On this episode I had fun talking to Greg about his birding story, really moving from an avid but novice birder to a proficient and passionate birder in just a few years. And what a few years they have been. Greg has done a Washington State big year in 2021 when he saw 367 species in WA, a number that until that year would have been the WA record, and has travelled to all of the lower-48 U.S. states to bird. See his eBird profile here, where you can also find his e-mail address.
We talk about A Birder’s Guide to Washington on the episode. You can find it online at the WOS website here, or buy it at Buteo Books here. ‘
We talk about the website BirdingQuiz.com and about Larkwire, two good resources to help learn bird identification.
The old but still fabulous book by Jerry Cooper, giving detailed planning and route info for U.S. birding trips is still available at Amazon. I couldn’t find it on Buteo.
If you have suggestions for guests on the podcast, or just want to reach out to me, use the contact page on this site.
Thanks for listening. Until next time, good birding and good day!
Author: birdbanter
The Bird Banter Podcast #156 with Scott Harris Additional Info.
On this episode Scott and I talk about his start in birding as an adult, his quest to see all of America’s lower-48 raptors, his writing career and more.
Find Scott’s book on Amazon or at his website.
I found Scott’s morph from a beginning birder later in life to a passionate raptor enthusiast pretty interesting. Scott is not one to go into a hobby casually. He has made the leap to birder with gusto. I would not have guessed that finding some of the winter visitor raptors to be the more difficult for him, as birds like Northern Hawk-Owl and Gyrfalcon create such buzz when found that the birding community usually knows where to find one. Goshawk, one of his other tough finds nests in enough areas that I’d have thought it would have been pinned down more quickly. The little owls, like Boreal and Flammulated Owls can be really tough, and it looks like he found local experts to help with them. Anyway, it was fun to hear about his quest and his new book.
His next project is to see many of the birding spectacles in the U.S. I’d love to hear what you’d list in the top 10 birding spectacles in the U.S. Here is a list of mine without great thought (The Ones in Bold I’ve seen, the others just heard about):
1. Platte River Sandhill Cranes
2. The Morning Flight at Cape May, N.J.
3. Spring Migration at Bear Divide, CA
4. A big flight of Broad-winged Hawks at Hawk Mountain, PA
5. The Snow Geese on Fir Island, WA
6. The Hummingbirds at the feeders in S.E. Arizona in late summer.
7. The Blackbird flocks at many places in the southern U.S. (e.g. on mornings in McAllen on the wires)
8. The huge flocks of Sooty Shearwaters and California Gulls off the Washington State coast in late-summer to early-fall.
9. Spring Migration at Magee Marsh (or other locations on a fallout day)
10. Shorebird Migration in spring at any of several staging areas, like Bowerman Basin, WA, or the Delaware Bay.
Leave comments with your to birding spectacles.
Good birding and Good Day!
Smith Island Boat Trip with ABC for Horned Puffin
On July 5th 26 other birders and I met Matt Stolmeier, Marian’s nephew, and captain for Outer Island Excursions at the Skyline Marina in Anacortes, WA for a chartered trip on their 30/person boat hoping to see the Horned Puffin that has visited the Tufted Puffin colony on Smith Island for the last few summers. We had tried last summer, and though it was a great trip, failed to see the Tufted Puffin. Matt takes many whale watching tours annually, and also has three scheduled bird watching trips this year planned. You can book one here.
Matt is an excellent spotter, and has several other boats on the water, which turned out to be really a good thing. We left the dock at 4PM, with the hopes that as the evening approached more puffins would be nearing the colony ready to feed their young at dusk. On the ride out we saw moderate numbers of Rhinoceros Auklets, cormorants, gulls and enjoyed the great weather and calm seas.
On arrival at Smith Islands we began to see good numbers of the breeders there.
We sorted through dozens of Tufted Puffins like this but for our first couple of hours failed to find the Horned Puffin.
As we headed back to the area by the kelp beds where most of the Tufted Puffins were staying Matt got a radio message from one of the captains of another Outer Island Expeditions boat that he had the Horned Puffin in sight. We headed back and after a few minutes of tension, got killer looks and photo ops.
After we got long and great looks at the HOPU, Matt offered a treat. He gave us about an extra hour and we headed out to see the T-99 pod of Orcas not far away.
