Category: Blog

The Bird Banter Podcast: Episode #3 with Bruce LaBar

Bruce is a longtime leader on the Westport Seabirds pelagic trips and loves pelagic birding. This is a Northern Fulmar seen on one of my trips with Bruce

Bruce LaBar is my second guest on The Bird Banter Podcast and I am flattered to have Bruce to talk to you. Bruce is a very accomplished birder, a bigtime lister in Washington, and is well known and respected in the birding community. Bruce is the #1 all-time lister in WA with a WA lifelist of 452 species seen in WA, as well as the #1 all-time lister in our home Pierce County, WA with 285 species seen. He is currently the #1 2019 lister in both WA and Pierce County also, and is a good birding buddy to me (and really to almost every local and regional birder) as he is such a nice person.

Black-footed Albatross is the common albatross off the WA coast.

Bruce and I did Pierce County Big Days in every month of 2018 (I missed Feb.) and added Pierce to the counties in WA with a big day in every month of the year. We talk a bit about that in his podcast episode.
Bruce spent his formative years in birding in California during the time when ABA birding exploded, the 1970-1990 time frame, and lists as his friends many of the legendary California birders of that era.
I think you’ll enjoy hearing from Bruce on this episode. Here is a link to the episode on the iTunes store. Enjoy.
Be sure to subscribe, and please give The Bird Banter Podcast a high “Star”rating and leave a reveiw if you can. Thanks.

A Great Day Today

Sandhill Crane seen in Orting today. Look how close it is to the parked car in a driveway in the residential neighborhood.

It’s been snowy in the Puget Sound area for a few days, and today I was starting to feel really anxious to get out side and go birding. That said, this morning it was raining hard, about 34 degrees, and just not reasonable to go birding.
The day started to pick up when Bruce LaBar texted to see if we could move his time to record The Bird Banter Podcast episode #3 up to this morning, since he chose not to try to drive to his yoga, and instead wanted to walk to my condo.

He got here about 10 AM and we recorded the episode. Here is the podcast.

After Bruce left I was able to get the post-production editing done, and publish the podcast, and decided to go for a walk. On the walk on the Ruston Way waterfront a flock of Bushtits made an appearance, for a Pierce County FOY species for me.

Just as I got home Michael Charest put out a text to our county listers that he had a Sandhill Crane in Orting. It appears that the heavy snow forced an immature SACR down and it has been foraging in a residential neighborhood since yesterday. I called Bruce and Will Brooks, and we dashed out to see the crane, exactly where Michael reported seeing it, and photos were had by all.

 

This went so easily we had time to drive the Orting Farm loop, where in the same location Will found a Swamp Sparrow last fall, one was calling from out in the field, and I heard it call several times clearly, and this made my second “county first” species of the day.

Pretty good stuff for a day that started as a weather-bound house day.

I hope you enjoy the podcast. You can also find it Here on the iTunes Store.

Good birding!

The Bird Banter Podcast: Episode #2 with Ken Brown

We saw this adult Cooper’s Hawk on our recent North-central WA ABC birding club field trip that Ken led.

Ken Brown is my first guest on The Bird Banter Podcast and I was very intentional in insisting the Ken be my first guest. The most important reason is that Ken has been my mentor, best birding buddy, good friend and travel buddy for many years. In addition Ken is a suberb birder, a great teacher of birding, and has been a supporter of many beginning and developing birders.

Gull identification is one of Ken’s strengths. Here is a Herring Gull along with other gulls at the Gog-li-hi-ti wetland mitigation in Tacoma, WA

We have been on many field trips both locally and across the U.S. For the last decade or so I have been Ken’s unofficial right-hand-man as he has led field trips for his birding class and for our ABC Birding Club. Ken is an expert at planning and leading field trips, and I help with submitting eBird lists, “croud control,” and with locating and occasionally identifying birds by ear as his hearing has diminished in recent years.
I hope our mutual respect and friendship come through on this podcast, and that you enjoy.
Here is a link to the podcast on the iTunes store.

