Author: birdbanter

Birthday Birding 2021


I had a great 2-day 67th birthday birding experience. On my birthday I had planned to head to the coast about 12:45 PM when Paul Baerny was meeting me at my house, and we were to head toward Westport with a stop to pick up Ken Brown at McCleary. About 11 AM the GroupMe Pierce County Mafia group started going wild. It began with Will Brooks telling us he had a Long-tailed Jaeger at Dune Peninsula, only 2 miles from home. I waffled about going, as I’d seen this species just a few days ago also with Will at Dunes, but decided to make a quick dash down for the bird.
On arrival there Bruce, Marcus, and Heather were already there, and in addition to the STJA had Common Terns. After some looking I managed to see the 3 COTE standing on a long in the distance. Then Heather spotted a dark shearwater making its way towards us coming down the passage between Dash Point and Vashon. We all got on it and followed it for a long time as it flew towards us and finally all the way across in front of Vashon and off towards the narrows. It was dark, minimal if any white/silver wing linings, seemed to have a small bill and Will and Charlie (up above on the gravel parking lot) confidently called it a STSH. County lifer for all! I had to leave for the coast trip, but two more STSH made a similar flight in the next couple of hours.

The Bar-tailed Godwit is the grayer paler bird with the strong eyebrow line mixed in with all the Marbled Godwits. Where’s Waldo?

I got home, had lunch, and then Paul and I headed west, picked up Ken, and went first to Westport. A few godwits were at their roost on the jetty by the marina entrance, but not the desired Bar-tailed Godwit, just maybe 110 Marbled Godwits. We went over the marina dock area, managed two Wandering Tattlers on the groin rocks (FOY for Ken) and then walked out the docks to the bridge area where most of the godwits were roosting on the sandy beach right below us. This was maybe the closest look I’ve had at a BTGO, one worn adult with the large flock of MAGOs, as well as one Whimbrel and one Willet.
Bar-tailed Godwit


One more time.

After a not-so-great vegetarian fajita dinner (frozen veges) we headed to Bottle Beach for high tide. Lots of Black-bellied and Semipalmated Plovers, peeps and not much more really there. A nice sunset though.

We met at the boat at 6 AM Sept 3, and headed to sea in a pretty dense fog that lasted until about noon, making seeing much difficult. A FOY Pomarine Jaeger was maybe the best bird of the morning trip out. We did manage a shrimp boat with a nice flock of birds headed out, but photo ops were limited by fog. We kept going out to the continental shelf, and set up the least productive slick I’ve ever witnessed. For a half hour birds just didn’t come to the fish oil and beef suet slick at all. A Long-tailed Jaeger did fly past, for the only one of the trip, but really slow.
On the ride back in we found the same shrimper, after the sun came out and the fog lifted. It was really great, with tons of birds. See the photo at the top of this post for an idea of the numbers. Here are some photos of some of them.
Buller’s Shearwater


Northern Fulmar

Flesh-footed Shearwater. This species is the same size and shape as a Pink-footed Shearwater, i.e. big and heavy looking, but is all dark except for the bill.

Sabine’s Gull

Pink-footed Shearwater

Poor photo of a Fork-tailed Storm Petrel.

We continued to port, seeing lots of Common Murre, several Cassin’s Aucklets and lots more Short-tailed and Sooty Shearwaters on the way. It was a remarkable trip for many reasons. The biggest was that Brian Pendleton was onboard. Brian arranged this trip to allow him to get to sea this year. Brian is a very talented birder, but has been living with a form of ALS for years. At this time he is restricted to a wheelchair, and is unable to hold optics at all. In spite of this he managed to get on every species we saw bare-eyed, and inspired everyone aboard with his tenacity, talent and spirit.
Short-tailed shearwaters were also remarkable in their huge numbers. Once into deeper water they far outnumbered Sooty Shearwaters, and gave us great opportunities to compare these two very similar species.
Short-tailed Shearwater

Overall a great birding start to my 68th trip around the sun.

The Bird Banter Podcast #110 with Andy Stepniewski Additional Information.

