Orca Watcher

97, 98, 99.....

2012-01-26T20:21:00.000-08:00

As we close in on the end of January (already?!), the year list is closing in on 100 species....here's an update.....

While walking home one day before the snow melted, in addition to seeing another pair of Anna's hummingbirds, I also saw my first golden-crowned kinglets (94) of the year. Upon getting home, I could also see that the dark-eyed juncos had been very active on my deck all day:

While making breakfast on Saturday morning, we spotted a small flock of bushtits (95) out the window - the first time I've ever seen this species from the marina. It was a super windy day, but a report of J-Pod on the west side of San Juan Island inspired me to head out to Lime Kiln Point State Park. I missed the whales, but was greeted by more than a hundred varied thrushes in the parking lot - an amazing sight! There have been a lot of varied thrushes and robins all over the island (more than in past winters, I think), and there has been discussion on the local birding listserv about all the varied thrush activity. Seeing so many in one place on Saturday allowed some photo ops of what can sometimes be a very unapproachable bird:

While admiring the thrushes I also spotted a female hairy woodpecker (96). Down along the water's edge there was a lot of wave action. The bird activity was minimal, but I did find some mew gulls and four white-winged scoters (97) riding the surf:

The wind continued, but there was more bird activity to be seen at a friend's house in the middle of the island on Sunday. In addition to the juncos, towhees, and purple finches at her feeders we saw a pair of trumpter swans, a pair of bald eagles, and a great blue heron - all from her yard! Then, right before it got dark, three California quail (98) came through, too.

There have been some more pretty sunrises lately, and while I had the camera out to photograph one, a flock of geese flew by, allowing for the following snapshot to be taken:

While waiting for an appointment in town, I was watching more robins and varied thrushes out the window when I also saw a downy woodpecker (99) in the trees. Nice!

Hoping to find bird #100, I made a short excursion out to Sportsman Lake yesterday, and on the way had to stop and see Mona, our resident camel on the island.

No #100 yet, but with a week left til the end of the month I'm assuming with a little effort it will happen - maybe this weekend? I wonder what the hundredth species will be? Last year it was the common raven, but that's already on the list this year!

Winter Storm Watch

2012-01-18T17:50:00.000-08:00

We've had several days of varying amounts of snow, hail, and wind, but the worst of the most recent winter storm watch undoubtedly hit today. First thing this morning I put some fresh seeds on top of the snow and it didn't take me long to have some birds on the porch even before it really got light out. I can only imagining spending a night like last night outside, let alone when you're that small! By the way, that's not fog in the background, but mostly blowing snow:

Here are a few other wintery scenes from around the marina, later in the afternoon after it got light out and some more snow had fallen:

Snow pattern on a roof

After failing to get all the way home from work in my low-rider, two wheel drive car (I walked the last quarter-mile), I was amazing at all the bird activity. Juncos, chickadees, song sparrows, nuthatches. I saw my first Anna's hummingbird (93) of the year - though somewhat surprisingly not at the feeder I hung out this morning and refilled a couple of times throughout the day as it turned to slush. I imagine it must be hard to find food out there as a hummingbird on a day like this, though our overwintering Anna's eat sap and insects in addition to flower nectar.

I was glad I stocked up on suet before the storm hit, and so was this nuthatch. Look at that tongue visible in his beak!

There was activity in the water, too. A river otter came by. This pied-billed grebe was here this morning and back in the afternoon - I only ever see them in our marina when their preferred freshwater habitat freezes over.

A group of four hooded mergansers (2 males and 2 females) were fishing in the same area as the grebe. When they took flight I had the camera ready, resulting in this photo that I like a lot:

The belted kingfisher was around, too, though instead of taking one of her usual more prominent perches she found a place to sit that was a little more out of the wind:

We walked to town to get a few groceries, and because of the snow I took my camera, too. I was happy I did when I saw this dog patiently waiting outside the store:

It will be interesting to see what the next few days are like! I don't mind a little bit of this winter weather, with the exception of having to worry about getting to work and back each day!

Boundary Bay Snowy Owls

2012-01-15T11:56:00.000-08:00

For a couple weeks I've been reading with envy the reports coming out of Boundary Bay, British Columbia where there have been between 20 and 30 snowy owls hanging out. After seeing photos from a couple of friends who went up there, I couldn't take it anymore, and knew I had to find a way to go. This Saturday presented the perfect opportunity, right before the snowy winter storm was projected to hit the west coast.

A ferry that filled up unexpectedly early first thing Saturday morning almost threw the plans into jeopardy, but some calculations involving available daylight hours and travel time indicated that the trip would still be possible so I had to go for it. Throughout the day, you could practically watch the snow level falling towards sea level, starting with the ferry ride and the partially snow-covered Turtleback Mountain on Orcas Island:

The drive north up I5 was beautiful. The ground and trees were dusted with snow, but the pavement was clear and dry. After a slight wait at the border, I arrived at Boundary Bay (near Delta, BC) around 3 in the afternoon. I was wondering if I would be able to find the place easily, but I needn't have worried - all the owl watchers were a spectacle themselves! I had to park about a quarter mile from the trailhead:

I didn't have to walk too far to see my first snowy owl (year bird 91) - then my second, third, and fourth. Many were perched right along the driftwood berm about 50 yards off the trail:

Many were in close, and others were scattered out across the marsh. The densest congregation was this group of eight on a single log:

It was amazing to me how unconcerned the owls were about all the human activity. As I said, some were only about 50 yards off the trail, and this was the activity on the trail - people, dogs, children, bikes, and even horses (on the left)!

It's pretty cool to see so many people so excited about birds, though it's not surprising, because these snowy owls are a pretty charismatic bunch. For the most part, people were very respectful, as well, although despite the signs asking everyone to respect the owls space, some people felt it necessary to tramp out into the sensitive wetlands in an attempt to get that perfect shot. Some patience is really all that was needed, however, because some of the owls were already right there!

For the most part, the owls were just sleeping or resting. They were mostly motionless, only occasionally turning a head, opening their eyes, or letting out a yawn:

I spent most of my time near one group of four. Two of them were preening and a little bit more active. This one, likely an immature due to the amount of dark barring, even took a short flight to go from the ground up to this perch:

One, probably an adult, stood up and was moving around, providing a nice look at the fully feathered legs and feet which help keep the owls warm in their Arctic home:

The weather was really perfect, though after an hour my fingers were freezing despite my gloves. Looking at the clouds to the west, I had to wait just a little bit longer for the late afternoon sun to peak out again before sunset. I'm glad I did, because that's when I got my favorite photos.

Lots of other photographers were waiting for this moment, too:

While the snowy owls were undoubtedly the highlight - I conservatively counted at least 21 - there were other impressive sights, too. I saw about a dozen bald eagles, five harriers, and a short-eared owl there along with some mixed species flocks of sparrows and a variety of duck species. The landscape in either direction was stunning, looking one direction over the bay and the other towards the city of Vancouver and the distant snow-capped mountains.

Walking back to my car, I had to pause to take this photo of two immature bald eagles against the clouds lit up by the sunset. Perched on the wires underneath them was my second year bird - a flock of Brewer's blackbirds (92).

It ended up being a very successful trip. I made it back across the border, down I5 before the weather hit, and in line for the last ferry home with plenty of time to spare. I'm sure glad I made the effort to go - the ferry rides and border crossings can be a bit of a deterrent when it comes to visiting places that really aren't that far away. What an awesome phenomenon, made all that more impressive because it occurs right in the outskirts of downtown Vancouver!

The Next 30

2012-01-09T20:46:00.000-08:00

Traveling, a return to work, and internet problems at home have kept this post from being written in a timely fashion, but that doesn't mean I've stopped birding since New Year's Day! On January 2nd my dad and I headed over to walk the Crown-Zellerbach trail in Scappoose, and before we got there we saw a Eurasian collared-dove (62) at the post office and a belted kingfisher (63) perched alongside a creek.

There was a slight drizzle on our walk, which was very quiet bird-wise at first, but when we got the green barn where the brambling was seen a month earlier we found the regular active flock of sparrows and more. The first year bird added to the list in this spot was the house finch (64), followed shortly thereafter by a Lincoln's sparrow (65). Three goldfinches flew up, and it took a moment to confirm that they weren't American but rather lesser goldfinches (66), a nice find and a species that didn't make the year list last year! While looking at the goldfinches I also got a quick glimpse of a ruby-crowned kinglet (67).

Down at the marsh a played vocalization elicited a response from first one, then another Virginia rail (68). A little further along the trail we also added yellow-rumped warbler (69), house sparrow (70), and Pacific wren (71). As we retraced our steps back to the car, we found the cinnamon teal (72) we missed on our first pass, but had seen two days before. We saw the one, and then three more at the next marshy overlook! Back at home we also had a common raven (73) flyover, so the day ended with 12 more year birds on the list. Unfortunately no photos because of the rain!

