What a treat to get out birding with a group of birders yesterday for my Tahoma Audubon Birdathon and for a Pierce County Big day. I knew I missed the fellowship and camaraderie of birding with friends, but the reality of the lack of sharing the excitement and energy of finding birds with a great group of fellow birders really dawned on me as I headed out with Bruce LaBar, Will Brooks and Peter Wimberger on a Pierce Big Day yesterday May 7th. Birdathon is the primary fundraiser for the Tahoma Audubon Society each year, and interested readers can contribute on the TAS Birdathon Donate Page Here.
We made an effort at social distancing, driving 2 cars instead of 1, Bruce and I in his Corolla and Peter and Will in Peter’s Forester. We met at 4 AM at Puget Park, and saved about 13 of the allotted 15 minutes when a pair of Barred Owls called immediately and flew to us hooting and calling right overhead when I played a recording for about 5 seconds. From there we took a very different route than we have used in past May Pierce big day efforts.
In the past we have started the day in the Purdy/Fox Island area at the crack of dawn to look for seabirds. By this time in May most of the waterfowl, looks, and winter gulls have departed the south Puget Sound for their breeding areas. This year it seemed to us that they have departed a bit early and on scouting we had really struggled to find these species. That combined with great success in the last week in the foothills of Mt. Rainier near Greenwater prompted us to start there instead, hopefully adding more mountain species there than we might miss by skipping the early AM Fox Island bridge and DeMolay Spit stop. A nice side benefit was that it sounded like a lot more fun.
The mountains did not disappoint, driving up in a and the extraordinary birding skills of Will were at the leading edge there as they were all day. At the first stop on the bridge over the White River on FR 73 Will and I heard an American Dipper singing in the dark on a very quick stop. Moments later Bruce and I saw a Hermit Thrush on the road in the headlights, and the race to find species was on.
We made stops at the Elk Compound off FR 73 with highlights being a distant Pygmy Owl tooting, fly-over Red Crossbills and generally the dawn chorus. ON the way out we all got looks at the dipper by the bridge in daylight. The next stop was two clearcuts and a horse ranch on the Crystal River Ranch Road. We wracked up on woodpeckers, which can be challenging on a big day including Downy, Hairy, Pileated, Red-breasted Nuthatch, N. Flicker all seen easily, as well as swallows, flycatchers, several Townsend’s Solitaires, and just a nice variety of singing passerines. On at least two spots the more palpable than audible drumming of Ruffed Grouse were heard, and later on FR 70 more solitaires and a very distant booming Sooty Grouse interrupted the many MacGilvary’s Warblers and Townsend’s and Black-throated Gray Warbler songs.
We then raced back down Hwy 410, quickly listing Bank Swallows at the known sandpits just across the county line in Buckley. Stakeout birds generally cooperated. Will heard Lesser Goldfinch before we parked on Riverside Drive in Sumner, and we all got looks at several after stopping. Will also pointed out a Bullock’s Oriole that flew over giving most of us a brief glimpse of bright orange.
We missed Green Heron at the expected stop at Levy Pond in Fife, even taking time to walk all around the pond, but three flew across the Puyallup River and back while we were stopped at the traffic light there for a quick recovery of that tough to find species.
The storm water ponds on 56th Street in Puyallup largely disappointed, but we managed to add American Coots there, and then the flooded fields off Frank Albert in Fife came through nicely, adding Western, Spotted, and Solitary Sandpipers, Long-billed Dowicher, Cooper’s Hawk, Cinnamon Teal (a species that though usually difficult to find in Pierce County seemed everywhere on this date- with a high count of 7 later at the Mountain View Cemetery in Lakewood), Green-winged Teal, N. Shoveler, Gadwall, another singing oriole and three Lazuli Buntings singing and hiding in a small tree at the end of the hedge row. The Gog-li-hi-ti Mitigated Marsh didn’t add much on a quick stop. We missed the Tacoma Peregrine by the nest box downtown, and began our largely frustrating search for seabirds at the mouth of the Puyallup River, Thea Park, Ruston, Titlow, and later Steilacoom and McNeil Trail Overlook in Dupont. For all these stops we settled for Pigeon Guillemot, Marbled Murrelet and Rhinoceros Auklets all at Titlow, Western Grebes, a single very distant Pacific Loon seen only by Will in Steilacoom, along with Caspian Tern, Ring-billed Gull and little more.
A stop at the Mountain View Cemetery added Lesser Scaup, Mourning Dove, and maybe the surprise of the day a Sora doing its whinny call near the back of the marsh while we scoped for ducks.
We finished the day on JBLM by really finding almost everything we targeted and more. A distant singing Vesper Sparrow was seen and heard off Story Road as an estimated 200 Vaux’s Swifts flew behind us overhead, Western Bluebirds flitted all around, and our only American Kestrel of the day looked on. Last stops on the fort yielded a spontaneously calling Northern Bobwhite at Muck Creek, a Western Kingbird conveniently perched on a roadside building that Bruce and I drove by but Will and Peter stopped and called us back to see, a Hooded Merganser at a hidden pond beside a cutoff road that Bruce knew about, and Ringed-neck Ducks and were found at Chamber’s Lake. Bruce and I called it a day there, but Will and Peter managed the energy to go back to the far end of Chamber’s Lake and add their species #133 for the day, Western Wood-Pewee.
Overall this was a really spectacular day in many ways. The #133 species tied for 2nd in Bruce’s history of most species in a Pierce County Big Day. He has been doing them for about 3 decades. Only one day with 137 species by an all-star group years ago topped this total.
The what-if’s had us all thinking as the day ended. What if we had better luck on the sound. No Common Loon, Surf Scoter, Red-necked or Horned Grebe. Few alcids, few gulls… Maybe doing this route a week earlier would have added a few more migrants, got a few more lingering seabirds but missed only a few later arriving songbirds.
These are the thoughts that only a true birding fanatic can savor.
Anyway, I want to offer many thanks to all of you who donate to TAS in support of this effort. Stay safe, but find a way to get out birding.