On the Bird Banter Podcast #110 with Andy Stepniewski we delve into the shrub-steppe habitat that Andy is so intimate with, as well as his work on the fabulous Birder’s Guide to Washington that is available free online. This book has been a great resource in both the first and second editions, and Andy talks about the genesis of his interest in site guides that go back to having Jim Lane as a mentor in his early birding years. Birders have likely used the “Lane Guides” now published as the ABA Bird Finding Guides series of which the Birder’s Guide to Washington is a part.
I remember when Andy came to Tacoma to talk with our ABC Birding Club about the shrub-steppe habitat. It was a great presentation, here is a link to the blog post about the presentation. Here is a link to the trip report from the field trip the following spring that I lament missing. Andy talks also about the issues with weeds in the habitat, leading to wildfires that are devastating, especially given the many decades that it takes to grow mature sagebrush, and the carpet of cheat grass that has replaced the native bunchgrass in many areas. The carpet of invasive weeds leads to carpet fires that cover gigantic areas.
I enjoyed the podcast on Bird Notes about the challenges to Greater Sage Grouse that talk at length about habitat issues. Check out the 8-part series here.
Andy also wrote the Birds of Yakima County that is still available on Amazon and elsewhere. If you just read the introduction part you get a real feel for how intimate Andy is with the intricacies of this habitat, the birds and other critters that rely on it. I said on the podcast episode that I’d give a link to the findings of the Audubon study of shrub steppe in WA. The best I can provide is a good article on the Audubon site by Kim Thornburn and a video.

One thing we did not talk about on the podcast is Andy’s time in Alaska and his early life threatening experiences. You can read about these here. Do you know anyone else who has survived a grizzly bear attack and a fall through an ice bridge over a mountain crevasse? Not me!
For listeners for outside WA who don’t know where Yakima County is located, here is a county map of WA. Yakima County is on the north shore of the Columbia River and includes lots of habitat in the Columbia basin as well as neighboring ridges and valleys.

Here are links to some of the episodes I mentioned in this episode with
Will Brooks
Peter Wimberger
Thanks again for listening.
Good birding and good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast #109 with Jason Vassallo Additional Info.

On The Bird Banter Podcast #109 Jason Vassallo and I talk about his 2021 Continental ABA Big Year, his birding story, and more.
For me hearing and talking about places I’ve been birding as well as places I hope to go birding that Jason has visited during his year made for terrific fun.
Check out and follow Jason on his Instagram feed Jason2021BigYear

Jason started his big year with the Snowy Owl that spent much of the winter roosting on the rooftops of Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. That bird was the first Snowy Owl that my girlfriend Marian had seen. Last year we was a SNOW that was maybe 1.5 miles away through a scope near Atkin’s Lake in eastern WA. This bird was much more obliging.

The Queen Anne Snowy Owl

We talk about the Red-billed Tropicbird that has spent it’s summers on Vinylhaven Island off the coast of Maine. This is a remarkable bird. I think this may be the 17th consecutive summer it’s been seen there.
The Red-billed Tropicbird I saw at Vinylhaven with my brother Bill and his wife Carol 6-20-2018.

We also talk about his hike to see the Himalayan Snowcock in the Ruby Mountains. This photo is pretty much how the bird looks to most ABA birders who get to see it high on the mountain ridges. This is digiscoped on our visit in

This is how the Himalayan Snowcock looks at great distance.

Many of you may share the feeling that the memories, experiences, and people that bless our lives doing the things we love to do are really what it’s all about.

Here are links to some of the episodes I talk about in the introduction to this episode

Episode # 5 with Dorian Anderson of Biking for the Birds fame.

Hear more about birding Neah Bay on Episode # 34 with Brad Waggoner and Episode # 53 with Ryan Merrill

Here is a link to my episode with Will Brooks who has a great Washington State list going so far this year.

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and please subscribe to hear future conversations with great guests. Until next time. Good birding and Good Day!

The Bird Banter Podcast #108 with Sophie Wickham Additional Info.