On the 3rd we headed up north along I5 to catch the ferry home. Luckily it was still light on the ferry ride, allowing me to add some seabirds to the list. I saw a pigeon guillemot (74), pelagic cormorant (75), mew gull (76), and rhinoceros auklet (77) all pretty quickly, then hardly any birds for most of the next hour. Right as we were pulling into Friday Harbor, however, there was a flurry of activity that included three ancient murrelets (78), a common murre (79), and a red-necked grebe (80). While unloading the car I also heard a black oystercatcher (81) from the docks - the first time I've heard this species from home!

After work on the 4th I made a quick drive around the island to check out the local lakes and marshes. It was again surprisingly quiet, though I did see lots of trumpeter swans (82) and a group of northwestern crows (83).

Another quick afternoon on the 6th took me to Jackson Beach, where as I had hoped I found a few greater yellowlegs (84) as well as my first harlequin ducks (85) of the year.

On the 7th I went down to South Beach and Cattle Point, where right off the bat I saw a common loon (86) and long-tailed duck (87) offshore among the waves - it was a windy day out! In the cove at the far end of Cattle Pass I saw a pair of red-breasted mergansers (88) taking refuge from the weather along with surf scoters, bufflehead, and harlequin ducks.

Finally, yesterday, the 8th, it was nice enough (and bright enough) for me to get my camera out! Here's the view from American Camp looking over towards the Olympic Mountains:

I saw a northern harrier and a bald eagle, and then was thrilled to find two short-eared owls (89) perched on top a couple of evergreen trees in the middle of the prairie. They were two far away for decent photos (especially since I had the wrong lens on my camera), but it was still the best view I've had of them on San Juan Island. While looking at them I also spotted a single western meadowlark (90) perched on some brambles a little ways off.

So, it's been a pretty good first nine days of January! I'm only 10 species away from my goal of 100 for the month with lots of time to add to the list. The rest of this week will probably feature a couple of short local excursions, and then next weekend I hope to make a trip over to Skagit County where there have been some great sightings of late. I promise I'll take more pictures then, too!

The First 60

2012-01-02T12:05:00.000-08:00

When I woke up on New Year's Day, I expected to come downstairs and see a chickadee or junco at the feeder to start out the year list, but I got species #1 without even getting out of bed when I heard a Steller's jay (1). Over breakfast, watching the feeders provided another nine species, including the varied thrush (9) and fox sparrow (10), species it took me quite a bit longer to get last year.

We spent the next hour driving through Columbia County and Scappoose Bottoms, enjoying the kind of year list pace that only comes once a year. There's something liberating about slowing down to look at every single bird - is that a robin? Yes! - after the end of last year and the inability to find even one additional species to add to the list. We added many of the expected ducks, raptors, and passerines, but a rough-legged hawk and Wilson's snipe were especially nice finds. Once we got on the highway and started heading towards Portland the list stood at 37.

Vanport Wetlands turned up a few of the missing waterfowl species and nearby we found the great horned owl sitting on it usual nest, looking at us nonchalantly from its swaying tree branch. The wind picked up considerable as we headed over to Broughton Beach, but we saw several other birders there. We couldn't find the snow bunting, so walked up on the levy where we were pleased by a couple of American pipits. The huge flock of both greater and lesser scaup was close for a change, but we still couldn't locate the tufted duck that was seen mixed in a few weeks ago (but thanks Dave for the tip of looking at the black back - I totally forgot about that field mark last time). Among the choppy waves of the Columbia River we also found a common goldeneye, a horned grebe, and, somewhat unusual for this location, three surf scoters. Then, walking back to the car, another birder pulled over and told us she had just found the snow bunting. Yay! It was right where she described, and was #50 on the list.

Next up was Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. Surprisingly this was the first place we saw a northern flicker all day. I was also thrilled to find a single greater white-fronted goose among a big flock of cackling geese. Here's one flock of cacklers coming in for a landing:

Right across from the field of geese were hundreds of tundra swans on the main lake:

On the mammal front, there were nutria all over the place, but it was cool to see a coyote looking around before disappearing into the grasses (click to see a larger view):

(As an aside, I forgot to mention it, but a week or so ago I saw a skunk near my parent's house! Only the second time I've ever seen one.)

It was busy at Ridgefield, but there were still lots of great photo opportunities, like of this great blue heron in a tree:

All to quickly, the sun was starting to lower in the sky - but we still wanted to bird Lower River Road in Vancouver so off we went.

We got to the end of the road with just enough light to set up the scope and look at the very bird-active lake across the way. In a flurry we added canvasback, hooded merganser, and redhead to reach 60 species for the day. As we wrote down our final additions, I was still disappointed not to have found any sandhill cranes, a species it would be extremely unlikely to see on San Juan Island but that we could have found at any of our stops throughout the day. I looked up then and spotted a line of birds in flight above the distant tree line. Up came the binoculars, and sure enough, there were my sandhill cranes (61).

On the dark drive back along the road, we went slowly hoping to find a barn owl, a species that eluded me throughout all of 2010 despite my best efforts. Surely it would be poetic justice to see it on January 1 of the new year? It didn't happen, but we did find a great horned owl sitting on a post. It's cat-like silhouette against the purple western horizon was an awesome end to a great day of birding.

Scouting Out Columbia County

2011-12-31T18:28:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, before our New Year's celebrations, we spent a couple of hours birding around Scappoose before tomorrow when the new year list begins. If we see again tomorrow what we saw today, I will be thrilled! The afternoon ended with 45 species in just two hours.

Some of the bird highlights included a rough-legged hawk, an American bittern, a pileated woodpecker, and a couple of Lincoln's sparrows. Here are some of the photo highlights:

Here's lookin' at you

Rough-legged hawk taking flight

Canada geese overhead

Four of the 50 or so great egrets we saw

Happy New Year everyone!!

The Year List In Review

2011-12-29T16:43:00.000-08:00

There's still a couple of days left in 2011, but with the unpleasant weather and no real outings planned it's looking like the year list is going to stay stuck at 203. The only realistic potential species is the gray jay, which occasionally visit my parents' feeders - so I'm still holding out a little hope!

It did, however, seem like a good time to look at the numbers for this year and compare them to last year, when I did my first year list.

	2010	2011
Total # Bird Species	233	203
Dave's Total	237	206
#States/Provinces	6	4
# Life Birds	23	3
# SJ County Species	133?	157
# Species by Month
January	87	114
February	19	13
March	25	12
April	21	25
May	37	17
June	24	2
July	1	4
August	2	4
September	3	5
October	2	1
November	4	4
December	8	2

It's no real surprise that 2010 was a better year for bird sightings overall since it included my trip to Alaska! That's where most of the life birds came from, too. Entering this year, the 3 goals I set for myself were to see 200 species, reach 100 species before the end of January, and add 11 life birds to my list. I succeeded in doing the first two, but knew the third one would be a bit of a stretch, though that was the number I needed to bring my North American life list to 350 species.

Alas, Dave, who just posted his own year in review, has beat me by just a couple of species to years in a row! It's amazing to me that he, in England, and me, in the Pacific Northwest end the year with such a similar number of species on the year list. His total last year was also higher than this year due to a trip to Florida.

Some of the birding highlights of 2011 included the following:

Starting the year off in New York allowed me to get eastern species like northern cardinal, blue jay, and tufted titmouse on this year's list. It's also where I got my first life bird, the common redpoll.
Coming back to Portland for a few days at the end of January before heading back north to the San Juans provided the time I needed to push my year list to 99 species (I had only 48 after returning from New York). The 100th species, a common raven, did indeed come in January and was seen while driving north on I5 to catch the ferry home.
It was a late spring, and the two real migratory peaks in my bird sightings occurred in mid-April and three weeks later a week into May. One major highlight for me was ten minutes spent standing in a single spot at British Camp where I heard and saw 15 species, including 4 year birds.
Unlike last year, which was most of the trip to Alaska, June of this year was spent entirely on San Juan Island, which resulted in the dramatically different year list totals between the two years. The highlight of this June was the huge number of cedar waxwings everywhere on the island.
During the fall migration in September, I saw my first-ever horned larks on San Juan Island, a sighting that turned out to be very valuable later when.....
.....in November someone pointed out to me that I was close to the published record for bird species seen in San Juan County. This led to a late rally to break that goal, leading to a couple of year list additions like the ancient murrelet, and some other memorable sightings like a rough-legged hawk. I ended up beating the existing county record by 1, but another birder bested my number by four species.
One of the most memorable birding moments of 2011 was the brief look I had of a snowy owl, my 200th species for the year, in November.

So, what lays ahead in 2012? With some tentative trips in the works that will take me beyond Oregon and Washington I should be able to beat this year's total of 203, and hopefully add some more life birds along the way. It would be nice to also beat Dave by a couple of species for the first time! As always, I'll report my progress here on the blog, so I hope you'll follow along with me for another year of wildlife sightings starting in January.

