Laurel, Faye, Carol and Diane with Ken Brown, the birding instructor for the classes where most of the group met each other.
For my 20th episode I broke the trend of one guest, and invited three of the Willettes over to my condo for wine (the lure), snacks, to watch the sailboat races on Commencement Bay, and to record episode #20.
It’s a cool story, listen to hear that. Here I’ll post some photos of the Willettes. Photos are one thing never in short supply when they are along. Here is Carol, Diane and Faye with me at an ABC Birding Club meeting.
This is Laurel, Faye and Diane in the outfits they wore to the podcast recording session. They had planned to wear the Citrene Warbler sweatshirts, but the 90+ degree weather prompted them to have the sweatshirts loosely draped and to wear matching “Willettes” designed t-shirts. This is several Willettes with Will Brooks (episode #19) at his ABC talk. Sergio from Raptours spoke at one of our meetings, with the obligatory Willettes group photo.
Lest you think the Willettes are all fashion and no birding, you need to know that they are all avid birders, listers, traveling birders, and volunteers. Thanks Willettes for a nice evening and doing the recording.
Laurel with Carol Smith in yet another matching T.
Enjoy.
Thursday Will Brooks and I recorded an episode for The Bird Banter Podcast, and I expect it to be published Monday June 10th. Here are some details related to or relavent to the episode:
Here is a link to a recent WOS newsletter where Will published an article about his research. http://wos.org/documents/wosnws/wosnews179.pdf
Here is a link to the ABC Birding club site and a writeup about his presentation to our club. http://abcbirding.com/will-brooks-tells-us-the-secrets-of-white-crowned-sparrows-march-26-2019/
This is a link to Will’s eBird profile. https://ebird.org/pnw/profile/NDE3OTMx/US-WA-053
Some of the really cool birds Will found last year include:
-Long-tailed Jaeger at Point Defiance (links are to my eBird lists when I saw the birds) https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S48534820
-Clay-colored Sparrow and Rusty Blackbird at 134th Street in Puyallup. https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S49804659
-Glaucous Gull at the Puyallup River https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S41718496
-Short-eared Owl at McNeil St Trail Overlook. https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S50277333
-Yellow-breasted Chat in the Ohop Valley. https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S46280722
These are just a few that I could find on my 2018 Pierce County eBird list. I know there were many more I didn’t see of cannot recall.
Distant Seattle skyline as seen from the north overlook on Mt. Walker today. If you look closely you can see the space needle.
Ken and I spent a very nice day today in Jefferson County, WA birding primarily inland areas in hopes of adding to our meager county life lists. We had a number of highlights, but seeing chicks of two grouse species had to be near the top. This Ruffed Grouse chick was seen after a passing pickup truck driver told us about a “Ruffed-neck Grouse with chicks” just behind us on the road while we were trying to locate a tough-ID flycatcher.
Newly hatched Ruffed Grouse chick seen on Lord’s Lake Loop Road.
Shortly later on the drive up to Mt. Walker we came upon this Sooty Grouse chick along with the mom and another chick ahead of us on the road.
Sooty Grouse chick
We had a really good day with empids, seeing this Willow Flycatcher, along with Hammonds and Pacific Slope Flycathers. All were in full song. We also added Olive-sided Flycatcher and Western Wood-pewee for a great flycatcher day.
Willow FlycatcherSame bird just taking flight.
We did well with woodpeckers also, with Hairy Woodpecker and this Red-breasted Sapsucker. Red-breasted Sapsucker.
We wrapped up the day with about 31 new Jefferson County species for our county lists.
Tomorrow I get together with Will Brooks to record an episode of The Bird Banter Podcast.
Pigeon Guillemot on its nest. Most of the nests appeared to be deeper in burrows, and the sitting birds were not visible, but this one was in plain sight.
On this episode Ed talks about Memorial Day weekend just past and memories of this weekend gone by, along with the recent ABC Birding Club presentation by Ken Brown (episodes #2 & #6) on bird names and avian nomenclature. Check out the ABC Birding website post on this talk. The sandy bank with the burrows looked like this.
At Anderson Island this past weekend there were nesting Pigeon Guillemots. They make burrows in the sandy banks, along with Northern Rough-winged Swallows, and Ed happend onto two separate colonies with 20+ birds each.
The Willettes are a group of female birders in the ABC Club that travel together, drink wine together, bird together and dress in matching bird-related attire. Laurel, Faye, Ken, Carol and Diane (4 Willettes and Ken)
Pigeon Guillemot on its nest. Most of the nests appeared to be deeper in burrows, and the sitting birds were not visible, but this one was in plain sight.
