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.
A smippet of the shorebirds at Bottle Beach TodayToday Bruce LaBar and I led a trip for the Gray’s Harbor Shorebird Festival to the Bottle Beach, Tokeland and Westport area. Hear more about Bruce LaBar on The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #3. Gray’s Harbor is one of the 4 most important shorebird refueling stopovers on their northward spring migration from their southern wintering grounds to their arctic breeding locations. Western Sandpiper was probably the shorebird we saw in the highest numbers today.
Every year large percentages of the west coast Western Sandpipers, Short-billed Dowichers, Dunlin, Red Knots, and other species stop over at Gray’s Harbor, and especially in Bowerman Basin, to rest and feed to fatten up for their next leg of the migratory journey.
In the spring it is always good to have one shorebird that is unmistakable. The Dunlin, with its black belly and red back is tough to screw up ID in our area.
Their next stop in many cases is the Copper River Delta, and then on to the arctic. On the east coast the analogous areas are the Delaware Bay and Bay of Fundy. Today did not disappoint as we saw 15 species of shorebirds and thousands of individuals. There were about 34 birders loaded onto a school bus to get around, and we made 5 stops.
Whimbrel were at Tokeland in good numbers, and not seen again all day.
This year the high tide was about 3 PM, so we headed straight for Tokeland to look for birds there at low tide, hoping to catch the spectacle of Bottle Beach on an incoming tide in the early afternoon. At Tokeland, besides Nelson Crab House, where at least one birder had a crab cocktail before 9 AM, we saw 3 common species, Least Sandpiper, Western Sandpiper, Short-billed Dowitcher and Dunlin, and saw our only Whimbrel of the trip.
This Least Sandpiper with a Dungeoness Crab shell was the first close-look shorebird of the day at Tokeland.
In addition we saw and heard Purple Martins, and saw Common Loons in both basic and alternate (breeding) plumage. One breeding plumage Red-necked Grebe, Caspian Tern, a single distant Eurasian Wigeon, and a Peregrine Falcon on a channel marker were highlights. We totaled 31 species at this stop. `Here is the eBird link. https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S55869326
Barn Swallows were present at nearly every stop today.
A stop at Graveyard Spit added our first Red Knots and Ruddy Turnstones of the day, as well as a Greater Yellowlegs. The tide was quite low, and birds there were distant. Bruce and I tried to assure birders that we would have much closer looks at these birds at Bottle Beach, and we kept moving. Ebird list for this stop: https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S55869336
We saw Common Loons in both basic winter plumage, and like this one in Alternate breeding plumage.
From here we headed for Grayland Beach. Bruce had noted that the 2-day prior trip to the same areas had seen Snowy Plover at Grayland Beach, so we were hopeful to do likewise. This is at the very northern edge of its range, and Snowy Plovers struggle because they like to breed in the same areas people like to play with their dogs, their SUVs and hence breeding can be problematic for a species that builds a nest in the dry sand up on the beach. Still, we managed to see 3 Snowy Plover, along with spring Baird’s Sandpiper and a Red-necked Phalarope, both unexpected bonus birds for the trip. eBird list: https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S55869367
I like this Snowy Plover photo, not because it’s a good close-up, but because it shows how darn hard it is to see these little guys.
The primary reason this feastival works is because of the topography of Gray’s Harbor. It is a vast mudflat at low tide, that at high tide has very limited places for shorebirds to feed, congregating the birds into predictable areas for viewing. The best place used to be near the airport in Hoquiam, but as the sands have shifted, now Bottle Beach, across the harbor near Westport is much better.
More of the spectacle.
Yesterday I saw an estimated 6-7000 shorebirds there, and today there were less birds, but still a good show. We estimated over 1500 shorebirds, with close looks at all species seen as the tide pushed the birds in close to us for viewing. We estimated 80 Black-bellied Plover, 20 Semi-palmated Plover, 1 Marbled Godwit, 8 Ruddy Turnstone, 20 Red Knot (I had over 175 yesterday at the same location), 40 Sanderling, 250 Dunlin, 800 Western Sandpiper, 250 Shirt-billed Dowitcher, 25 Greater Yellowlegs, and 31 total species. eBird list: https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S55869287
Red Knots in the spring are a beautiful red. In the fall they resemble their European Name, Gray Knots, as they are a uniform gray-color. We are lucky to see them in Gray’s Harbor in their red outfits at this time of year.