Three Snowy Mountains and a Snow Bunting

2011-12-23T16:59:00.000-08:00

We made it down to Portland for the upcoming holidays, and yesterday we got out to Sauvie Island to go birding. In addition to the thousands and thousands of Canada and cackling geese, another thousand snow geese, and lots of mallards and coot, some other highlights included four redheads, three canvasback, more than a hundred sandhill cranes, and a flock of about 50 western meadowlarks. In the crisp, cool weather, the views were also awesome, with all three nearby mountains visible.

Mt. Adams with some sandhill cranes in the foreground (click to see a larger view)

Mt. Hood with a flock of cackling geese in the foreground

Mt. Saint Helens, famous for its eruption in May 1980

Then, after visiting with my niece and nephew for a while today, I had time to check out nearby Broughton Beach where a snow bunting has been hanging out. Sure enough, there he was! It didn't seem like a very nice place to be hanging out - essentially a gravel parking lot right by the airport runway - but then again I don't know much about what pleases a snow bunting (year bird 203).

I had borrowed my dad's scope and also hoped to relocate the tufted duck in the Columbia River just across the street from where the snow bunting was hanging out. 204 would put me in a tie with Dave in our year list competition, but the big flock of hundreds of scaup was on the other side of the river with their head's tucked in, leaving no chance of picking out a tuft on the back of one's head. There's still a week left to go in 2011 - surely that will be enough time for me to pick up one or two more species? Only time will tell!

The Trek to 157

2011-12-17T21:14:00.000-08:00

With only a short time to go before leaving the island for the holidays (and thus the rest of the calendar year), I renewed my efforts to find a few target species I thought I could add to the county list in my quest to reach 157 species and best the existing record for species seen in a year. (I bet people have probably seen more species in a year, but 156 is the number on record with Washington Birder, so that's the number I'm trying to best.)

Thayer's gull is one species I knew I should be able to get. It's a hard one to find, not because it's not here, but because it looks so similar to several other gull species. It most often gets compared to the herring gull, but I think it looks almost exactly like our western x glaucous-winged gull hybrids that are fairly common regionally. I studied up all the details of identification and went out with the specific purpose of studying gulls.

I found this gull in Griffin Bay and have concluded its a Thayer's gull due to the three features indicated with the arrows. The blue arrow shows the dark (almost black) primaries - darker than those of a glaucous-winged or hybrid gull, but not jet black as in other gulls. The red arrow points to the shape of the forehead - on this gull it is more rounded, whereas in western and glaucous-winged gulls the forehead is flatter. Finally, the green arrow is pointing to the bill. On Thayer's gulls, the base of the bill is a pale yellow while the tip is bright yellow, as on this gull (it's more apparent on a zoomed in version of the photo). In glaucous-winged and western gulls, the bill is almost a school bus yellow throughout. So - Thayer's gull (153 for San Juan County, year bird 202)!

I got an e-mail from an ace birder, Ryan, inquiring about the details of the San Juan snowy owl sighting from a couple weekends ago. He came up to the San Juans last weekend, and in a couple of days turned up more than 100 species including 7 or 8 that would be county birds for me. (He also heard a long-eared owl, very rare for here, and a species that would be a life bird for me! More on that later.) In the process, he also pushed his own county list for the year to 161 - better than the existing record of 156! Uh oh! Realized 162 was probably out of reach for me, I decided to take advantage of some of the great sightings Ryan reported and still push towards my original goal of 157.....

One day after work, I headed out to look for the ruddy duck he saw on Sportsman Lake. Most of the ducks were on the far side of the lake, and as is often the case when I go out looking for a specific species, I didn't find it. I did, however, finally find my northern shoveler (154) - not just one, but a flock of 15 right up close! While continuing my circuit of the lakes and ponds in the center of the island, I also found a singled cackling goose (155) in with a flock of Canada geese.

Yesterday my birding pal Phil came over to San Juan and we had a couple of hours to tour around the island and see what we could turn up. Our first stop of the day was again at Sportsman Lake, and this time the ruddy duck (156) was close enough to be identified! Some other highlights from the rest of our afternoon included an American kestrel along Bailer Hill Road, a northern shrike at Cattle Point, and six ancient murrelets in Cattle Pass. By the end of the day, we totaled nearly 50 species in the 2.5 hours birding.

This morning I decided to try for the long-eared owl that Ryan heard at American Camp in the early hours of last Sunday. This is a rare species for the region, and as far as I know, there haven't been any prior confirmed reports of healthy birds on San Juan Island. I say healthy birds because twice, once in 1987 and once in 2010, long-eared owls were found on the island but were sick or injured and had to be taken to the local wildlife rehab center. It's not often I set my alarm earlier for a Saturday than I do for a work day, but this seemed like a worthy cause.

It was still completely dark when I arrived and it was a little bit eerie walking out through the forest towards the prairie. I spend about half an hour walking up and down between the two habitats, listening carefully. Not long after I got there an owl did give me a close fly-by, startling me enough that I jumped. I'm assuming it was probably the expected short-eared owl, but who knows for sure!

As soon as it started becoming light more and more birds began chirping, peeping, and calling. My first species of the day was actually a bald eagle!

Since I was up and out anyway, and this is a good time of day for birding, I decided to continue further to the south end of the island and see if I could find anything else interesting. As soon as I was pulling into the road to South Beach, however, my attention was diverted from birds to what turned into a pretty darn spectacular sunrise:

The sun itself came into view just as I crested the rise heading towards the Cattle Point Lighthouse:

While watching the sunrise, a flock of 15 ravens came by. Here are a few of them:

There were a pair of red-tailed hawks and a northern harrier patrolling the prairie near the lighthouse. The waters were rougher than I expected off of Cattle Pass, but I was still able to find the expected surf scoters and bufflehead as well as a Pacific loon, a red-necked grebe, several pigeon guillemots, and a half dozen red-breasted mergansers among the choppy surf.

After having been out birding for close to two hours, I decided to head home. I got in the car, started the engine, and did a U-turn to head back to town. I immediately stepped on the brakes. Kiting right above the middle of the road, about 50 feet in the air, was a rough-legged hawk (157) - an incarnation of the birding spirit and my quest for that one more species. I'm often pretty reserved, but I'll admit that I whooped in excitement at this white hawk in the sky. As I've written in previous posts, while I keep a lot of bird lists, I wouldn't saying listing is my main motivation for birding. I set goals and try to reach them, but I won't go the extremes some do to add that one more species. I would be fine if I stayed at 156 species for the county for the year, and not just because Ryan's already bested that mark all the way to 161. Still, there was something magical in just being ready to pack it in for the day, turning around, and having that one more species literally hovering right in front of me, lit up by the golden light of the sunrise. In one sense, it was just another hawk. In another, it's a bird I will never forget.

My New Book! A Guide to Birds of San Juan Island

2011-12-12T18:30:00.000-08:00

I'm excited to announce that my new book, A Guide to Birds of San Juan Island, is now available for sale. It's a project I've been working on for the last 13 months - not only the researching and the writing, but collecting the photographs, drawing the maps, doing the layout, and starting a small business in order to self publish!

Here's the description of the book:

San Juan Island is a diverse place made up of a wide variety of habitats: shorelines, farmlands, forests, and prairies. As a result, over 300 bird species have been documented here. Whether a budding nature enthusiast, an advanced birder, or somewhere in between, A Guide to Birds of San Juan Island will give you details about all of the birds that can be seen here and where to find them. Part species guide and part site guide, Monika Wieland's book will help residents and visitors alike discover more about the bird life of San Juan Island.

It has also been endorsed by two other local naturalists and authors:

“…a thorough and thoughtful account of San Juan Island birds. Wieland’s book is a fine resource to take into the field and a valuable reference for years to come. Nicely done! “
- Susan Vernon, author of Rainshadow World: A Naturalist’s Year in the San Juan Islands

"A good local field guide ranks right up there with binoculars in the birdwatcher's toolbox. Monika Wieland's book will be a great asset to anyone exploring San Juan Island in search of birds."
-Thor Hanson, author of Feathers: the Evolution of a Natural Miracle

In addition to being available on Amazon (see the link above), it is currently available on San Juan Island at The Whale Museum, Griffin Bay Books, and Harbor Bookstore. It makes a great gift for the holidays! I hope you enjoy it!

