I’ve been laid low since Monday night with a flu-like illness, and today finally felt good enough to feel like some fresh air might help. I drove to Spanaway Marsh and took a pitifully slow stroll around looking for Pierce County FOY birds, found just 2, Wood Duck and Hutton’s Vireo, but not finding the hoped for Purple Finch, Red Crossbill, Virginia Rail or Band-tailed Pigeon. Overall just nice to pretend to feel well enough to go birding.
Author: Ed
A Day in Thurston and Pierce: Black Phoebe and Eurasian Green-winged Teal
Today Ken was finally feeling well enough to get out birding, and we met at 7AM at the I-5 / HWY 512 Park and Ride to try to track down some local eBird rarities and fill out our state and Pierce County year lists.
First stop was the American Lake Camp Murray Boat Launch where we saw three Canvasback that were WA FOY for Ken. Also had at least 120 Tree Swallows streaming across the water. Could not make any other species of swallows.
Next stop was Easterday Road trying for WTSP, not to be. Next was the Mount’s Road Tribal Turnout area where I located a Northern Shrike, we had a FOY Pierce County Sharp-shinned hawk for me, and we headed for Nisqually to look for the wintering RSHA.
No luck there with the hawk, but we did meet Brian Pendleton, and it was nice to see him again and bird there together. I got a FOY Red-breasted Sapsucker just before we headed back for the car, but no RSHA despite nearly 2 hours of searching.
From here we continued south a couple of miles to the Hawk’s Prairie Settling Ponds where a Black phoebe was calling loudly enough that we got on it immediately and spent a bit of time birding that area.
We spent so much time at Nisqually that we decided against treking to Longview to look for the NOMO there, and instead headed for Gog-li-hi-ti to look for the SBGU wintering there. On the way we detoured to Orting where we got Ken the wintering Trumpeter Swans (FOY for him) and made a quick stop at the Fife Levy Pone on the way to Gog-li-hi-ti.
At G-T-H-T and the 11th street bridge Gull bathing spot we had no luck looking for the SBGU, but we did find the Eurasian Green-winged teal that was located there over the weekend.
Last stop of the day was at Ruston Way where I was able to drive us straight to the location I had recently seen the immature Snow Goose and Ken added it to his year list.
We also saw a close in Pelagic Cormorant that was starting to get it’s breeding red face.
I got two WA FOY birds (RBSA and BLPH), one ABA FOY Bird (RBSA) and 8 Pierce FOY birds, DOWO, BUSH, YRWA, WEME, SSHA, BEWR, PISI, and TRSW. Ken added several FOY WA birds too.
Sunshine, birding with a great friend, and a day of total leisure. Life is good.
A Walk at Wildwood
Today Kay and I took an afternoon walk at Wildwood Park, near home. It was a sunny day and nice to get outdoors. We spent only about a half hour, and the best birds of the day were a pair of Brown Creepers, heard initially by me, sighted quickly by Kay, and eventually seen well by both of us. I was able to get Kay onto the single-note ultra-high pitched call notes. We got good chances to compare with the Golden-crowned kinglets heard before and after the creepers.
We also had a Pileated woodpecker working a big snag in the area near where we often get the nesting Barred owls.
Tomorrow off for a day in the field with Ken.
Black Scoter and Greater White-fronted Goose
Today I broke free from working on our rental for long enough to dash to Ruston Way to look for Black Scoter that he had seen there yesterday afternoon. They had been seen last weekend also. I first went to the Thea’s Park lookout over the waterway where they were seen yesterday, but none there. Next I went down Ruston Way to the spot just past the Chinese Reconciliation Project Pavillon where on first pass none were seen, but I turned around and they must have all been diving because six Black Scoter (eBird list) were very close to shore and in plain site I got digiscope photos before I had to head back to meet our roof repairmen.