BirdBanter from conception to reality.


I’ve become a fan of listening to podcasts over the last few years. I find having control over what I listen to while driving, flying, or otherwise being in a position to listen to radio-like content beats the random AM or FM radio options.  There are a few pretty good birding podcasts available. Bird Chick has an entertaining and informative show, that I listen to from time to time.  The “This Birding Life” podcast from Birdwatcher’s Digest is probably my favorite. It’s a once-a-month podcast often featuring a well known birder or other naturalist.

I envision BirdBanter as a podcast where I can sit and talk with birders with stories to tell that will entertain and captivate the imagination of birders.  We will talk about places we’ve been, experiences we’ve had, and dreams we have yet to pursue.

I expect you’ll find Birdbanter something you look forward to hearing and will want to talk about with your friends.  If you have birders you’d like to hear from on BirdBanter, contact me using the Contact Page, or leave a comment with the suggestion. I’ll see if I can make it happen.

Good  birding.

A Drive to the Snow Today

This midday I was able to get out birding, and since I needed to go to Puyallup anyway I kept going east to Ashford hoping for maybe a Pine grosbeak, N. Pygmy owl or Townsend’s solitaire.  What I got was beautiful snowy scenery adn the dipper at the usual Elbe stop.  One was singing under the bridge in response to a recording, but didn’t come into view.  Another was far upstream and the only photos I could find the bird in were in flight.

Overall a nice drive on a cold snowy day.

Quick Outing for Glaucous Gull and Peregrine Falcon

Abut noon, also low tide, I dashed over to the 11th St. Bridge to look for the Glaucous gull, but it was not with thei 60-70 bathing gulls. While there I did manage a distant look at the Tacoma resident Peregrine falcon high on a brown building to the right of where it is often found on the tall white building with window ledges.
Since the GLGU was not at the bridge, I decided on a quick try at the Gog, and sure enough I got pretty nice looks at the gull on the roof with a large flock of big guys. I managed digiscope photos, but on trying with the camera, couldn’t see it and on looking back in the scope, it had moved out of sight.

This brings me to 74 for Pierce in 2018.

Chambers Bay Beach Access for Sanderling

Today, finally, after hoping for the last 2 days that the Sanderlings, found by Bruce Labar and since seen by seemingly all the other Pierce County birders, I got down to Chambers Bay to try for them. I was also hoping the Black turnstone Bruce had might still be around, but since others had not listed this bird I was doubtful.
It was pretty easy as the 3 juv. Sanderlings were with the small flock of WESA and LESA midway down the North Beach side. I could not find the SESA that others had seen, but was pretty happy with the Pierce FOY Sanderlings. They were obliging for photos too.

3 Juv. Sanderlng stretching their wings with WESA
Sanderling Juvenile

2 Sanderlings with a WESA

Pectoral Sandpiper at Levy Pond

I happened to check my email around noon and saw a very recent (hourly) eBird needs alert for Pierce County that Christopher Clark had seen a Pectoral sandpiper at Levy Pond. Kay and I headed right there, and the PESA was feeding near two Long-billed dowitchers on the sand bar. It moved around a from the near side to the far side and back while we were there. Good light and fairly close photos obtained. A good FOY Pierce bird for both of us.



Black Phoebe While Shorebirding

Today I made three quick stops, primarily looking for share birds while Kay was at her book club. At the Freeman Road mitigation the water is nearly dried up and not many birds left. At Levy Pond the mud was good, the SBDO remained, but otherwise just the usual peeps. At 56th St. Stormwater Ponds almost no shorebirds, but there was a Black phoebe perched and calling from the fence initially beside the back pond, but subsequently in various locations. Good things happen when you go birding.
I was pleased with the photos I was able to get, both digiscope initially, and with the camera once I walked closer. See them on my eBird list.