were common but not present in the vast numbers we see some years. The Lamoine windbreak had heavy snow so we passed on trying to walk in for one of Jacob’s possible lifers, Long-eared Owl. More on that later. We finally found our first Rough-legged Hawk on F road along with 6 Snow Buntings in a flock of Horned Larks. We had a Golden Eagle there too, one of I think 10 we saw on the trip, a significant percentage of the total WA population. Rough-legged Hawk
We added well hidden Gray Partridge at Withrow, but the real excitement of the day was when I carelessly made a U-turn in the fog on H road as we gave up on finding a Snowy Owl there in the fog and drove onto a soft shoulder and then into a snowy field getting hopelessly stuck. 4
AAA was pretty worthless, and by the time I had waited 45 minutes on hold, Ken had called the grocery store in town, the clerk had walked next door to the cafe, and Ron, a man of few words drove out to tow us out of the field with his “big white pickup” F-250. He had to first go to his farm to get a chain, and declined payment with his longest sentence of the meeting, something to the effect. No, this is God’s Country and our here we help people.” Thank God for Ron.
This cut our afternoon an hour or so shorter, so we headed down to Bridgeport, with no luck on the prior Sharp-tailed Grouse trees on the hill which have largely burned.
At Bridgeport State Park Jacob immediately spotted the Northern Saw-whet Owl in the usual tree, as Great Horned Owls hooted and an unexpected flock of Western Bluebirds flew overhead calling. If you check the linked checklists you’ll see a trend, I like the other old guys have deleted some species Jacob listed, most of these were “heard only” by his sharp ears.
From here on to Omak where Bruce and I shared a room at the Omak Inn and Jacob and Ken got singles at the Riverside Inn.
Friday Jan 14th we headed towards the Okanogan Highlands out of Tonasket. The usual first stop at Fancher Road made us think we might miss Chukar on the drive in and we saw our first one well past the farm where a large herd of cattle were gathered, before seeing over 200 once we stopped to look around. In addition 3 Gray Partridge were there, but fog made distant viewing tough, and no Golden Eagle or falcons were found.
Next across the main road on Siwash Creek Road we finally found 4 Sharp-tailed Grouse in literally the last of a long stretch of river birch trees. This was another lifer for Jacob, and a bird we all missed in 2021. Sharp-tailed Grouse through fog and twigs in the top of a tree.
Red Crossbills were found here as well as many stops on the trip, along with Clark’s Nutcracker, Mouintain Chickadee, and Pygmy Nuthatch, but no White-breasted Nuthatch was to be found, and was a miss for the trip.
Next at the Snow Park we added our first of only 2 Northern Pygmy Owls of the trip when Bruce spotted one in a distant tree line. One lonely Snow Bunting was seen on Havillah Road. In Hungry Hollow we stopped when Jacob spotted a bird. The other three of us quickly spotted a flock of Bohemian Waxwings and assumed that was Jacob’s finding. They were in plain sight. Bohemian Waxwings
No, Jacob was on our only Pine Grosbeak of the trip, nearly invisible in an evergreen tree, so we got a great two bird stop. I got no decent photos of the grosbeak, but check out the photos by Jacob on the eBird link to see how well hidden it was.
My favorite sighting of the day was on MaryAnn Creek Rd
where a big flock, estimated at 120 birds, of Gray-crowned Rosy Finches was feeding in a snowy field, giving great prolonged looks. This is a bird we often see on this trip, but rarely this well, in these numbers, or in such a natural beautiful location.
On Davies Road we added White-winged Crossbill when both Jacob and I heard them flying overhead and we saw them land.
We managed a small flock of Snow Buntings on Chesaw Road and finished up our day with yet one more try for the elusive Great Gray Owls near the Snow Park, with no luck.
Saturday we headed first for Concunully. Our hopes for this day were Goshawk in Concunully, and maybe Gyrfalcon somewhere. Thanks to Jacob’s sharp eyes he spotted a flying Goshawk, and we all got on the bird after it perched on a hillside out of town. Of course turkeys were everywhere and we managed to skip out of town ahead of the real Concunnully attraction, the Outhouse Races. On the way out of town we encountered maybe the most amazing stop of the trip, on Hess Lake Road. It is really just a small road to an obscure wildlife area, but it appears to be a Golden Eagle buffet stop. We had many Gray Partridge, Chukar and 5 Golden Eagles including this one taking a Gray Partridge. Golden Eagle with Gray Partridge
Jacob heard, I managed to hear, and after a trudge through the snow to get closer we all managed to see a wintering Canyon Wren.