I hope you enjoyed hearing from Sophie Wickham, the warden at the Holme Bird Observatory, who is my guest of The Bird Banter Podcast #108. Enjoy her British accent as we talk about her job there, her career path to get to her current position, and the Bird Observatory system in general. We also touch on how Brexit has impacted the support of wildlife conservation in England so far, and the concerns of conservationists in Great Britain about this issue.
Here is a map of the Bird Observatories in England.
Here is The Norfolk Ornithologists Association website.
Here is a link to the British Trust for Ornithology website. It is a really comprehensive resource, maybe more so than our ABA website.
Here is an article addressing conservation and habitat issues post Brexit on the Bat Conservation Trust website.
I mentioned the Science article about the decline in bird populations over the last half century, so here is a link to that article.
Sophie talks about Willow Warblers on the episode. Old world warblers are a bit different from our New World Wood Warblers. Here is a link to Birds of the World for Willow Warbler. In my limited experience warbler ID in Europe, Asia and Africa is not easy.
Thanks for listening. Until next time, good birding and good day.

The Bird Banter Podcast #107 with David Waters Additional Info.


When I met David Waters at his home in 2014 with my wife Kay, we had a great time hearing his stories about crazy trips to China to get Great Bustard eggs from nests disturbed by agriculture, the waiting, the chases to collective farms to get the eggs, the negotiations and issues dealing with both Russian and English governmental agencies, and about dressing up in silly costumes to feed and care for the chicks. It was also fun to see the captive birds in his yard.
Talking with him on the podcast was a great chance to reminisce and catch up, as well as to learn about the project in a more intentional way.
Check out the Great Bustard Reintroduction Project page to find out lots more about these birds. They are large birds, with males as tall as 3’-5” and the heaviest recorded specimen is a male from Manchuria at 21kg, making it the heaviest flying bird in the world.
I saw Kori Bustards while visiting Kenya a few years ago as well as Buff-crested and Black-bellied Bustards. The Kori is also a very large bird.
If you get a chance visit the Salisbury Plain check out the Great Bustards there.
Until next time, good birding and good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast #106 with The Birding Show Hosts

The Birder’s Show is a high quality nature show specifically but not exclusively for and by birders. It is produced by a company called Where Next who produced a previous show called The Birders featuring Diego Calderón and a videographer on the Northern Colombia Birding Trail. Diego and co-host of the show Chris Bell are my guests on this episode, and were fabulously fun to talk with for the episode.

Here is a tiny segment of one of their shows, that they break out and call “Chirps” on their You Tube Channel

I love the relaxed style, interactive banter, and beautifully mixed video of the hosts and guest with bird video footage, maps, and explanatory visuals all combined very adeptly.

Red-headed Barbet that I saw on a recent trip to Costa Rica.

I cannot wait to get out birding with Diego in Colombia. I learned that it is only a 1-hour flight from Costa Rica to Medellin, Colombia where he is based, so on a visit to see Jean soon I hope to add on a visit there with his tour group Birding Colombia.

Diego and Chris are relaxed, having fun, and very entertaining on their show. I think that joy of birding and friendship comes through really well on their show, and also on our podcast episode. Birding friends and fellowship are a big part of the hobby, and Diego and Chris are a great example.

Please leave comments or contact me with suggestions for future guests or people you’d like to hear from. Thanks again.
Until next time. Good birding and good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast #105 with Melissa Hafting Additional Info.

On this episode I talk with Melissa Hafting, a terrific young Canadian birder from near Vancouver, B.C. We talk about her excellent work with young birders in B.C., her birding experiences and her work with the B.C. rare bird alert.

Melissa was featured on the ABA Podcast’s “All Canada” episode recently and represented the western part of Canada very nicely. Check it out and I suspect you’ll enjoy hearing more about the great birding found across Canada. Many of the birds that we U.S. birders enjoy seeing in migration depend on the boreal forests, Arctic tundra and vast grasslands for their breeding areas.

You can find the B.C. Rare Bird Alert here. Melissa also has a blog you can find here as Dare to Bird.