The Trials and Tribulations of a Bird Lister

2011-12-08T20:35:00.000-08:00

While I was in Portland over the Thanksgiving holiday I knew there would be the possibility of picking up a few more birds for the year list, but I didn't anticipate a brambling showing up just a few miles away from my parents' new house! This was only the 12th confirmed record of the species in Oregon, and as you can see, the morning after the report quite a few birders flocked to the scene:

I can only imagine what some of the neighbors thought of the sudden onslaught of bird-watchers to their small neighborhood trail! Unfortunately for all the patient onlookers, the bird only made one brief appearance early in the morning and then wasn't seen again. We only spent about an hour there (others camped out for the whole day!), but it turned out to be a very active bird spot, and one that I probably wouldn't have discovered if it weren't for the rare bird report. Some of the species I saw and heard there included a Virginia rail, sandhill cranes, a band-tailed pigeon, a great egret, and a white-throated sparrow.

After looking for the brambling we headed into the city to do some errands, and while there made another stop off at Westmoreland Park where I hoped to see the eared grebe that had been hanging out there. I was disappointed not to find it. No vermilion flycatcher (see previous post), no brambling, no eared grebe. What a streak of luck! But I was even more disappointed when I heard that later the same day the eared grebe was found dead, perhaps attacked by a dog in the park! What a sad ending for that wayward bird.

Again, though, even without the grebe there was lots of bird activity at Westmoreland. There was a big flock of cackling geese on the lake along with American wigeon, mallards, bufflehead, a couple of lesser scaup, and some ring-billed and glaucous-winged gulls. Within the flock of wigeon grazing on the grass I also found a female Eurasian wigeon, which is always a fun species to find. It was thanks to my close up looks of a Eurasian wigeon at this very park about two years ago that I finally got confident enough to pick female Eurasians out of a flock, even without the presence of a male.

The weather stayed pretty nice for the rest of the weekend and I got out to see some more of St. Helens. At the marina I found a group of half a dozen Steller's jays, a species that I still need to find on Orcas Island for my San Juan County list this year:

Back at my parents' house, I was hopeful to see of the feeder visitors that my dad had reported from earlier this fall season. I struck out on the gray jays, but I did get to witness one of the brief sporadic visits of an evening grosbeak (year bird 201) flock. About 20 birds descended to the feeders and were only there about five minutes before moving on. All that effort of traveling around to look for birds, and I ended up seeing a year bird right from my parents' kitchen!

On the trip back north to San Juan Island I made another stop off at Stanwood, hoping that in the nicer weather and with better daylight I could get a better look at the snowy owls and maybe even get some photos. Unfortunately the owls weren't in sight during my half hour stop there, though again I saw lots of other good bird species including a rough-legged hawk, a ring-necked pheasant, a Wilson's snipe, and a short-eared owl.

My year list has now reached my goal of 200 species, but I still want to add some birds to my San Juan County list. With only a month left, I've got some of my naturalist friends on alert for a few of the species I'm still keen to see. It paid off when I got a message last Sunday from Phil on Yellow Island, along with a photo of a pair of Barrow's goldeneye he had seen that morning. Being a great birding pal, he picked me up and we made a quick jaunt out to Yellow where we were able to relocate the female Barrow's goldeneye (SJ county bird 151). Not only that, but I also found a western grebe (SJ county bird 152) out in the channel! After all that trying and failing for owls in November I thought the county year list goal would remain out of reach, but the two birds in one day rekindled by hope....

Another report rekindled my hope, too: that of a snowy owl seen at South Beach! I figured with all the snowy owls showing up all over western Washington there was a decent chance of one being seen on San Juan Island this season - we've got some nice prairie habitat down around the American Camp and Cattle Point area. I've made several trips to that part of the island in recent weeks hoping for an owl sighting - on one outing I pulled over along the way to look at a bald eagle who was feeding on a deer carcass. He took flight and circled around my car before landing again, providing this photo op:

Surely a good omen for the bird-watching day? But alas, the snowy owl report was two days old, and despite my searching high and low around South Beach no owls could be found. Perhaps it just stopped over here before moving on? Too bad.

South Beach, in fact, was incredibly quiet bird-wise. Not even the regular gulls and scoters were hanging out. And it was such a good day for birding, too:

It wasn't until I scanned well offshore and found a flock of about 20 long-tailed ducks that I saw anything worth mentioning.

So, in conclusion, there have been some disappointments over the last couple of weeks in my efforts to locate some new birds for the year. There were lots of "just misses", even on the same day when the species had been seen by others. Some listers will sympathize with my frustration, while some other naturalists may question the logic of "chasing" certain species. I'm certainly not one of the most extreme when it comes to listing - I'm only willing to chase after birds that are fairly close to where I live or happen to be traveling - but upon reflection finding the new species for my county list, year list, or life list, is only half of the reason I like to head out in search of more unusual species. The other reason is that it motivates me to get out, often to new places that I haven't seen before, where I'll end up finding other cool things to look at whether or not I find the target species. Without searching for the brambling, I wouldn't have found the cool little marsh with the calling Virginia rail so close to my parents' new house. If I hadn't made efforts to find the snowy owls, I wouldn't have found the rural road in Stanwood that's home to cool species like rough-legged hawks and short-eared owls, nor would I have had the close encounter with the bald eagle on my home island. Every time I go out looking for something in particular, I see something cool, whether or not it's what I was looking for.

So, as the year winds to an end, I'm going to continue to chase down the species I don't yet have on my lists. Because who knows what I'm going to find. Stay tuned....

Ridgefield NWR

2011-12-03T20:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm back up and running with both computer and internet, so it's time to play some catch up....

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, after a week of wind and rain, the weather finally cleared and it was a perfect day to go bird-watching at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. We ended up spending more than three hours there, finding more than 30 species. Among the highlights this time of year are the water birds. All the overwintering ducks can potentially be found at Ridgefield. The most numerous on this visit were the mallards and northern shoveler, though many other species were seen in smaller numbers.

The first photo op of the day came when these three pied-billed grebes swam down a flooded ditch:

In terms of raptors, we saw northern harriers, bald eagles, and a red-shouldered hawk, but most numerous were the red-tailed hawks, including this one that stopped to look right at me:

I couldn't believe how many spider webs were everywhere. You could see them flying through the air when looking through binoculars, and they coated most all of the plants and grasses. On the drive home we noticed some of the tiny spiders had found their way inside of the car, too. It seemed like some type of tiny spider hatching explosion. You can see the webs in this first landscape shot, followed by a close up:

One of the birds I was really hoping to see while at Ridgefield was the vermilion flycatcher that has been hanging out there. I had been reading reports about it on the Washington birding listserv, hoping it would stay around long enough for me to see it. It hadn't been reported for a week or two, but had been relocated earlier in the morning on the same day we were at the refuge. I thought we were in luck, but when we reached the site it had most recently been seen we couldn't turn it up. While stopped looking for it, we did find a flock of purple finches, a red-breasted sapsucker, a brown creeper, two white-breasted nuthatches, and a Bewick's wren, so it was still a very bird-active area.

In the final stretch of the auto-tour route it was the herons that stole the show. First, we got a nice look at a great egret. Then, we paused to watch this great blue heron successfully catch several small fish:

Then, around the corner, I was amazed to see this American bittern right out in the open. These birds are often very tucked away in the grasses and hard to see, but this one was walking right along the edge of the marsh:

A couple of things really stood out while seeing this bird at close range. One was the beautiful, intricate patterning on the feathers. The other was the surprisingly large talons on the feet!

While we were watching, the bittern took a few steps back into the grass. It was amazing how, even while looking directly at it, the bird began to disappear into the grass just a few feet away.

When we got back to the start of the auto tour loop, we checked in with the park ranger who said no one else had seen the vermilion flycatcher after that one sighting early in the morning. Then, just as we were ready to leave, he came up to us on his cell phone and said he was talking to another birder who was looking right at it. Of course, being this close to not just a year bird but a life bird, I had to try again! We made another trip around the auto tour route, spending extra time in the area the flycatcher was seen, but despite having several other birders nearby looking for the same bird, we weren't able to relocate it.

There were several other year birds I was hoping to get while in Oregon, and a few other unexpected reports came in while I was there. Next up, I'll report on my successes and failures in the year bird hunt.

Delayed, But Lots to Come!

2011-11-30T15:38:00.000-08:00

I have several blog posts just waiting to be written and lots of photos to share, but I've been thwarted first by a broken computer and now by a lack of internet at home. So until I'm back up and running, here's a quick preview photo of some of what's to come:

Owl Prowling: The Elusive #200

2011-11-24T17:41:00.000-08:00

As I looked over my year and county lists heading down the stretch, I identified owls as a group I could target to pick up some more ticks for both lists. My efforts started on San Juan Island, where I surveyed the prairie habitat at the south end of the island for a snowy owl. It's a bit of a stretch, but sightings do occur every so often on the island and there seems to be a pretty decent flight of snowy owls in western Washington right now with numerous reports around the state. I didn't find one, but I did find a short-eared owl near the Cattle Point lighthouse like I mentioned in my last post.