This weekend I visited Anderson Island with a new birding friend Marian, and we stubled upon two colonies of Pigeon Guillemots. These are our local breeding Alcid, a species that nests in burrows or cavities in sandy banks near salt water. Anderson Island is a heavily wooded island in the Puget Sound accessible by a short ferry ride from Steilacom, WA. It has lots of high sandy banks that seem perfect for PIGU to nest, and it was fun to see their colonies.
The sandy bank with the burrows looked like this.
Northern Rough-winges Swallows shared the sandy banks.
Today Bruce Labar (see The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #3) and I did a low elevation Pierce County Big Day. Our goal was to try to see as many species as we could in one day without going to the mountain (Mt. Rainier) and with a level of effort such that we could enjoy ourselves. We understood that for a May Pierce County Big Day we were at a disadvantage by waiting until May 18th. By this date most waterfowl, gulls, loons, alcids and shorebirds have already left for their breeding grounds, and in the past we have tried to time our May Big Day a week or so earlier to catch the lingering species in these groups of birds while delaying long enough to get many of the returning breeding birds. Western Meadowlark from Area 13 JBLM
We waited until today because last weekend we were at the WOS Conference in Moses Lake, and a combination our schedules, weather and convenience had us wait until today. We feel we had a great day all things considered, and at 101 species identified we feel good about our results.
We started the day at Puget Park, where a Barred Owl flew right in for a look after our first playing of a recorded call. Laxuli Bunting at Area 15 JBLM
We made many stops, with 24 eBird lists, and the route was from Puget Park to Point Defiance to Fox Island with a stop at Adam Tallman Park, to Titlow Park, Chamber’s Creek, Steilacom Park and then McNeil Overlook, to JBLM including Spanaway Marsh, Range 72, Muck Creek, Areas 15 and 13, then back to Tacoma and Fife to wrap up the big day about 5:15 PM. Northern Bobwhite from Muck Creek on JBLM
Best birds were the Barred Owl, lingering Pacific Loons and Common Murre at Fox Island, Marbled Murrelets at Titlow Beach and also in Steilacom, Vesper Sparrow, Western Kingbird, Lazuli Bunting and Sora at JBLM, and a Peregrine Falcon in downtown Tacoma. Here are some photos from the day. Lazuli Bunting from Area 15 JBLM
Shawneen is the leader next to the right in this photo from the Sept 2016 Searcher pelagic trip.
The Bird Banter Episode #17 with Shawneen Finnegan was one of my highlights so far in doing the podcast. I first met Shawneen on a 5-day pelagic trip on the Searcher out of San Diego in Sept 2016. This is was a remarkable pelagic experience, very different in many ways from a typical one-day, in-and-out pelagic trip. On this trip we left San Diego on a Monday afternoon, and returned Friday morning. With that much time at sea, we were able to spend long periods of time far from shore, both much longet time frames, and much farther from shore than is possible on a one-day trip. This allows much longer looks at desirable species, chances for really rare species best seen 100+ miles from shore, and just overall a very different experience. The trip had five expert pelagic birders as leaders-spotters, and Shawneen was the guest leader. My understanding is that the other four leaders go regularly on this trip, and one guest leader is invited each year. I hit the jackpot with having Shawneen along. She was not only expert, but was really a pleasure to get to visit with.
On this trip I had three lifers, Townsend’s Storm Petrel, and Guadalupes and Craveri’s Murrelets, and several great species I’d seen before incluiding Red-billed Tropicbird, Black and Least Storm Petrel, and Scripp’s Murrelet. In addition we had great looks at more common pelagic species as well as other rarities I’d seen before including Long-tailed Jaeger, Red-billed Tropicbird, and Scripps Murrelet. The incredible whale show we encountered was probably the most memorable part of the trip.
I didn’t see Shawneen again until the WOS meeting last weekend. Shawneen is on the Washington State Rare Birds Committee and I had the chance to sit at a table with Shawneen and her husband David Irons at dinner on Saturday. It was fun to hear the birding stories with Bruce Labar, Ken Brown and these two.
Here is a link to a flickr album with lots of photos from the trip. https://www.flickr.com/photos/43201721@N02/albums/72157672564115722
Shawneen is an accomplished artist. She has had work published in several birding related works, and most recently has started to do commission pet paintings. You can check out her work and order a commission at her web site, ShawneenFinnegan.com
Check out the new Peterson Series Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Western North America by Saturday’s WOS keynote speaker Nathan Pieplow.
I hope to have Shawneen’s podcast episode published by Monday May 20th and expect to have Khahn Tran on next week as my guest. Until then, good birding, and good day.
