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Week Forty-nine, February 18-24, 2002

Sunday, February 24, 2002

Sunshine greeted us on the second day of our birding research weekend, and surprisingly enough, even though we covered more ground, I think that the bird watching was actually better yesterday than today. We made our first stop at the Hoquiam Sewer Treatment Ponds to check out the waterfowl that hang out there, then we headed south to the other edge of Grays Harbor to make stops at the John's River Wildlife Area, Bottle Beach, Westport, Grayland Beach State Park and Tokeland - making a loop before doubling back to Aberdeen for a quick sunset drive around Brady Loop.

The numbers and types of birds we found while doing our research were limited today because we arrived at many sites when the tide was at its low point. At Bottle Beach, which is one of the better shorebird spots in Grays Harbor, the tide was so far out that all we could see with the naked eye was a couple hundred yards of tidal mudflats stretching out into the harbor. But a little bit east of Bottle Beach we were surprised by the walking trail and habitat around John's River, a Washington Department of Fisheries and Wildlife site. The photo above shows the John's River marsh from the east side of the river.

Saturday, February 23, 2002

Natalie and I chalked up another good day of bird book research today, despite heavy rains that soaked us and had me wondering if leaving around noon to do our research and photography was a bad idea. By nightfall we had visited two sites for our upcoming book - McLane Creek near Olympia and the Mima Mounds Natural Area near where I grew up on the prairie southwest of Olympia. And the real treat was the nearly an hour spent watching a white-tailed kite as it hunted and then sat in the top of a small fir tree about 300- to 400-yards away from us at the western edge of the dimpled prairie.

The day didn't start out with such exulted status. When we pulled up to the parking lot at McLane Creek it was pouring down rain. The surface of the beaver-dammed ponds that are the main feature of the nature area was dancing with raindrops and there weren't many birds out to face the weather. But I did get the photo above of a redwing blackbird on top of a snag in the middle of the pond with the mists blowing by to obscure the mountains in the distance - a quintessential Pacific Northwest scene. Natalie and I only managed to stay in the wet at McLane Creek for a few minutes before we rushed back to the car, and then when we went to get into the car Natalie smacked her binoculars against her lower lip, giving her a bloody lip.

We left McLane Creek and made an impromptu stop to watch waterfowl and a dozen or more dunlin in a farm pasture near Littlerock, then we scouted along the Black River for a bird watching location along the wildlife area that is being set up to protect the marsh and swamp lands that make up one of the largest freshwater swamps in Western Washington.

After taking a side trip to Centralia to get Natalie a rain jacket at one of the outlet stores, we drove through Rochester and past the place where I grew up in the former town of Gate, then east to the Mima Mounds to walk the nature path and see what birds we could see. The sun peeked out here and there, helping to reveal a red-tailed hawk in a treetop as we set out on the walk. And farther down the trail we saw a trio of flickers rise from the ground as we ascended a viewing platform at the southern end of the paved walking path. From this perch, Natalie spotted a hawk flying in the distance and she watched it as I tried to locate it in the distance. When I saw it, I knew at once that it was a kite. But I didn't have our spotting scope with me, so when it landed in the top of a small fir tree I walked back to the car and grabbed the scope and the bird identification book and I was able to get back to the viewing platform and view the white-tailed kite for a while through the scope before it returned to hunting!

I snapped the photo above looking west toward the setting sun as it highlighted the fog rising from the Mima Mounds and the raindrop filled grasses on the mounds as we walked back to the car.

Friday, February 22, 2002

It turns out that there are at least two hummingbirds competing for the sugar water in our feeder! I saw both of them sparring and landing in the snowball bush this morning, and although the photo of the small female Anna's hummingbird above isn't as good as I would like, it at least confirms that they are here.

Thursday, February 21, 2002

Success! This morning as I sat on the couch working in the living room I noticed out of the corner of my eye a flash of color outside the window near the snowball bush in the south yard, and after taking a closer look and a small bird with the binoculars I found out that we have a hummingbird visiting our feeder! I started putting out sugar water a couple of weeks ago, to make sure that once the northward migration of rufous hummingbirds hit our area that I would have some food ready to finally attract the busy little birds to our yard.

I have never had much luck getting hummingbirds to visit our house in the past, but I figured it was worth a try. Well, today's hummingbird isn't a rufous. It was a small female Anna's hummingbird. Anna's overwinter here, so although this is the first time I have seen one in our yard, they are not out of the ordinary for this area.

The rufous hummingbirds should be here soon. The latest I have heard they are as far north as the Columbia River at this point...

I couldn't get a photo of the hummingbird today, so instead I snapped a shot of the wealth of mosses growing along the north side of our house. This bit of moss grows on the sidewalk.

Wednesday, February 20, 2002

This was a tough day because of a decision that Natalie and I had to make tonight. We resigned from our board positions with the Puget Creek Restoration Society. There are too many things going on with the leadership of the group and some ethical problems that we have with that leadership, combined with the wear and tear of the monthly arguments, that just make being part of PCRS more trouble than it is worth. And so tonight we sent in our resignation letters - something we have debated for at least three months.

Earlier in the day, I took advantage of this spring-like day by wandering outside to do some weeding in the bed around the golden chain tree along the street. Everywhere there are signs of spring. I took the photo above of the yellow blooms on a broccoli raab plant in our garden.

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

Back into the swing of being home today. I even remembered to go down to Puget Creek to check the RSI unit to make sure that the water was flowing over the salmon eggs inside this morning. The one thing I didn't get done today was to take a photo. Back into that routine tomorrow...

Monday, February 18, 2002

The last day of our Eastern Washington trip ended with a drive back over the mountains to the rainy side of life. But before that, we passed over an icy Loup Loup Pass into the Methow Valley to see what birds we could find in the snowy valley between Twisp and Winthrop. What we found were two more first-time birds for me - a pygmy nuthatch and a white-breasted nuthatch up in the same trees in a yellow pine forest north of Winthrop. We also watched a dipper in the Methow River in Winthrop and then wrapped up our birding by cataloging the waterfowl in Pateros Lake, where the Methow River meets the Columbia River.

We took the photo above while driving north out of Twisp as the third car in the line up of six cars full of bird watchers. It was odd seeing a hot air balloon rising over the snowy fields in the temperatures that hovered around 22 degrees.

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