I got a tip from a friend about a good barn to investigate for barn owls. After talking to the owner, we headed out and climbed up into the loft of an old barn that looked like a perfect hangout for barn owls. We spooked two roosting rock doves out of the rafters, but no owls. Closer inspection turned up a couple of barn owl feathers and some rather fresh-looking owl pellets (including a rodent skull of some sort), so it seems like they're still using the site. It will be worth returning and taking another look, for sure.

Later that same night I recorded some owl vocalizations onto my phone and we headed out to do some nighttime owling. Stopping at some haphazardly chosen locations and playing great horned and western-screech owl calls didn't turn up any responses, though we did see an owl fly across the road, lit up by my headlights. It was too quick to ID, but if I had to guess, I would say it was a barn owl. It was even headed in the direction of the barn we had investigated earlier!

Giving up the county listing efforts for the holiday weekend, we departed in stormy weather on Tuesday afternoon to head south to Portland. When we pulled into Anacortes the overcast conditions and pouring rain made it seem like dusk already at 3 in the afternoon, but I drove south as fast as conditions would safely allow with a particular target in mind. Stanwood, about an hour away, is the site of some of the aforementioned snowy owl reports, and I wanted to swing through and try my luck before continuing on to Portland.

When we pulled off the freeway to head to Stanwood, the streetlights had already turned on. It was another six or seven miles to the place where, I learned from my dad via text message, two snowy owls had been seen earlier in the day along with six short-eared owls. I drove to the end of the dead end country road that had attracted numerous birders over the previous few days and pulled over to overlook the muddy field where all the owl activity had been. Nothing. I scanned with my binoculars, straining my eyes in the dimming light, figuring that if I had been able to see the trumpeter swans we had passed 15 minutes earlier stand out against the dreary background, a pure white snowy owl would be visible, as well. Way in the distance I saw a tiny white speck on a hillside; maybe it was an owl, but there was no way to tell for sure.

It was getting even darker, and the rain was still pouring down. There was another spot a few more miles away that the owls had been reported, and I weighed my options. I knew if I didn't try now, I would be kicking myself and would have to take this detour again on the way north six days later, if the owls were still present. There being no time like the present, we headed even further away from the freeway and the hours of stormy nighttime driving that awaited us. While stopped at an annoying long traffic light, I not so silently cursed myself. This was a stupid thing to be doing, right? It was already so hard to see, certainly not what I would consider bird-watching conditions, and there was a long drive ahead of us. But I was committed at this point, so we went on.

At the end of this next country road I parked and pulled on my rain jacket. The directions said you had to proceed on foot to see the owls. I was looking for the landmark specified in the directions, but after a few moments of walking saw nothing resembling the turn off recommended that would lead the owl seeker up onto the dike overlooking the field where the owls had been seen. Acting impulsively, or perhaps heeded some innate guiding sixth sense, I veered off the trail and scrambled up the muddy slope onto the dike where there was a clearing that looked like it would afford a view to the other side.

Straight in front of me, maybe 100 yards away, was a snowy owl (year bird 200). Unable to believe my eyes, I lifted my binoculars and was just able to make out the movement of the owl turning its head to look directly at me. It had been a somewhat more frustrating journey than I had anticipated to go from 199 to 200, but standing in the chilly rain on a dark November afternoon in a brief stare down with a barely-visible snowy owl also seemed somewhat appropriate.

The rest of the drive to Portland was miserable, the conditions being no more amenable to driving than they had been for bird-watching. But every time I thought of that owl, I was still able to smile. There are many people that probably wouldn't have thought so, but the detour was well worth it.

A Matter of Record Keeping

2011-11-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've checked in on where I stand with the year list. I was stalled out for a while at 197, and figured my best shot at pushing over 200 would be when I do some traveling for the upcoming holidays. Then, however, I got an e-mail from Tim over at 39 Counties, who is looking to see 39 species in all 39 of Washington's counties this year (and in fact is close to getting 50 species in every county). He was looking at data on eBird and noticed that I'm within spitting distance of the San Juan County record for species seen within a year. Washington Birder has the record at 156 species, and at the time of the e-mail I had 149 in the county for the year. Of course I can't resist a challenge, so it was time to comb through the species list and renew my efforts birding on the island down the stretch.

The first thing I noticed on my San Juan County species list was the northwestern crow. Personally, I think the American crow and northwestern crow are probably one species, but currently they are considered separate species and the general consensus is that only northwestern crows inhabit the San Juan Islands. If I'm going to count this as a species on my county list, I've got to count it as a species on my year list, right? I hadn't included it as separate from the American crow just yet, so the northwestern crow now occupies the out of order position of 198 on the year list - chintzy, I know.

One species that's been reported around the county recently that I hadn't seen was the ancient murrelet, and I had been trying to see some from shore for quite some time, but without any luck. Lucky for me, my bird-watching friend Phil helped me out and we took a little trip out into San Juan Channel where he had been seeing lots of murrelets. It didn't take us long to locate a few ancient murrelets (year bird 199, county bird 150):

Ancient murrelet in San Juan Channel

It was a beautiful, calm afternoon - a nice break in some of the stormy weather we've been having - and there was lots of other bird activity out there as well. Bonaparte's gulls, mew gulls, and glaucous-winged gulls, plus common murres, rhinoceros auklets, and loons. We also saw several pairs of marbled murrelets, and I got my best-ever photo-op of this endangered species:

Marbled murrelets in San Juan Channel

I've identified 20 possible county species to look for down the stretch, and I've been out several afternoons looking for them since then. No luck just yet, but of course I've seen lots of other cool stuff. I've found two short-eared owls at different locations on the island, found a Eurasian wigeon mixed in with a flock of American wigeon, seen my first trumpeter swans on the winter, and found an impressive flock of 150+ Canada geese (especially large numbers for on the island).

Coming up this week, after scouting out a couple of potential owl locations on the island, we'll be heading to Portland for Thanksgiving. The county birding effort will be put on hold, but I expect to push the year list over 200 on the trip. Dave, my rival year lister, beat me to the 200 mark a good two weeks ago, but of course what really matters is where the count stands at the end of December 31!

So, now that all that record-keeping is out of the way (did you follow all that?), I'll be updating my bird list status more regularly down the home stretch of 2011. What will my 200th year bird be? Will I end the year ahead of Dave? Will I get the county year list record? Stay tuned to find out!!

Off the Dock: Harbor Seals

2011-11-18T22:18:00.000-08:00

I've successfully gotten a few more video clips this week of those harbor seals that have been hanging around our marina - here are the results:

Underwater Video - First Takes

2011-11-12T20:15:00.000-08:00

Winters on San Juan Island are very different from summers: the days are short, the weather is wet and gray, and the town is quiet. People get through the winter in different ways, but there are lots of different community activities to help pass the long, dark nights. Sports are my personal favorite. In years past I've played hockey and done rollerblading at open skate, and this year I've tried badminton and indoor soccer as well. This week I ended up doing all four, resulting in various types of soreness as I use muscles that have laid dormant all summer. I thought it was amusing, however, that the thing I was most sore from this week wasn't a sport at all - it was crouching on the dock taking underwater video clips.

I got a Flip video camera for my birthday, along with an underwater case. This is the perfect time of year to put it to good use because the marina is just full of schooling fish, and as a result, lots of other wildlife. We've had groups of seals coming through several times a day, plus different types of gulls and other marine birds, river otters, and the regular assortment of intertidal life.

I still have a long ways to go in getting the types of clips I think might be possible from right off our dock (including getting the camera lined up right in the casing), but here are a few samples from my first week or so of attempts. Featured here are a dock shrimp, a couple schools of fish, a cross jellyfish, a very brief look at a seal (they're proving the hardest so far!), and a Bonaparte's gull:

Cooper's Hawk

2011-11-09T22:50:00.000-08:00

Another very cool bird sighting from the houseboat - this time it was a Cooper's hawk! At first it was hidden deep within the bushes. It was clearly looking for something as it would occasionally dive down to the ground. It's amazing they don't get hurt or at least damage their feathers flying through all those brambles.

Then it flew out into the open, making for this impressive view:

Not surprisingly, there was no bird activity at our feeders that afternoon! I've wondered a couple times in the past upon finding lots of feathers on the deck if a sharp-shinned or Cooper's hawk might have nailed something at our feeder, but this is the first time I've seen one of these hawks in the vicinity. It's a little sad to think about some of our cute juncos and sparrows getting pegged by this guy, but it's also pretty cool to have gotten such a close up look at this predator.

Bonaparte's Gulls

2011-11-06T12:43:00.000-08:00

The first fall I spent on the houseboat in 2007 I had an amazing encounter with Bonaparte's gulls right off my front porch in September. A couple of photos can be seen here. At the time, I thought maybe it would be a regular occurrence, but I hadn't seen it again until this week. Three Bonaparte's gulls - one adult and two immatures - spent some time flying around the marina and foraging on bait fish. There were a lot of fish around, attracting not only the Bonaparte's gulls but also harbor seals, a belted kingfisher, a mew gull, and a couple of glaucous-winged gulls.