She is also a fine photographer and you can find much of her work on her instagram page @bcbirdergirl

It was a real treat to get to know Melissa a bit better as we talked. I look forward to seeing her again in the field soon.

Until next time. Good birding and good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast #104 with R. Bruce Richardson Additional Info.


There are birding big years, where the stated object is to find the highest possible number of species in a given area in a calendar year. These are relatively common and there have been lots of birders who have done these and written books about their year. Some of my prior guests have done variations on this theme. Dorian Anderson on Episode #5 did his Biking for the Birds big year. Lynn Barber in Episode #79 did big years in Texas and Alaska as well as an ABA big year, and wrote two books about these endeavors.
My guest this episode is R. Bruce Richardson. He and his wife took on birding during a year of travel around Australia. Bruce is also a songwriter, entertainer, comedian, and all-around funny guy. I bought the book right after we recorded the episode, and am loving it so far. Buy it here on his website.


I knew that Australia is a big land mass, and in the front of his book he shows how the size of the lower 48 U.S. states approximates the size of Australia with map overlays. It is a cool visual. I also didn’t think of Australia as a place with lots of Parrots. I cannot find an easy answer to how many extant species of parrots are wild in Australia vs the Americas, but certainly both areas have a lot.
I thought that this would be a great place to embed a few of R Bruce’s You Tube funny songs.

Also of course a link to his book on Amazon: An Australian Birding Year

I hope you enjoyed the episode. Please leave comments or suggestions.
Thanks for listening.
Good birding and good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast #103: Birding with Friends

Birding alone, or in very small groups has kept many of us occupied during the Covid-19 pandemic, but birding with friends is fun and has been sorely missed by many of us. In Tacoma we have a local birding club, ABC Birding, and prior to Covid met monthly with programs and social time, and had field trips fairly regularly.
Now that the vaccine is available and travel and meeting restrictions have been relaxed a group of ABC birders took the opportunity to strike off for the Northeast corner of WA, a place where species more common in the eastern U.S. and Canada can be found regularly.

Sibley app range map of Northern Waterthrush.

We had a great time, and I really enjoyed birding with old friends and a new friend, Jacob Miller. Jacob is just 16, and is a really proficient young birder who added energy and talent to our otherwise much older group. You’ll hear about our birding club, my thoughts on birding with friends, on mentorship, and about the trip itself.
A Ferruginous Hawk seen on the drive home.
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See the ABC Birding site for a more detailed trip report, and thanks for listening. I have some great guests in the near future, and will be back to my more usual format with these guest in future posts.
Until then, thanks for listening. Good birding and good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast #102 with Russell Rogers additional info.


Russell Rogers out hunting beetles.

On the Bird Banter Podcast #102 with Russell Rogers you’ll hear the story of a top birder who has changed the primary focus of his study from birds to beetles. Did you know that beetles, the order Cleoptera, are the largest order in the insect class of animals? There are something line 600,000+ species of insects in the class, and they can frequently be exceedingly difficult to ID to species. Birders have to leave an occasional gull or empid as sp. but beetle identification apparently ends at genus much more often. Imaging having to dissect into the abdomen of a beetle only 2 mm in length to find the genitalia which are osseous, dissolve away the soft body parts with potassium hydroxide, and hope you can then ID the bug? Russell enjoys this type of challenge. Shorebirds and immature gulls were among his favorite bird ID subjects, and he loves the puzzle of beetle identification.
Beetles can be tiny, huge, brillintly colored or drab and easily missed. Here are a few photos Russell shared.



Listen to learn about a website called BugGuide.net where you can find nearly every North American bug with photos and often much more info for identification help. Also hear about Russell’s time birding in WA, his difficulty with dyslexia and ADD in his youth, and overcoming those challenges to become a career naturalist.
I remember a field trip with Seattle Audubon to North Central WA in the winter that Russell helped lead. His penchant for seeing Northern Pygmy Owls at impossible distances while driving the van still brings back amazing memories for me.
You can reach out to Russell by email at rrogers-at-olypen-dot-com
Thanks for listening.
Good birding and good day!