County Birding has becoome my way of expanding my birding experiences in WA over the last couple of years. In the winter of 2019 Ken, Brian, Ryan and I took a 4-day trip to the far Southeast corner of the state to get the gray our of our county maps on eBird. By this I mean that when you look at the profile page of an eBird users profile page, areas with no sigtings are colored gray. The color changes by the number of species reported. For me the last 3 states without reported sightings were Asotin, Columbia and Garfield. We birded those three areas and that got color over the whole state. It seems like that visual has been removed in favor of a list of counties and information about birds seen in each county with the latest upgrade to eBird, so that visual is gone, but we joked about it at the time.
This week Ken took me birding on Wednesday in Mason County. I sent him my eBird Needs list and he thought I could find maybe 8 first county birds on the fabulous route he planned. We met a little after 7 AM and headed for Belfair State Park. It is good shorebird area where I expected to find Western Sandpiper, and we hoped for a Semi-palmated Sandpiper. I havn’t birded the county in shorebird migration before, so both would be first county birds for me. Western was easy, along with lots of Least Sandpipers, but as we looked around I spotted the head of a larger sandpiper just over the vegitation farther away. I thought dowitdher by size and behavior, and sure enough it was the FOY Long-billed Dowicher for Ken and a county first for me. Ken did his first victory dance of the day.
A quick stop at East Adler Road added no new species, but Bayshore Preserve had all the finds Ken hoped for and more. He thought we could find California Scrub Jay, Chipping Sparrow, and Brown Creeper, and with some effort we added all of these, but on the walk out Ken spotted an owl in a tree, his county first Barn Owl. Owls are always special, and we got great looks and Ken added a Mason County lifer. Completely unexpected. A flyover Red Crossbill was also sweet.
The tide was too low to see much at the Hwy 106 Skykomish Delta Overlook, and a brief stop at Hunter farms didn’t yield the hoped for American Kestrel, but we made our day great at Potlatch State Park. Marbled Murrelet was the target county first for me. We looked a full bay scan and found little, but on the second pass Ken spotted a not-too-distant MAMU. Then, way out in the bay Ken spotted a huge brown bird, and though ?Brown Pelican? We both got scopes focused and sure enough there was a Brown Pelican floating in the water. It may be only the 3rd or 4th county sighting of this species, another county first for Ken, bringing his county life list to 199. We were really pumped, and as I watched the pelican a Common Murre flew right through my binos view. I called it out, and Ken couldn’t believe it. I was certain, it’s an easy ID when seen well in flight, a black head, breast and back with a sharply demarkeded gleeming white belly and alcid flight and shape. We looked for a bit and it had circled back and landed on the water in the distance, so presto! Mason lifeer #200 for Ken, and it wasn’t even noon yet.
We finished up the day with stops at North Sunnyside Road where we got my county first Cassin’s Vireo and American Kestrel, and I got to meet Ryan , a very good young birder who lives on that road with his family on a large farm, and then went on to stops at Forest Road 2340 and finished at the George Adams Salmon Hatchery where two adult American Dippers were looking after a young bird.
All-in-all a spectacular day, 12 county first for me, 3 county lifers and 4 FOY birds for Ken, and a really fine day of birding with a good buddy. Life is good.
Good birding and good day.