Bonaparte's gulls are probably my favorite gull species to watch. They look so tiny, just half the size of our most common glaucous-winged gull, and appear very buoyant in flight. Sometimes during the spring and fall migration I've encountered flocks of hundreds or even thousands of them, an impressive sight, particularly when they're actively foraging. It was just as neat, however, to have a close up look at these three gulls this week, again right off my front porch.

One fun aspect of photographing wildlife in action is you get to pick up certain things off still photographs that happen to fast to witness when watching live action. For instance, I was surprised at just how far underwater these gulls went when diving for fish - they're not considered diving birds, but they almost completely disappear under the surface! Just part of one wing is visible here, on the left in the middle of the splash:

November is probably about the latest in the year I've seen Bonaparte's gull in the San Juans. It was very cool, and now that I know these close encounters at the marina don't happen all that often, I was especially excited by it!

Day of the Dead ~ 2nd Annual Tribute

2011-11-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

Last year on November 2nd, the Day of the Dead, I wrote a blog post honoring the Southern Resident Killer Whales that we had lost during the preceding year. I'd like to make this an annual tradition, so here's my second annual Dia de Los Muertos tribute.

J1 Ruffles, estimated birth year 1950

I've already written extensively about Ruffles in a blog post that you can read here, and also honored him with a photo gallery that you can see here. It's still hard to believe that this iconic whale is no longer with us. Seeing J-Pod this year just wasn't the same without the distinct, wavy fin of Ruffles, probably one of if not the most photographed Southern Resident whale. Because of the ease of identifying him, he was especially popular with tourists, many of whom would come back after years of being away and ask about Ruffles. He was also known among local naturalists as "the man", in part because he was the oldest male (by far) in the Southern Resident community. His reputation for being a ladies' man (ladies' whale?) was substantiated by recent genetic research that showed him to be the father of quite a few young whales in the community.

L7 Canuck, estimated birth year 1961

When I think of Canuck, an L-Pod whale, the first thing I think of is how she often traveling with J-Pod. For several years in a row it seemed that she, along with her daughter L53 Lulu and adult male L57 Faith, would spend the winters with their closest relatives in L-Pod but spend the summers traveling with J-Pod. In the last couple of years this pod switching and fragmenting has become more common, but at the time it was especially notable for females to be traveling with a different pod. Canuck seemed to have a strong affiliation with both J1 Ruffles and J2 Granny in J-Pod, so perhaps in the absence of strong connections with other whales in her own pod, she and her daughter spent more time with these elder Js.

Canuck and Lulu were inseparable, and from 1987 onwards made up the extent of their immediate living matriline. Canuck only ever had one other known calf that didn't survive its first year of life, though its possible she had other offspring before the whales were studied in detail starting in 1976. Despite their very small family, it seems Canuck and Lulu found somewhat of a surrogate family member in Faith, who was the only living member of his own matriline since his mother L45 Asterix passed away in 1995. Faith seemed to enjoy traveling with the eligible J-Pod bachelorettes, but perhaps he found the mother figure he was lacking in Canuck. Often, adult males don't live too long after their own mother passes away unless they latch on to another older female to help fill that role.

In the Center for Whale Research's genealogy guide, they have L43 Jellyroll as a possible sister to Canuck. Jellyroll, who died in 2006, has two living offspring in L72 Racer and L95 Nigel, who would be Canuck's niece and nephew. It's funny, when I think back on my whale encounters, I wouldn't have said Canuck spent much time with them, but when I look through my notes I find otherwise. I list them as either traveling with or near the L43s quite often when the rest of L-Pod is present.

Regardless of which pod Canuck was traveling with, she was always an easy whale to pick out from a crowd because of her distinct notch about a third of the way down her dorsal fin. From my perspective, that made it easier for me to follow her movements and social associations over the years, because she could be easily identified on sight as well as in photos, and even in poor lighting where her saddle patch wasn't visible. It will be interesting to see how Lulu does in the coming years without her mother, and whether she continues the relationship with the J-Pod whales her mother began or goes back to spending more time with her extended L-Pod family.

It is sad to lose these two whales, but others have been born and have started their own journeys as Southern Resident Killer Whales. This year we welcomed K44, a son born to first-time mom K27 Deadhead; L117, born at the end of 2010 to L54 Ino; and L118 born to L55 Nugget.

Orcas Island Birthday Weekend ~ Part 2

2011-11-01T17:12:00.000-07:00

We stayed at The Cabin on Spring Bay, and spent the afternoon Saturday hiking the trails on the property or enjoying the views out the front windows. Here's a picture I took from the water's edge looking back towards the cabin:

The property sits between two ridges, and the trail we took started by climbing up one of the ridges and looking over towards Obstruction Island:

There seems to be more deer on Orcas Island than on San Juan. On Saturday we counted more than 30 for the day! Many of those were at Spring Bay.

Not all the mule deer on Orcas Island look like our San Juan deer, either - numerous animals are speckled with varying amounts of white. I assumed that maybe this was from in-breeding, although I questioned my own theory since I know deer do swim between the islands, which should help diversify the gene pool. After doing a little research, it sounds like the story is that at some point there were one or several pure white deer introduced or otherwise brought to the island. These cross-bred with the native mule deer, creating these variable color morphs. Doesn't this deer also look a little small (young) for this time of year?

There were so many deer around, it seemed like anywhere you looked, you could find one if you looked hard enough.

Back to our hike around Spring Bay.....it was one of those great walks where there's lots of everything to look at. Mushrooms:

Mammals - this is a native Douglas squirrel, much nicer than the large non-native fox squirrels that are most common around Portland. We don't have squirrels on San Juan Island! (Okay, there is a small population of flying squirrels on San Juan, but I've never seen one.)

And birds - the highlight was this barred owl:

We talked to the owner and he said he's only seen maybe three barred owls in the 20 years he's lived there. Nice find! Some other highlights included a pileated woodpecker, and the horned grebes and hooded mergansers that spent a lot of time in the bay itself. Overall, we saw close to 30 species from or around the cabin.

The Saturday evening sunset was pretty stunning:

Right before we left to have a delicious celebratory birthday dinner at the New Leaf Cafe in Eastsound, the moon became visible, too.

Overall it was a fantastic weekend!

Orcas Island Birthday Weekend ~ Part 1

2011-10-31T21:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (Sunday) was my birthday, and this year I got an extended celebration with a weekend trip to a nearby Orcas Island. When we got on the ferry on Friday afternoon it was pouring rain, and I figured that at least we had a nice cabin to stay in and watch the showers if that's what the weekend had in store. By the time we pulled in to the Orcas ferry landing, however, it had slowed to a drizzle, and by the time we drove to Cascade Lake the rain had stopped altogether. We decided to hike the 2.7 mile trail around the lake, and the weather mostly held off. There were still lots of low-lying clouds hanging in the trees around the lake, making for some especially scenic (and iconic Pacific Northwest) views.

There were lots of Pacifc wrens, golden-crowned kinglets, dark-eyed junocs, and chestnut-backed chickadees in the woods. We even saw a bald eagle fly out of the forest, but the lake itself was pretty empty until we came to this bridge that separated the main part of the lake from a smaller offshoot. In this more protected cove we saw a flock of about twenty ring-necked ducks, four hooded mergansers, and three pied-billed grebes. Nearby were also some bufflehead and double-crested cormorants.

As we neared the end of the hike, we noticed it was getting lighter. As the sun was getting lower in the sky, it started to shine through a break in the clouds, changing the scene from the foggy one above to the bright one below:

The reflections in the water were really amazing: the near-perfect mirror image of the scenery was only disturbed the water droplets falling from the branches, creating a ripple effect across the surface. Once we got back to the car, the late afternoon light was especially stunning.

We got to our cabin just before sunset proper, and settled in for a nice evening including a spaghetti dinner, a fire in the wood stove, and a dip in the outdoor hot tub where the only sound you could hear was the gentle waves crashing on the nearby shoreline.

Despite a forecast for rain, I was thrilled when we woke up the next morning and the clouds started to clear shortly after sunrise. After going out for a nice breakfast, we made our way up Mt. Constitution, the highest point in the San Juan Islands at about 2,400 feet. There were still some clouds up there, and the summit was actually above the clouds, which again made for some interesting, ever-changing views.

Even up here the sun was starting to work its way through the clouds:

There wasn't a lot of bird activity up here. We heard a common raven, a flock of red crossbills flew by a couple of times, and we heard and saw several Pacific wrens. The wrens sure seem to be around in great numbers right now! They're one tiny forest dweller.

After our excursion to Mt. Constitution we decided to spend the rest of the day at the cabin. There were some hiking trails on the property there and a great view out the front windows into a secluded bay. Next up - some wildlife and scenic highlights from around the cabin!