We headed back towards our “rest of the day” destination, Cameron Lake Road hoping mostly for Gyrfalcon and maybe White-headed Woodpecker. None of these birds obliged, but a flock of Snow Buntings estimated at 1200 birds was a pretty cool consolation prize. Snow Buntings
We got off the plateau early so decided to do a river watch in Brewster and there Bruce spotted this bird.
Terrible Photo of a likely hybrid Tufted Duck x scaup sp.
Sunday we dedicated the time before driving home to finding Jacob his lifer Snowy Owl. I managed to stay on the roads of the Waterville Plateau, the fog was less problematic, and after driving a while, passing the scene of my off-road adventure of Thursday, on the drive back on H road, between 14 and 15th Jacob and Bruce simultaneouly spotted this owl. Snowy Owl perched conspicuously.
After we told Jacob we almost never see these owls in flight, it decided to show us it can fly.
No luck on a Gyr, and after a high-stepping foray the whole length of the Lamoine Windbreak in deep snow, we headed for home. For the trip:
83 Species (for me, a few more on Jacob’s list of things like Brown Creeper, Golden-crowned Kinglet, etc. This is the highlights)
Here is a link to the eBird Trip Report, a cool new eBird feature.
On this episode Bob and I talk about his career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, his birding story and stories and more. How many birders have birded in Area 51? My guess is not many. His career path involved working at many of the great U.S. National Wildlife Refuges including the Loxahatchee NWR in Florida, the Wheeler NWR in Alabama, Kern NWR in California, Stillwater NWR in Nevada, and the Ridgefield and Columbia NWRs in Washington.
While Bob was at the Columbia NWR he helped Washington birder recognize how great the Washtucna Bassett Park oasis was for migrants. Every year in late August and the first half of September birders find eastern vagrants there, and Bob was one of the earlier regulars to haunt the area.
Ridgefield NWR is a great birding spot. Every winter I love to visit to see the Sandhill cranes, Tundra Swans, waterfowl, and raptors there. It is one of the regular places to find Red-shouldered Hawk in WA. The dusky race of the Canada Goose is there in good numbers too.
How many birders have birded on Area 51? Bob didn’t have to storm the area, he got permission to do a breeding bird atlas survey there. (spoiler- no extraterestials on his list) Hear about it on the episode, or just hear the snip of that time here.
A few days passed in the week before Christmas and I didn’t chase the Dickcissel found on the Sequim CBC by the Waggoner brothers. Finally, on the morning of Christmas Eve I decided to go for it. The weather held, and I got to the location in Sequim by about 8:15 AM on a cold clear almost sunny day. When I got there there was one other vehicle, and before long I saw a birder near the back of the big field where the bird had been being seen. I wandered back and he felt that the owners had in days past been tolerent of birders walking in the field, so we explored. He told me that he had been hearing the Dickcissel, and sure enough almost immediately the bird started giving its rattly call, exactly like the “flight call” on the Sibley app.
After a while other birders started to arrive, and before they came Peter and I had followed the rattle call from the south end to the north end of the brushline at the back of the field. After a while the bird showed, initially in a bare tree about half way from the road to the back of the field, then it flew to the mustard field, and finally perched in a tree at at the back of the field for good looks and these photos. A really successful chase.
On episode #119 I talk with Paula and Michael Webster. They are a couple who spent 5 years traveling around South America in a pop-up Toyota camper van, birding, making films, supporting conservation causes, and generally having the adventure of a lifetime. You’ll hear a bit about the year on this episode, but will be able to read much more in the soon-to-be-released book The Condor’s Feather: Traveling Wild in South America which you can preorder in the U.K. at Waterstones or in the U.S. on Amazon. I’ve already ordered my copy.
On the episode Michael and Paula talk about Buff-breasted Sandpipers. They are a species that is anticipated but not often seen in Washington. When we do see them it is almost always a juvenile bird in the fall. We saw this one this year in King County.\
If you want to see some great video of the trip here are some You Tube films by Paula.
Tango in the wind is a 30 minute fabulous video of the courtship rituals of the Hooded Grebe, one of the most endangered birds in South America. It is spectacular!
To see about their vehicle and trip check this out:
Here is some of the scenery of the Andes.
Thanks for following and listening.
Until next time; Good birding and good day!
