Observations of the passing seasons |
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2003 - April - March - February - January - Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge visit, March 2001
- Insiders' Guide to the Olympic Peninsula - Creeping with Utah Nature Study Society - Tidepool - Association for the Study of Literature and Environment
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We returned to Titlow Beach today to find more Double-crested Cormorants than yesterday, but not nearly as many birds in general in the area. One funny note is that a pair of Canada Geese that were sitting on piling on the right side of the main cluster yesterday were flying in and landing in the same place this evening. The shot above shows a few cormorant sitting on the piling as I took the shot under gray skies...
Natalie and I are starting to make regular trips to Titlow Beach to see when the Purple Martins will return to the nesting boxes there. Why? We are getting the permission and everything set up to start taking care of the martin boxes and nesting tubes - something we have been thinking about since last summer when we would go down and see the nesting Purple Martins and noticed how run down the boxes are right now. So far the martins are not present, but we did enjoy some good birding among a host of other people gathered in the spring sunshine. Double-crested Cormorant like the one in the photo above were on many of the pilings that stick out of the Tacoma Narrows at this place that was once a boat landing used by the Mosquito Fleet. Besides cormorants there are Western Grebe, Barrow's Goldeneye, gulls, and the ubiquitous European Starling and House Sparrows...
The second day of our swing through the northern Columbia Basin was awesome. Long-billed Curlew, Cliff Swallows, Loggerhead Shrike, and a Yellow-billed Loon below the outlet from the Wanapum Dam were some of the highlights as we drove from where we stayed in Moses Lake back south to check out and do some book research in the Seeps Lakes Wildlife Area, and then to drive through the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge before going down Lower Crab Creek to the Columbia River and then heading home along Old Vantage Highway. It was a day for dramatic weather, including threatening thundershowers along Crab Creek where I took the shot of a Western Meadowlark above, and then driving through a spring snowfall along I-90 as we headed up and over Snoqualmie Pass on the way home...
Natalie and I set out along with her parents this morning on a cross-state road trip to visit the Sandhill Crane Festival in Othello in the center of Eastern Washington. This is the second year in a row that we have attended the festival, though this time my focus was more on birding and taking in the natural sites around this part of the Columbia Basin rather than attending a ton of sessions at the festival. We did attend a couple of sessions - the first was a bust because the video projector wasn't working for a presentation about the grouse species seen by Lewis and Clark during their expedition. The two we did attend were one about Lewis and Clark and another about forgotten trails in the areas around the Columbia Basin. Before we even arrived at the festival we did some birding along Corfu Road, where hundreds of Sandhill Cranes like those in the photo above were feeding in a corn field when we arrived around 10 a.m. This was great to see, but what really had Natalie and I hopping was viewing a raptor flying low and fast over the terrain that I at first thought was some kind of falcon. It had the ink-dipped black wingtips of a Northern Harrier but was missing some of the other markings of a harrier. It took Natalie and I some time and observation to decide it was indeed a harrier that had abnormal plumage.
After leaving the festival for lunch in the afternoon we drove to the northwest to Dodson Road and then over to the Potholes Wildlife Area. It was near the end of the lower road at Potholes where we spent time watching a photographing a porcupine that was sunning itself on a tree branch. It was amazing to see one of these mammals so early in the year, since last year we saw two porcupines within one day in the late summer in Southeastern Washington. It was funny seeing a porcupine also because Natalie and I were commenting to each other on our last trip to Eastern Washington that it was so much harder to see mammals on these trips across the state than it is to find birds. Ironically, we didn't see a ton of birds at Potholes on this visit. There were Great Blue Herons sitting on their nests in the trees, plenty of American Coots in the waters around the area, a Western Grebe, and Violet-green Swallows swooping overhead. We ended the day with the highlight of the day - an attempt to view a bird cyclone over the fields along Corfu Road as the sun set behind the Cascade Mountains. Last year we saw thousands of ducks, geese, and cranes circling over this field after the sun went down and tonight we saw more of the same, though the numbers of birds were smaller than last year. The cyclone starts with the Sandhill Cranes taking off in waves, rising over the field and circling and then flying toward the northwest on their overnight migration. Some of the ducks and geese take off along with the cranes and fly for a little while before realizing they are with the wrong group, then they double back and join the thousands of ducks and geese streaming in from the west as the day fades rapidly to night. The air is full of the sounds of birds, and even with a smaller number of birds it was again an impressive sight!
The bright yellow hues of the forsythia bush blooming next to our front door is as good a sign as any that spring is officially here in Puget Sound country!