Getting to Know Third Lagoon

2011-10-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

The San Juan Island Trails Committee has been hosting a series of Know Your Island walks where naturalists, historians, and others share information with locals during a guided hike at one of our island's numerous recreational areas. Last Saturday I went along on the hike exploring Third Lagoon to share information about birds. Third Lagoon is probably one of the least visited trails on the island, despite being a beautiful access to both deep forest and the shoreline of Griffin Bay. I was surprised how many islanders I told about the hike said, "Where is that?"

It was a rainy Saturday, but we still had 20 people show up for our hike. In addition to birds, others talked about trees, lichens, and mushrooms. I definitely learned a thing or two!

Shaggy mane mushrooms

My friend Kari knows quite a lot about mushrooms, and had a sharp eye for finding them too! She collected a whole basket of chanterelles - all of which I probably would have walked by without seeing.

Kari with a chanterelle

There is an amazing variety of trees at this part of the island, and we saw a couple of species I'm not that familiar with that I didn't know we had here - quaking aspen and Douglas maple.

Douglas maple (Acer glabrum)

Our two youngest participants got particularly excited over this tiny tree frog found among the detritus. I thought it was pretty cool, too.

The rain held off for the first part of our hike, but it started an earnest as we headed out into the open near the lagoon itself, which was where the best birding was. As a result I don't have any pictures of that part, but we saw lots of harlequin ducks, red-breasted mergansers, and horned grebes, along with a couple of black oystercatchers, common loons, and a great blue heron.

It was supposed to stay rainy all weekend, but Sunday turned out to be a gorgeous (if chilly) day. I went back to the south end of the island again, and had to pull over when I noticed these California poppies in full bloom - at the end of October! This looks more like the type of photo I would take in July:

One final sighting to share is that last week we heard and then saw two barred owls right from the deck of our houseboat! I couldn't believe it. Their call is accurately described as "Who cooks for you?" but that doesn't really capture the booming quality when you hear it, especially in the middle of a cold night. Get a feel for it by listening to the audio recording from Bird Web here. It sounds so cool.

Bluebirds, Lincoln's Sparrows, and More at American Camp

2011-10-19T19:57:00.000-07:00

Sunday was another beautiful autumn day, so I headed out for some more afternoon birding at the south end of the island. This time I went to American Camp. My first great find was near the parade grounds where I found three western bluebirds. This species has been reintroduced to the island over the last five years. I got close enough to see the leg bands on one of the birds, and learned that this one was a fledgling from this year from a few miles away. The birds are probably gathering up to flock in places like American Camp before migrating away for a few months.

One stretch of the trail that winds through the prairie is often pretty quite bird-wise, but not so that day. First I saw a northern shrike off in the distance, and then a single western meadowlark flew by - my first one of the winter. In a patch of brambles I also came across a mixed-species flock of sparrows. The most exciting find was two Lincoln's sparrows, but there were also song sparrows, golden-crowned sparrows, and a single fox sparrow.

Down towards the water's edge the first thing that caught my eye was several big rafts of surf scoters.

It was amazing to watch them all diving in unison. At times there would only be one or two dozen birds on the surface, and at other times hundreds. Closer to shore there was also a flock of 75 or so red-breasted mergansers and a few horned grebes. I was also able to spot some common and Pacific loons.

As I made my way along the shoreline I found a mixed flock of black turnstones and surfbirds. They flew over towards Grandma's Cove, so I decided to go that way too to see if there was anything else to see in the cove. Was there ever! Some of the scoters had moved in, creating a huge feeding frenzy in the bay. Mixed in with them were some more loons, grebes, and mergansers, plus harlequin ducks and four gull species: glaucous-winged, mew, Bonaparte's, and a few Heermann's. It was quite a spectacle, and I probably sat on the bluff watching them all feeding for about 20 minutes.

Part of the Grandma's Cove feeding flock: mostly surf scoters, but some mergansers and a Pacific loon are in this shot, too

Back on the home front there has also been lots of birding activity. The other morning I saw a Townsend's warbler out the window on the embankment - the first time I've ever seen this species from the marina. When I went out to try and get a photo it was already too far away, but an ever-bold red-breasted nuthatch landed on our new feeder just a few feet away from me.

Other regular visitors have been chestnut-backed chickadees, house sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, and, unfortunately rock pigeons. The pigeons were a novel species in the spring but wore out their welcome in just a couple days. Not only do they eat a lot of seed, poop all over the deck, and scare away some of the other, smaller native birds for whom the feeders are intended, but they've started digging through the planters, uprooting plants, and throwing dirt all over the deck, too. One reason for the new feeder was to transition away from the tray feeder that they have easiest access too, but unfortunately one bird at least has figured out how to hold onto this new hanging feeder. Ah well.

Flickers and Other Fall Birds at Cattle Point

2011-10-15T18:58:00.000-07:00

I went down to Cattle Point on this sunny afternoon expecting to spend most of my time looking at seabirds, but I was stopped before I got to the coast by the antics of about half a dozen northern flickers who were busily chattering and flying from tree to tree. After watching them for a few minutes I realized that one of the reasons for all the excitement was the presence of a merlin in the same patch of trees, which every so often would chase one of the flickers around the prairie and then back into the trees. It was quite a sight! Despite half an hour of observation I wasn't able to get a photo of both birds in the same frame - they were just too fast!

Northern flicker (red-shafted) in flight

Merlin in flight

I noticed a glimpse of a different color on one of the flickers, and sure enough it was a yellow-shafted color morph! Formerly considered separate species, the red-shafted (primarily western) and yellow-shafted (primarily eastern) birds were merged into one species, the northern flicker. The yellow-shafted form also breeds in Alaska, and some birds are occasionally seen in the western Lower 48, particularly in winter.

No doubt about it - this is a yellow-shafted flicker!

While the color is most noticeable in the underwings, they're called red- and yellow-shafted because the shafts of the feathers are indeed different colors. You can see the red shafts on this flying flicker:

There are some other subtle differences more apparent in perched birds, too, relating to the presence and color of the mustache and nape crescent.

This female red-shafted flicker has a pale brown mustache (and has red under the tail)

This female yellow-shafted flicker has no mustache (notice the yellow just visible by either wing)

While watching all the woodpecker activity I did get a glimpse of one other woodpecker - a red-breasted sapsucker (197). I was a bit surprised when I checked my list that this was in fact a year bird; I thought maybe I had seen one, but I guess not! I finally tore myself away from the flickers and checked out what other birds were around. There was quite a bit of raptor activity in addition the merlin - a northern harrier, a bald eagle, and three red-tailed hawks. I also saw my first northern shrike of the season, which was a really nice find!

When I made it to the shoreline at last there was a lot of bird activity there as well. It looks like most of the Heermann's gulls have moved on, as I didn't see any today, but there were lots of glaucous-winged and mew gulls feeding on several small bait balls with one Bonaparte's gull in the mix as well. As far as diving birds go, more and more of winter resident birds are returning. I saw surf scoters, red-breasted mergansers, and horned grebes in addition to the year-round resident pelagic cormorants. Further signs of winter were the pigeon guillemots adorned in their winter plumage and the presence of only two rhinoceros auklets (most of them head to the outer coast to feed for the winter). A couple of other people were out enjoying the crisp autumn day, and it was cool to hear one of them comment that seeing the beautiful male harlequin ducks was the highlight of her day.

I had to put my binoculars down when I heard a loud chuff down below me. It was a big male Steller sea lion coming up for air in Cattle Pass!

Another noise redirected my binoculars at one point, and it turned out to be the calling of a black turnstone in flight. There was only one, but it was another nice find. Overall, it was a pleasant afternoon at Cattle Point, and after a little over an hour my bird list totaled out to 23 species.

One Very Wet Vulture

2011-10-09T18:41:00.000-07:00

Upon my arrival at Lime Kiln this afternoon, I was greeting by my first of the season mixed species flock of woodland passerines: chickadees, nuthatches, juncos, and both golden-crowned and ruby-crowned kinglets. After trying and failing to photograph the kinglets for a bit, I continued down to the shoreline where I sat in the surprisingly warm sunshine for a while. There were no fewer than five gull species foraging in Deadman Bay: glaucous-winged, Heermann's, mew, California, and, the biggest surprise, ten or so juvenile Bonaparte's gulls.

I walked down to the lighthouse and was talking to some visitors when someone said, "What is that?!" I turned around and saw something waving in the air above the water. My first thought was that it was a flipper, like that of a sea lion, but as soon as I got my binoculars on it I saw that it had feathers. It was a bird!

It's not unheard of for bald eagles to end up in the water when they go after a fish that's too big for them to carry. Since their talons lock onto the prey, they find themselves having to swim to shore. In some cases they end up drowning. I haven't ever seen this myself, but I assumed that's what we were witnessing. As the bird tried to make its way towards shore these kayakers came by and looked at it. The bird seemed surprisingly calm.