On this episode Alvaro and I talk about his remarkable birding story, starting as a young birder, continuine into a PhD study which he left midway through to finish writing the definative book on Blackbirds of the New World, and going on to be a birding trip guide and pelagic trip organizer and leader. You can find his tours on the Alvaro’s Adventures website. Alvaro more recently published both English and Spanish versions of a field guide to the Birds of Chile. \
I trust you’ll enjoy hearing Alvaro on the podcast. Thanks for listening. Good birding and good day!
Lark Sparrow seen Thursday on our scouting trip to Gloys Seeps.
Ken Brown (see TBBP Episode #2) and I went to the Washington Ornithologic Society (WOS) convention last weekend and led two field trips as well as went on an epic trip led by Matt Yawney. On Thursday we scouted for our Friday trip to Gloyd Seeps, an area neither of us had birded before. This area has two parking lots off Road 12 on Hwy and we decided to park in the first lot, and hike across the sage / desert to the seep. This turned out to be a hot and long walk in the late morning. It was not terribly birdy until we got to the seep, and we discovered a series of paths and finally a road along the wetlands that went to the second parking lot. We were glad we did this alone, not with the group on the WOS trip. Later in the afternoon, after our briefly checking out areas in the North Potholes Reserve area for our trip Sunday, Ken and I decided to go to Othello and the Para Ponds, hoping to see the colony of Tri-colored Blackbirds there, as well as possible Black-necked Stilts, American Avocet and Wilson’s Phalarope. Success on two, TCBL and BNST. We found the avocet on a later trip, but few WIPH were in the area on any of the trips, and we saw none all weekend. Yellow-headed Blackbird was seen often on this trip.
Friday and Sunday our field trips went uneventfully. Highlights were a perched male Black-chinned Humminbird on Fridays trip at one of the two city parks included, Blue Heron Park, and on Sunday a very cooperative Grasshopper Sparrow that gave everyone great looks. This is usually a hard to see and photograph species, and we felt really good about our looks. Black-chinned HummingbirdGrasshopper Sparrow at North Potholes Reserve.
The highlights, as mentioned in the podcast, were the Saturday trip with Matt Yawney, when we saw 115 species, I entered 19 eBird lists, and everyone felt like we had done a Grant County Big Day. Matt is the top county birder, with great local knowledge, as well as being young, sharp eyed and eared, and being a fine trip leader. He set the Grant County big year record last year with 243 species. On the trip we found a Hermit Warbler at Northrop Canyon, possibly a county first.
Horned Lark
At the Friday WOS social hour and Stump the Experts slide show by Dennis Paulson, he called it Stump the Chumps, the audience volunteered guesses at ID of very challenging photos, and amazingly the audience got some of them right! He had several photos from the UPS museum collection of outstretched bird wings, really tough to ID as a stand alone photo. Check out the collection online here: https://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/academic-resources/slater-museum/biodiversity-resources/birds/wing-image-collection/
An up close Bull Frog.
On Saturday night I was privileged to sit at at table with Ken Brown, Bruce LaBar, Shawneen Finnegan and David Irons, all fine birders, good story tellers, and good folks. It made for great conversation and it was one of the highlights of my weekend. Tree Swallow
Here are some photos from the weekend.
Lark Sparrow
Ken (see The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #2) and I headed out early today for the Moses Lake area to check out the areas were are leading field trips to on Friday and Sunday. Tomorrow we are going to the Gloyd’s Seep area in addition to two small parks near Moses Lake, Blue Heron Park and Neppel Landing. We had not birded two of these areas before, so in order not to get lost, and to feel ready we got here today and checked them out. Great Egret
We first went to Blue Heron Park getting there about 9:15 AM. It was very windy near the lake, and we didn’t see much of interest on the water, a few Western Grebes, very few ducks, etc. It was better behind the bluff in the trees, and we added FOY Black-headed Grosbeak and a few other species.
A quick stop at Neppel Landing gave looks at the water, but few birds. Yellow-headed Blackbird
Gloyd’s Seep is a much larger area that we had not visited before. It is a large patch of sage with a few trees and a big wetlands where a creek spreads out in a low area to form a big wetlands. We were hoping for lots of shorebirds and waterfowl. We saw small numbers of several ducks, including FOY Blue-winged Teal, but only 3 Long-billed Dowichers and Killdeer for shorebirds. Very few passerines were found. Blue-winged Teal Cinnamon Teal
We had time after this to scout the area of Sunday’s trip to the Potholes Reserve near the heron rookery. We felt much better about this area. We saw more FOY species, including Lark Sparrow, Forester’s Tern, and got nice looks at Clark’s Grebe and Spotted Sandpiper. Turkey Vulture
Not to sleep fast and be ready to meet our group at 5:45 AM tomorrow. Lark Sparrow
Wish us luck, good birding and a good day! The same to all of you.