Our yard is alive with birds feeding in the off-and-on rain. In what has been a dark day, both in terms of the available light outside and in terms of the war about to begin half a world away in Iraq, the bird life in Puget Sound country is pre-occupied with other things - breeding, feeding, and defending territory. For the first time in a long while I have seen both Golden-crowned and White-crowned Sparrows feeding in the yard, with the Golden-crowned Sparrows eating the tender sunflower sprouts that are coming up in the debris underneath the bird feeders. While these sparrows eat, a more wary Song Sparrow pops into the scene from the taller grass behind the feeders, and in the foreground just outside the living room window I catch a glimpse of a hummingbird nectaring at the rosemary blooms. My view of the hummingbird is so fleeting that I can't be sure of the species, though if I had to guess I would say it was a male Rufous Hummingbird. All of this activity is quite a contrast to the lack of birds in the yard a couple of days ago, when the sun was out and it looked like a bright spring day. I can always count on seeing more bird life on these dark, drizzling days than on the sunny days when the birds are off feeding on insects, courting, and starting the process of nest building. Meanwhile, the yard is bursting out in more blooms. The forsythia is in full bloom, and the red flowering currant shown in the close-up photo above is about to provide the best hummingbird blooms in the yard. I ended my short survey of the yard by pulling some weeds from around the garlic that is growing in one of our front yard garden beds. Sometime soon when the rain stops I will plant the potatoes and other plants we bought yesterday at a local nursery. But for today, I am heading back in the house and watching and listening to the news of war in the Middle East. Such sad news for such a glorious spring day... We finished our birding swing through Southwest Washington today by doing research along Dike Access Road near the town of Woodland, nestled in between the Columbia River and the Lewis River, and then driving the auto loop at the River "S" Unit at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. Today we were birding with Natalie's parents and throughout the day we saw 58 species, including all of the swallow species normally found in this part of the state! Spring is definitely here when we can see Violet-green, Tree, Barn, and Northern Rough-winged Swallows all in one place! The most impressive sighting of the day was actually pretty pedestrian. While we were finishing our drive around the auto loop at Ridgefield NWR, we stopped to watch a Red-tailed Hawk sitting on a dike just across a small water-filled ditch from our car. I didn't even have time to focus my binoculars on the hawk before it sprung into the air and lunged into the tall grass just a few feet from the car. It was making an attempt for dinner but it didn't appear to catch anything. We watched for a minute or two and I snapped some photos, trying to get close-up views of the hawk's eye between the blades of grass while using Natalie's Canon SLR camera. Since we were shooting slides, I don't know how the shots turned out. Fingers crossed... American Coots and Northern Shovelers were everywhere at the Ridgefield NWR, but we were too early to find any warblers other than some Yellow-rumped Warblers, and the fields are still too flooded to give a decent chance for a close view of American Bittern or Sora. Maybe next month.
What a great way to spend the day! Natalie and I returned to heavy-duty birding and book research with a swing along the Southwest Washington coast en route to spending the night at Natalie's parents' home in Longview. Along the way, after making visits to John's River, the Bottle Beach area, Westport, and the Julia Butler Hansen National Wildlife Refuge for the Columbia White-tailed Deer, we added 19 bird species to our growing list of Washington state sightings for the year. The Marbled Godwit in the photo above, taken at the Tokeland Marina, was just one of the new birds for the year. We also watched two Snowy Plover on the beach at Westhaven State Park at Westport, a flock of 25 immature Black-bellied Plover in the freshwater wetlands at Ocosta Third Street, and a single Willet with the 250 or so godwits at Tokeland. It was a great day for birding with rain showers passing through, but it was cold at the coast and a heavy surf warning along with gale force wind warnings meant it was not a great day for walking in the sand. Probably our best birding of the day was split between Westport in the early afternoon and then the stop at Julia Butler Hansen in the evening. At JBH we were able to find and watch the Black Phoebe near the refuge office and we saw four White-tailed Kite hunting over the wetlands. It felt good to get on the road again. In all we saw 64 species of birds for the day, including our first Turkey Vultures of the spring!
More blooms are gracing the front yard each day, with these grape hyacinth being some of the latest additions along the small rock wall that marks the southern edge of our small urban yard. Every since Friday afternoon when I saw three Anna's Hummingbirds at our living room window feeder at one time I have been keeping a close eye on the hummingbirds in our yard...so close in fact that Natalie has joined and named the immature male with patches of red coming in under its bill and across the top of its head as Patch. We also have infrequent visits from an adult male Anna's Hummingbird and at least one female. Friday I looked out the dining room window and watched the female hovering like it was trying to eat something on the branches of the snowball bush. I thought about this behavior for a while after the hummingbird left and it dawned on my that what I was seeing was the hummingbird gathering lichen and moss from the bush to be used in the construction of its nest. Now I wonder where the little hummer is nesting? The other main backyard bird observation over the last few days has been increasing numbers of birds - House Finches mainly - that are showing signs of deformities. One has a badly damaged and bulging eye and another has a large growth on its leg. The latter bird is very lethargic and always lands and then stays in one place for a long time without flitting around like the other finches. After going a year without seeing birds with physical problems it is interesting to see two birds with problems in the same week... As we were sitting at the Antique Sandwich Shop near Point Defiance Park this afternoon, listening to the music performed live at Classical Sunday, we compiled the number of bird species we have seen in Washington so far this year. Our total to date: 110 species. And our latest species came today when we saw a Rufous Hummingbird at the livingroom window feeder! |