After enjoying the whales, Matt also gave us a nice time at the Williamson Rocks, which is a rocky island near the harbor.
We got back to the dock about 8 PM with happy faces and expanded state and many life lists.
Be sure to think of Matt if you want a trip to see the birds.
Good birding!
Two Days in Pierce County with Friends
Over the last week I’ve had the chance to get out twice with friends, last Friday June 30 with Ken Brown, and yesterday with Bruce LaBar.
On Friday Ken and I headed for Mt. Rainier via Paradise. It was my first trip to the mountain this year, and I hoped to add to my Pierce County year list. Ken met at my house at 6 AM and we drove straight to the Paradise parking lot, finding one of the few parking spaces still available. We had a great day with beautiful weather and managed 25 species. There was lots of bird song on the hike up, with Olive-sided Flycatcher, Pine Siskin (unbelievably the FOY for Washington State for me as it’s been a siskin free winter here.) Sooty Grouse and good numbers of White-crowned Sparrows and Chipping Sparrows. There was only a modest amount of snow on the trails, and we took the Panarama Point trail up to where it meets the Pebble Creek Trail just before Panarama Point. We added my county first Townsend’s Solitaire along with American Pipits as we approached the Pebble Creek Trail where a week earlier Heather and Marcus had found White-tailed Ptarmigan. We didn’t find the ptarmigan but found Bruce, Heather and Marcus at a lunch stop there. While eating we found a distant perched Gray-crowned Rosy Finch, and another solitaire landed behind us. We explored the area hoping for ptarmigan without success and walked down as a group of 5.
On Monday Bruce and I visited a new road out Greenville looking for Black-backed Woodpeckers that Michael Charest had seen over the weekend. We again met Marcus there, this time with Bryan Hansen and Wayne Sladek. We quickly found a BBWO which flew by and then landedand drummed steadily. It appeared to be a female, but we didn’t learn until later that females of this species do drum. Other than fabulous vistas the stop was otherwise notable for a Sooty Grouse that called steadily near the end of the road, and when I turned my back fluched giving Bruse a quick look in flight.
We decided to make a quick parking lot stop at Sunrise parking lot stop, but changed our minds when the line at the entry gate was really long, so instead went to Lake Tipsoo for a walk around the lake, and to get our FOY Mountain Chickadee. The Chickadee was found easlly, but nothing else new, so we had lunch at a beautiful Hwy 410 pullout and called it a day.
The Bird Banter Podcast #155 with Dan Scheiman Additional Info.
On this episode Dan and I talk about birding in Arkansas, his birding story, and more. Check out his eBird profile here.
You can learn more about the Audubon Plant for Birds program on the Delta Audubon Plant for Birds website. Dan talks about several Arkansas hotspots. Check them out on eBird.
Bald Knob NWR
Stuttgart Municipal Airport , the place for Smith’s Longspur in winter.
I loved the Wapanocca NWR Here is my blog post about the day we birded there. There seem to be endless roads, and many Field Sparrows and Dickcissels.
Dan also mentions the eBird article on how to add historical sightings into your ebird lists. Here is the article link.
As always suggestions for guests, best with contact information, are appreciated. Use the contact page to send your wish-list of guests.
Thanks for listening. Until next time. Good birding and good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast #154: Ken & Ed Go East Coast Pelagic Birding Additional Info.
Ken and I have been planning and dreaming of going on several of Brian Patteson’s North Carolina Pelagic trips for years. This year it finally happened, and as in all long awaited and anticipated trips it didn’t go quite as we had planned. We planned 3 trips in 5 days, with a day to rest and bird on land between trips. We didn’t plan on a very unusual sustained low pressure cell off shore just south of N.C. that caused strong sustained NE winds and high seas. As it turned out our first and last trips were cancelled, but with luck we got on a trip for the first planned day off, so we managed 2 trips offshore.
Here is my eBird trip report.
You can find Patteson Seabirding website here.
I mention The Science of Birding Podcast so here is a link to the associated website.
Seabirds are extremely interesting for many reasons. They spend their lives at sea, and can fly using amazingly little flapping, a technique called “dynamic soaring.” Here is a video that explains some of the science behind this flight type.