We had time after Bottle Beach to retrace our track to the Westport Marina area where a Wandering Tattler was almost immediately found by Bruce on the rocks beside the viewing platform, another Red-necked Phalarope was seen by a couple birders, all 3 species of cormorant, Common Loons, and a very close and cooperative breeding plumage Rhinoceros Aucklet were the stars.
Wandering Tattler
Rhinoceros Aucklet, with its Rhino Horn from which it gets its name.
We got back to the Hoquiam Middle School by 4 PM with a trip list of 69 species. Everyone seemed to have a good time, Bruce shared some local history on the bus rides between stops, and I managed to stay awake all the way home. (jet lag still is kicking my butt)
Western GullsBaird’s Sandpiper, an uncommon spring adult.Caspian TernPigeon GuillemotsA distant Peregrine Falcon. Falcons enjoy the shorebirds in a different way.Semi-palmated Plover
Find Black-bellied Plover, Red Knot, Short-billed Dowicher, Ruddy Turnstone here.
Overall a great day. Good birding. Good day!
Today was a really pleasant day of birding in Morocco. After an open air breakfast on the roof of the inn, we headed to a park with a lake and woodlands called Dayet Aoua, where almost immediately we found good numbers of Hawfinch, lifers for many thought I’d seen Hawfinch in England in 2006 on a Rotary Friendship Exchange trip.
Hawfinch
We found lots of first birds for Morocco, including Eared Grebe (here called Black-necked Grebe) and a great look at a Great Spotted Woodpecker excavating a nest cavity. I got a good video of this species and posted it to my Facebook and Instagram pages, so not added here as a video. Here are a couple of still shots.
Great Spotted Woodpecker
The rest of the day was spent at other woodland areas, where we added Atlas Flycatcher with incredible ease. This can be a tough bird to find, and Mohammad had one before we got out of the bus
Our last trip bird today was a very distant scope look at a Northern Shoveler at a lake. We earlier got brief looks at Iberian Chifchaff.
We looked long and hard, but finally found two Desert Sparrows at a desert camel safari place.
Today we wrapped up the birding on the edge of the Sahara Desert by looking for and finding Desert Sparrow and Fulvous Chatterer. Both took more effort than expected, but we had great looks at the Sparrow, and brief in-flight looks at the Chatterer. Tomorrow we leave for a 6 hour drive to Ifrane, with birding stops along the way. I’ll simply put up some photos from today to show the day: Here are both the male and female Desert Sparrow.
Camels at the sparrow place.This is the color of Sahara Desert Sand.This fellow was a tough to see bird, Western Orphinean Warbler.European Kestrel, a bird we had seen every day until yeasterday. Today we started a new streak.After a good lunch stop we again visited the lake near Merzouga. The rest of the photos are from there.Marcus counted 4000+ Greater Flamingos.Across the lake the sand dunes were impressive.
One of many “dunes view” spots we saw today.
How nice today to have a day with lots of birding, less driving and what driving we did was in 4 wheel drive SUV in the desert, and finishing early for a swim. We are at a hotel in Merzouga, right on the edge of the Sahara. It is a place people come to play in the desert, and we did just that, American birder style.
A lunch spot in the shade under a bridge over a ‘”wadi” or a wash.
After a late breakfast at 7:30 we hopped into 4 SUVs, just Bruce, myself and our driver in ours, as for our group of 11 someone had an empty seat, and as Bruce and I had 2 of the 3 spotting scopes on the trip we got the spare seat. Greater Flamingos at Dayet Srij.