I got that task done and decided to check out the Mountain View Cemetery. I was hoping to find a good flock of sparrows to see if maybe a White-throated or even Harris’s might be mixed in, but the oak area was very quiet. The good find of the stop though was a Greater White-fronted Goose with about 45 Canada Geese on the lower cemetery lawn.
A Brief Stop at Ruston Way in the Rain
Today after leaving our rental place in Tacoma Kay and I made two quick stops on the Ruston Way waterfront and before we turned in to park in the public lot beside the Lobster Shop had sighted the immature Snow Goose feeding on the lawn with a flock of Canada geese, and one stubby-billed smaller Cackling Goose. Barrow’s goldeneye, Brant’s and Pelagic Cormorants, a Pigeon Guillemot, Horned Grebe, Surf Scoters and Mew Gulls were the other species of note here and further on down near the new development and parked ship. This stop was a nice way to pass time until lunch from Infinite Soups, a great place for Vegan soups as well as many other soup options, and a glass of red wine from Corina Bakery and seeing a documentary about life in Irqn called Jafar Panahi’s Taxi at the Grand Cinema.
Tomorrow off to the Okanagan area with Ken’s birding class for a 3-day weekend foray. It will be his last class trip, as he is stepping down after leading this twice a year class for about 30 years!
2015 Wrap Up
2015 was a very eventful year for me. I retired at the end of August, my Dad passed in August, and I had both lots of time to travel and tried to accumulate a Pierce County year list.
Here were some of the birding highlights:
Pierce County: I got to know Bruce Labar much better this year. He was very helpful in showing me some new Pierce areas, sharing sightings, and having some fun birding together. Probably the best “new” area was the back route to Grand Park near Sunrise were we relocated American Three-toed and Black-backed Woodpeckers on a couple of hikes there in the summer, and I saw the “Park”, really a giant meadow, for the first time. It is really Grand. Mountain bluebirds everywhere, Golden Eagle soaring, vistas to enjoy, and great hikes. Other cool birds were Northern Pygmy Owl both on the hikes to Grand Meadow and early in the year at the Ashford Park, the female King Eider Bruce located on Ruston Way, Ruffed Grouse in Graham, a Black-bellied Plover in Tacoma at Alexander, and totaling 212 species for the year despite quite a few misses including no Black Scoter, missing a few rarer vagrants while travelling including the BTBW at Gog-li-hi-ti.
California: I spent a bit of time in CA this year, adding a couple of ABA lifers, Bell’s Sparrow and Yellow-footed gull at the Salton Sea.
Texas: Kay and I spent 2 weeks in Texas at the Lower Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival and a week following that. It was a great trip, with highlights of adding 7 ABA lifers for me. Maybe the coolest was the Northern Jacana at Choke Canyon.
Arizona: Bruce Labar and I spent 4 days in SE Arizona in Mid October, and had a delightful trip. The canyons there are just amazing, and although we missed on some targets including Montezuma quail and Rufous-crowned warbler, we did get great looks at the Sinaloa Wren, Tufted Flycatcher, Arizona Woodpecker and Lucifer Hummingbird. I was able to hear a distant Whiskered Screech Owl at Ramsey Canyon.
Cross-Country Drive: Kay and I drove Dad’s Lincoln MKX across country and had a nice though very hot trip in early September. We got to see a few cool off-peak season birding spots including MaGee Marsh in Ohio, and the Platte River in Kansas, but the only lifer of the trip was the introduced Eurasian Tree Sparrow near St. Louis.
Maine Whale Watching Trip: We got great looks at the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, but for birds the highlights were hundreds of Wilson’s Storm Petrels, and nice comparisons of Great Shearwater and Cory’s Shearwaters. Cory’s was a lifer for me.
Overall a really great birding year for me. I added 24 ABA lifers, the most in many years for me, far surpassed my initial goal of >200 Pierce County year birds, was in the top 100 ABA 2015 e-Bird listers, a total surprise to me pointed out by Diane Y-Q. I ranked 99th at 475 ABA species this year.