Thanks for listening.
County Birding in SE Washington, June 2023
I’ve set a goal for myself for 2023 to wrap up the last 4 counties in WA to put me over 100 species reported in eBird for every Washington county. Not unexpectedly all of these counties are far from Tacoma in Pierce County where I live. Three of these counties are in SE Washington, an area I’ve birded primarily in winter when some of the northern visiting birds are possible. That said I made a trip to Asotin County in July 2020 when Marian and I camped at Field Springs State park, amnd between that and winter trips I have reported 134 species for the southeastern most WA county. That left Whitman, Garfield and Columbia counties as the other three SE counties where I had yet to see >100 species.
Marian had a family gathering in Wenachee for the weekend, and I decided to take advantage and hjead off birding.
On Thursday June 1 I headed out after a good nights sleep, not leaving until about 8 AM. I drove pretty much straight to Whitman County, with Kamiak Butte the planned first stop for the afternoon. I managed Lazuli Bunting and Brewer’s Blackbirds as roadside ticks on the entry road, then got to the park at 2:15. I had little idea what to expect, and it was a busy forested butte with two busloads of school children at the playground. That said I was pretty happy to immediately hear Veery singing, and lots of other bird song. ON a 2-hour hike I managed 12 county lifers, including Pacific Slope (I didn’t have the inclination to call them Cordillaran) and Hammond’s Flycatchers, and a good variety of forest species. On the ride back to Colfax I flushed a Wilson’s Snipe from a roadside ditch, and spotted a Wild Turkey beside the road.
After checking into the Best Western in Colfax, and getting Mexican food for dinner, I walked the Colfax Trail as the sun dropped, and finished the day with with Whitman County species #102 with a singing Canyon Wren on the cliff beside the trail.
The next morning I headed for Steptoe Butte, a place I’ve been wanting to see for years. It is a pretty cool place, and I got theere at 6:34, and it was cool and sunny. I walked near the bottom parking lot and then drove to the top and birded my way back down. It was spectacular, with great vistas of the Palouse, and lots of birds. Rock Wrens were singing everywhere near the top, Yellow-breasted Chats and Vesper Sparrow were great to see, and I left Whitman County with my list at 109 species
From there I drove back through Colfax to start my Garfield County birding at Central Ferry where Osprey, Violet-green and Cliff Swallows were easy county firsts. I drove down Deadman Creek, a nice backwater area with singing Common Yellowthroat, an American White Pelican, and the usual riparian species were added. I went to lunch at Willow Landing where I enjoyed Marian’s lasagna, and added Blue-winged Teal, Lazuli Bunting and really enjoyed a Yellow-breasted Chat that flew high in the air, singing loudly, and then fixed its wings upward and parachuted back to its perch like a skylark. A behavior I’d never seen. Just as I left it was fun to see a male Northern Harrier perched on a “Feel Free to Hunt” sign.
From here I headed for the higher elevations of the county, hoping for breeding species of the Ponderosa Pine forests and agricultural areas. My favorite stop was Bosley Grade Road, a forested area on a dirt road down a steep grade. It was pretty birdy, with a creek beside the road and I added 9 county firsts there, including typical singing birds, Orange-crowned and Yellow-rumped Warblers, Dusky and Hammond’s Flycatchers, Cassin’s and Warbling Vireos, and Ruby-crowned Kinglet.
I headed up Mountain Road, adding Western and Mountain Bluebirds, and Vesper Sparrow.
I headed back to Dayton, adding flycatchers (Eastern and Western Kingbirds and Say’s Phoebe) from the car on the ride as Columbia County birds, only to find that the Best Western rated had gone up to $200. + per night, so I settled for the barely adequate Blue Mountain Motel. I found a city park for dinner, and rather than spend time in the room, went to a nice city park with a fishing pond and riverside walk for a picnic dinner. The last of the lasagna was nice, as was the walk. I added Spotted Sandpiper and the easy swallows there.