First stop was at a beautiful shallow lake near town where some years there is water. Lots this year, and an estimated 1500+ Greater Flamingos distracted us from seeing all the other cool shorebirds. We tore our eyes free to see lots though, including good looks, but no photos of Spotted Sandgrouse flying by and stopping on the shore. Sharing scopes prevented either of us from getting digiscope shots of them standing, and my inability to get on them with the camera in flight precluded flight shots. Still, really cool to see these lifers. Ruddy Shelducks and Mottled Teal with babies were great to see, and Ruff, Common Redshank and Greenshanks, Common and Kentish Plovers, Black and Gull-billed Terns, Little Stints, Black-winged Stilts, and much more gave quite a show. Still a common North American gull, Franklin’s Gull, rare in Morocco was the “hot” bird of the stop, found by Stephan Schlick and his tour group earlier this month.
Franklin’s Gull
After that we drove through the desert and saw Desert Warblers, Cream-colored Coursers, a Pharaoh Eagle Owl, and just enjoyed the desert. Highlight for me though was seeing Egyptian Nightjar. Mohammad, our in-country guide, along with the drivers have a network of local Bedouin shepherd families and they know birders want to see this species. They keep their eyes open, and after a few calls we raced to a remote family residence where a local woman pointed us right at the nightjars.
The group got good looks and then I snuck in for photos.
We finished the day driving to a sandstone cliff area, Escarpment au sud-ouest Tinegherass, where a Pharoah Eagle Owl nest was known to be, and we got great looks at this owl.
Pharoah Eagle OwlBedouin Home
Then back by 4:45 PM, a nice swim and a beer, and now off to dinner.
Good birding. Good Day!
On Day 4 our guide Mohammed and Michael took us to the high Atlas Mountains, to the Vallée d’Oukaïmeden Ski Area and the surrounding mountainside. The elevation when we got off the bus was 8547′ and we walked mostly uphill from there. Over the course of the day we walked 7.02 miles per the eBird tracker, and battled fog and cold most of the day. Despite the really tough weather viewing conditions we managed several good species of birds. Red-biilled Chough.
Both Chough species, Red-billed and Yellow-billed were all over the place. They are almost crow sized black birds with colored decurved bills. Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush
A Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush gave close up views. A female Blue Rock-Thrush was seen by all, and a male by a few. Black Redstarts were commmon. Rock Finch, or Rock Petronia before its name change, were abundant, with one flock of over 200 birds.
An old rock-built village
After an hour or so the fog really settled in and we battled, but heard a couple of flocks of Crimson-winged Finches flying about just overhead but invisible in the fog.
On the drive down the mountain two stops in steady rain yielded Eurasian Firecrest, European Treecreeper, Euripean Jay, and Coal Tit.
We stayed another night at Maharrech and again had great meals for dinner and breakfast at the Art Place. Up early to head for the coast on Day 5. Northern Bald Ibis
Day 5 birding was in coastal scrub habitat. Not really desert, but pretty close, with dry sandy soil and scrub-thorn type vegitation. The birding was spectacular. We made our first stop for a potty about 9 AM after leaving about 7 AM and Jay, one of the people on the tour found a Rufous-tailed Scrub-robin in the adjacent vacant lot. At least 6 were zipping about and posing for photos.
Rufous-tailed Scrub-Robin
Next stop was at a fishing port called Port dÉssaouria, where the primary goal was to see Eleanor’s Falcon, a Peregrine look-alike that breeds on an island nearby and we saw 3 seeming to hunt in a line, chasing Rock Pigeons. We also saw the Moroccan race of Great Cormorant, lots of Yellow-legged Gulls and then walked out to a nearby river mouth. There we saw the European race of Sandwich Tern. No yellow tip on the bill of this race. Ruddy Shelduck
Funny line, Heather Ballash, one of the Tacoma contingent on the trip, remembers this species as having mustard on the tip of its bill, a memory aide to the sandwich name. Does not work here. We also saw a Moussiere’s Redstart.
Next was another river mouth for Ruddy Shelduck, Audouin’s Gull, and the Moroccan race of White Wagtail.
Northern Bald Ibis
Next a spectacular roadside stop to see Northern Bald Ibis. This species was nearly extinct when a local preserve was set up and it is recovering
We finished with a seawatch at Cap Rhir where we all saw Balearoic Shearwater at a distance, and Bruce found a Great Skua.
Closer look at Ruddy Shelduck.
Staying at a nice hotel in Agadir, and headed out locally tomorrow.