We also made trips to Nicaragua to visit Kay’s brother Keith, and I saw just 41 species in the time there, though not a birding trip. We did better in Yucatan, seeing 126 species there, including hundreds of American Flamingos at Rio Lagartos.
Next year my goal is to try to add 14 ABA species to get to 700 life species.
Happy New Years to all and good birding.
Pectoral and Snow Goose
Today Bruce texted me that he had 4 Pectoral Sandpipers at the 56th Street stormwater ponds, and I dashed right down. He had mentioned that the PESA was on the second pond, but when I got there no PESA, but a whitish goose was standing there with a Cackling goose. My first thought was that this was a “park goose” but it really looked like a Snow goose except for the darker body and wing feathering. I thought it was probably a juvenile Snow Goose and on further more careful evaluation I convinced myself of that ID. Check out this digiscope photo:
Then I walked back to the thrid pond where I was able to find two Pecoral Sandpipers.
Overall a great quick local stop, bringing me to 205 Pierce County species this year.
ABC Birding Trip to JBLM
Saturday Nathanael Swecker led a trip of 11 ABC birding club members to check out new areas and to learn to navigate part of his Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM) e-Bird patch. Nathanael has been very prominent in the Pierce County birding scene over the last couple of years with several posts most weeks from various areas of JBLM. Nathanael often finding birds the rest of us had no idea were available on the military post. He has focused his birding in the 3+ years since he became an avid birder on the JBLM ranges, and has decided to undertake studying and documenting on e-Bird the JBLM avifauna.
Ten ABC birders met Nathanael at 6AM at the Roy “Y” park-and-ride, where he showed us excellent topographic maps of the JBLM area, complete with range map borders, and gave us our agenda for the day. This is a link to the Range brochure with a simple map. To be allowed onto the JBLM ranges to bird it is first necessary to obtain a no-charge range pass from the JBLM Range Control Office. In order to know what areas are open birders need to check on the range control website to see what ranges are open.
Many of us have birded the Spanaway Marsh, but our first stop today was a look at this area from a completely different direction. Most birders access the marsh from the turn-around at the south end of 176th Street near the intersection with Pacific Ave. We instead went to the back of Training area 9. We took a right-hand turn just beyond the railroad crossing after the Roy Gate Road entrance to Chambers Lake. We entered there, then took one more right turn onto Transmission Line Road. This accessed the rear side of the marsh. This approach allows excellent places to view much bigger areas of open water on the marsh than are visible from the 176th St. approach., We saw Wood Ducks, barn swallows, and a good mix of autumn passerines.
Our next stop was at Chambers Lake. I learned that tis area is really just the area very close to the lake, and that many areas I had thought were all part of the Chambers Lake area are considered parts of other Training Areas that often are not open when Chambers Lake is listed as open. We took a nice walk on the road on the back side of the lake. This is found by taking a left off the main road past the water level control bridge, and after a short distance parking to walk the road right beside the lake. Like the back approach to Spanaway Marsh we had much better unobstructed water visibility than we could have from the front side of the lake. A minimum of 80 wood ducks, an unexpected flock of 8 Blue-winged teal, various other waterfowl, three Red-breasted sapsuckers, and a variety of other usual birds were seen here.
The third stop of the day was JBLM Area 15. This is a part of the larger area known as the 13th Division Prairie. Nathanael explained to us that the 13th Division Prairie covers much of 3 JBLM training areas. Typically area 14 is almost never open to visitors, and the access is often limited to only area 15 and sometimes area 13. Area 14 is the large open prairie area where JBLM biologists monitor the endangered Streaked subspecies of Horned Lark and limit access. In area 15 we found bluebirds, a Peregrine falcon hunted over area 14 visible from the road, and we found both Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks. We learned about ways to visit the Muck Creek riparian corridor from a vantage new to most of us.
We are grateful to Nathanael for showing us how he birds how his “patch” on JBLM I look forward to his promise to start a website on JBLM birding soon
You can see the e-bird lists for the trip. We totaled 58 species.