After a decent night’s sleep, I quickly birded Lewis & Clark SP for low elevation species, before I headed up Jasper Mountain Road for the morning. There I enjoyed a Cooper’s Hawk hopping around on the ground after what looked like recently fledged Brown-headed Cowbirds, singing Veerys, I’d never been in this area, so dlot’s of singing Pacific Slope (Cordillaran) Flycatchers and a calling Pileated Woodpecker. I decided to try Jasper Mountain rather than the Toucannon Road area which is more well known for birding. It worked out well, with good birding, beautiful scenery, and new places to see. An unexpected Lark Sparrow on a wire, lots of Mountain Bluebirds, and a nice variety of dry forest species were found. In the afternoon I headed for Toucannan Road area, adding Red-eyed Vireo and Turkey Vulture (this was the only TV sighting of the trip). By then I was a bit weary, and as I had my goal >100 species in each county I decided to head for home. I made a few stops on the way, partly to rest and stretch, and partly birding. Most interesting was a very quick stop at Palouse Falls SP to easily add White-throated Swift at the Para Ponds in Othello where FOY Lesser Yellowlegs was found, and hoped for Forester’s Tern was not.
I got home by 9:30 and was happy to sleep in my own bed.
Trip totals:
Whitman: 109 life, 67 for the trip.
Garfield: 110 life, 65 for the trip
Columbia 111 life, 66 for the trip.
The Bird Banter Podcast #143: Ed and Ken North Carolina Pelagic Trip
This is a placeholder. Details to follow.
Ed and Ken Go Birding: Hatteras Pelagics and a Sample of North Carolina
For many years Ken and I have hoped to get out on an east coast pelagic trip, specifically a Gulf Stream spring pelagic with Brian Patterson our of Hatteras, NC. Finally, this spring we made it happen, and on May 18 we flew to Raleigh-Durham on a red-eye (our morning flight was changed by Delta to a 10:45 PM departure) and by 6 AM on May 19 we had our rental car and headed east. We made a stop for a couple of hours at a cool place, the Alligator River NWR, where we eBirded 31 species on the Buffalo City Road access. It was great to dip our toes into the eastern U.S. birds.
From here we drove to Hatteras, where we narrowly escaped a bigger fiasco when Ken pulled off the side of the road, only to get stuck in the loose sand, bringing back memories of being stuck in the snow on the Waterville Plateau. This time instead of a local trucker dragging us out, a nice young woman stopped, and let us use her “”traction strips.” These are foldable plastic devices that we put under our front tires, and pretty easily backed out onto the pavement. A “save-and-a-beauty” moment.
We found a better spot to stop, and did a little shorebirding on Pea Island before calling it a day, to crash at a hotel in Buxton.
Up bright and early the next AM to meet the boat at the dock about a 25 minute drive from our hotel (we couldn’t get rooms on the weekend at Hatteras Village) only to learn at 5:15 AM that the trip was cancelled due to rain, high seas and high winds.
We spent the day birding on funes (the prior red-eye) and found a good spot (except for the ferocious mosquitos) at the Pea Island Visitor’s Center to walk out into the marsh on a path, dike and boardwalk. We saw 55 species
The most interesting place we visited IMO was the Ramp 43 &44 access area where we watched terns, gulls and shorebirds primarily. It was too windy to really look for Seaside Sparrow, a species that eluded us on this trip (I heard two) but it was fun to puzzle over terns and gulls.
We were able to reschedule our cancelled boat trip for the following day, and got out for two straight days of pelagic birding. Trips were on the Snowy Petrel 2, a 62 foot boat that had excellent places to bird on both sides, a small area at the stern, and a large area at the bow. Inside seating only accomodated about 9 people, so with 25 birders and 2-3 spotters, most of us were outside. For most of the time aboard it was too rough to safely and comfortably be at the bow, and often one side was the “wet side” so birding mostly came along the sides. The two days were both rough, but different. On the first day we had big numbers of Black-capped Petrels, Wilson’s Storm-Petrels, and not many other birds. A couple of Band-rumped Storm-Petrels gave decent looks, a few Audubon’s and Cory’s Shearwaters, a very few Sooty Shearwaters, and one surprising Cape May Warbler rounded out the birds seen. A young local birder IDed the Cape May Warbler by its flight call, amazing even the spotters, and it was cool to cheer on this wayward warbler as it circled the boat for a few minutes.
On the second day at sea it continued to be “unsettled” and there were considerably fewer pterodroma petrels in the first half of the day. About noon the call went out that a Trindade Petrel was approaching the boat from the stern. I had put my camera away because the temptation to take both hands off the railing and take photos was IMO dangerous with the boat lurching to and fro. The bird flew right up to the stern, seemed to look us over, and flew by the starboard side at close range. I got killer looks, but thought any photo op had passed. A few minutes later the bird reappeared, I went into the cabin to get my camera and managed passable photos, though nothing like others had on the first pass. This is a bird seen only a few times a year off Hatteras at best, and a great find.
As the afternoon progressed we had a pair of jaegers, one Parasitic and one Pomerine give great shows, the POJA circling the boat at close range for seemingly an hour.
A Leach’s Storm-Petrel was seen pretty well by all, and near the end of our trip, on the way back to Hatteras we stumbled on this Masked Booby on the water.
We tried to get on the trip the next day, because the forcast was for the weather and seas to get worse every day for the rest of the week, but the trip was full. It was a blessing, as no new species were found, the seas were worse yet, and we had a nice day ashore. Winds were very high, and we spent some time birding sheltered areas on wooded trails before going out to the Salt Ponds to try for new gulls, terns or shorebirds. We added a Lesser Black-backed Gull, and then decided to try the beach by the old lighthouse. We found a spot partly sheltered by a dune, and did a sea watch for a couple of hours. We managed to see a Parasitic and a Pomerine Jaeger and several Sooty Shearwaters, but really nothing new.
That night we got notified that the next day’s pelagic was being cancelled early, as sea conditions were worsening. We took advantage and were able to cancel our reservations for the night of May 24th, and headed back to Alligator River NWR. We had a nice day birding there, birding several areas, seeing several new species for the trip including Black-throated Green Warbler, Prothonatary Warbler, Northern Parula, Red-headed Woodpecker, and Gray Catbird.
We spent the night in Dunn, N.C., a city just north of Fayetteville, N.C. where I spent a 6-week tour at the ROTC Advanced Camp at Ft. Bragg in the summer of 1975. This was a more pleasant stop, as we were primarily looking for Ken’s lifer Bachmann’s Sparrow. I had seen this bird on a Florida trip to visit my parents near Orlando on April Fools Day 2000, but Ken had not had a chance. We were at the vdry northern end of its range, and so it was not a sure thing. This species likes mature Long-leaf Pine forests, with an open understory but a fairly dense ground cover. Sure enough, after spending most of the morning in suboptimal habitat where the understory was thin and dry, we came on what looked perfect, and I managed to hear a singing bird.
We had a really nice day seeing a nice list of species with lot’s of great views.
From here it was back to Raleigh-Durham for the long flight home and late arrival.
Ken’s youngest son John picked us up at Seatac and got us home safely.
The Bird Banter Podcast #153 with Rebecca Heisman additional info.
Spring is a great time of year, and for birders it has the added attraction of the fast-paced, almost frantic at times migration of our bird species that winter south of us, and breed near us or north of us. Many of the neotropic migrants are decked out in their fresh breeding (“alternate” for us Humphrey-Parkes users) and seemingly every day brings new species and surprises.
In the introduction I talk about the great migration watch site in Tacoma, Dune Peninsula.
It can be humbling to watch top birders like Charlie Wright and Will Brooks ID birds in flight at great distance or by their flight calls, but even for birders like me of lesser talent, it is really fun and exciting. (links are to the blog posts related to podcast episodes with them as guests). Here is a link to the eBird list of Charlie Wright on May 22, 2022 when he counted 4705 Western Tanagers, and Will had over 500 prior to when Charlie showed up at 9:13 AM. A massive flight day for this beautiful species.
I really loved reading Flight Paths. I strongly recommend reading it for any birder or natural phenomenon lover who also likes good stories and to learn about how science leads to better understanding of nature.
Buy the book whereever you get your books, or on a link on Rebecca’s website.
One relatively new and exciting system for tracking the movement of birds (and other organisms) is the Motus system. It is a growing network of small, affordable receivers that can help track a bird as it moves in migration.
Light level geolocators are pretty cool too. Read about them here or in Rebecca’s book.
To read more about thee Bird Genoscape Project use this hotlink. Here is a video that makes it easier to get a feel for the projects uses and goals.
Thanks for following and listening.
Good birding and good day!