I walked down the shoreline towards where the bird was heading to take a closer look. As it approached shore, I realized it wasn't an eagle at all - it was a turkey vulture! How in the world does a turkey vulture end up in the water? I don't know.

It did some "swimming" with its wings, but also seemed to be paddling with its feet somehow to get closer to the coast. It hopped up on a piece of kelp for a moment, then made it a little further to this rock just offshore.

Needless to say, I was concerned about it. Turkey vultures aren't designed for getting wet, and it didn't seem to be making any attempts at first to dry itself off. I called Wolf Hollow, the local wildlife rehab facility, to see what they thought. They wanted to make sure I wasn't looking at an eagle, but no, it really was a vulture! They decided to come out and take a look at it. Shortly after I got off the phone, the vulture started moving up the rocks a little further. It got off its little rock to the main part of the shoreline.

Then, much to my surprise, it kept hopping its way towards me! By now I could see it was a juvenile vulture, lacking the bright red head of the adults. Most vultures seem to have left the island by now, heading south for the winter. A few birds stay in the area during the winter; usually one or two are reported during the Christmas Bird Count. But I wonder if this bird was migrating, and tried to fly across the strait from Vancouver Island to San Juan Island? Maybe if it didn't quite have the strength it crash-landed into the water? The only other thing I can think of is it was investigating a carcass or something close to the shoreline and got caught by a wave or somehow got too low to the water.

The person from Wolf Hollow arrived, and despite the fact the bird was holding one of its wings a little bit strangely, she thought it was okay - maybe a little sore, but no breaks in the wing from what she could tell. Luckily it seemed to figure out the best way to dry itself off, and turned its back towards the sun and spread its wings. What a sight!

We decided to wait to see if it would try to take flight. It looked like it was thinking about it. Sure enough, about 45 minutes after it had climbed out of the waves onto the rocks, it took flight! My camera was in hand but unfortunately I didn't get a photo - it took off right towards me and wasn't gaining altitude very fast, so I ducked instead! But here's proof it ended up in the trees behind me:

What a strange thing to witness! But I'm sure glad this story had a happy ending - this vulture should be safe from dogs and people up in the trees, where hopefully it can dry off the rest of the way before flying on its way.

October Orcas (and other Autumn Animals)

2011-10-03T14:53:00.000-07:00

With the L2s, L5s, and L54s on the westside yesterday, we decided to go to bundle up against the chilly autumn breeze and head to Lime Kiln to hang out for a while to try and see them. Unwilling to admit that summer is over, we settled in on our favorite rocks to read for a couple hours. The whales were several miles to the north and slowly heading our direction, so the prospect of seeing them made it a little easier to wait. In the meantime, just like on my previous trip to the westside, there was lots of other wildlife to look at. Here's a look at a few of the gull species that are common here in the fall:

Heermann's gull

California gull

Mew gull

The gulls were hanging out hoping to take advantage of some food scraps made available by the foraging harbor seals. It was fun to watch the gulls soaring about 15 feet above the water, and based on their actions it was possible to predict where the seals were going to pop up (presumably the gulls could see the seals underwater). The gulls either didn't see or didn't care about this seal pup that popped up inside the kelp beds off the lighthouse, and I almost missed it as well - it was one of those moments where you wonder who is watching whom?

The careful observe could find a few other bird species, too. A rhinoceros auklet dove in the bay to the north of the lighthouse. A loon flew by, and so did these scoters:

A black oystercatcher also made an uncharacteristically quiet appearance, feeding on snails on the rocks just below the lighthouse:

Eventually the very spread out, very slow moving orcas did show up, foraging as they made their way south. The L12s had just made their way in to the San Juans past Victoria, and Js and Ks were heading north out of Admiralty Inlet, so with all three groups of whales on a collision course I was a little surprised that the group of whales we saw wasn't traveling a little faster to go meet up with everyone else. But, they didn't seem to be in any hurry.

The whale that came closest to shore was L78 Gaia, a big male who looked especially big yesterday:

The last group of whales to come by was L54 Ino and her two youngest offspring, L108 Coho and unnamed calf L117. (For those keeping track, Ino's other son L100 Indigo was there, too, just a little ahead of this trio.) The three of them were actively foraging, doing all kinds of circling and lunging at the surface. It looked like they were successful, because the gulls started doing the same thing to the whales that they had been doing to the seals earlier: hovering up above where they were underwater, and swooping down the surface to pick up scraps of fish. It was fun to watch.

Mama L54 Ino on the left, with calf L117 surfacing in the slipstream of older sibling L108 Coho on the right.

It's common for resident whales to prey share, so presumably Ino was catching fish and sharing them with at least Coho. Some of the circling behavior could have been whales converging to tear up the fish. Since there was so much surface activity, I wonder if Coho was playing with a fish that was still alive, or perhaps the little calf was getting an early training session. How cool it would have been to see what was going on underwater to correspond with all the lunges, rolls, and dives we saw at the surface.

Eventually the whales did continue south, and it wasn't until then that I realized just how chilly I was! It was time to go home and crank the heater in the car on the drive back. Later in the evening, I listened to the whales on the hydrophones for about an hour, and it sounded like all three groups did indeed meet up. Based on the vocalizations alone, they were having quite a superpod party!

West Side Feeding Frenzy

2011-10-01T16:57:00.000-07:00

I went out to Land Bank this afternoon for an hour to see what activity was going in Haro Strait. The first thing I noticed when I arrived was all the sport fishing vessels out there, and sure enough, upon closer inspection, I saw there was lots of wildlife taking advantage of what looked like good fishing on this first day of October.

A couple of rhinoceros auklets were diving, and about twenty gulls were taking advantage of the resulting bait ball from the surface. In the mixed species flock were glaucous-winged, Heermann's, mew, and California gulls. Several harbor seals were in the vicinity, and offshore I heard and then saw a Steller sea lion surfacing. Closer to the rocks, a group of four harlequin ducks were diving and feeding, too.

Shortly after that a group of about 10 Dall's porpoise started surfacing. Despite being chilly and a little drizzly, the water was calm and it was quiet enough that I could hear their breathing from a quarter-mile away. One of the porpoise looked a little different from the others, and I think the top of its dorsal fin was missing. I recalled seeing a porpoise like this before, so I came home and looked at my photos. Here's the porpoise I saw in October of 2009, almost in exactly the same spot that I saw the group of porpoise today:

The porpoise is swimming from right to left in the above photo, but since it can still be hard to figure out exactly what you're looking at here unless you've seen lots of Dall's porpoise, here's a comparison shot. This porpoise is in nearly the same surfacing position, but has a complete dorsal fin:

I wonder if it was the exactly same animal with the chopped fin that I saw today? It seems plausible, especially since it's the same time of year and the same place. We're spoiled a little with the orcas that can each individually be identified. Sometimes I wonder more about the individual lives and habits of our regional Dall's and harbor porpoise, that we don't get to observe or study in such detail. Dall's porpoise can live to be 15-20 years old. Locally, they used to be common all summer, until the last couple of years when they seem to leave the area in the summertime until returning in great numbers in September.

Too bad the chopped-fin porpoise today was a little too far away for a photo, but I'll keep an eye out for it over the next few weeks to see if it's hanging around.

By the way, did I mention I saw all the wildlife listed in this blog post in about 10 minutes? It was quite a feeding frenzy out there! The orcas were around, too, but well to the south out of view, where I heard that they were also foraging.

Autumn

2011-09-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

Yellow - cool, crisp, bright

Color of sunsets, of leaves

Changing overnight

Catching Up

2011-09-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy with a few different projects lately that I haven't had much time to get out and bird or whale watch, let alone take photos and blog! When I've needed breaks I've still managed a few short trips out, however, and here are some highlights of what I've seen....

Last week I spent an hour down at Cattle Point on an overcast afternoon. It was pretty quiet bird-wise, but a flock of about 20 sanderlings flew in, which was a nice surprise.

Also, right near the Cattle Point Lighthouse I found two American pipits (196), a migrating species I was hoping to catch sight of this month as they pass through the island. It was a only a brief look so I didn't have a chance for pictures, but here's a photo of the lighthouse instead :)

I went down to Seattle for a three-day conference, and on the way made a stop at Fir Island in Skagit County for a little bit of birding. At one of the Skagit Wildlife Areas there were lots of western sandpipers, a few least sandpipers, and two more American pipits. There was also an adult bald eagle perched nearby, which reminded me that I haven't seen many eagles on the island in about a month! That's not unexpected, as after fledging their chicks in August they head over to the mainland to feed on the salmon runs over there in the fall, but they should be coming back to the island soon.

A walk at the Skagit Game Range also proved to be productive bird-wise. Walking on the dikes, it was amazing to be surrounded by many hundreds of calling and singing red-winged blackbirds in the trees and marshlands all around. It was an almost dream-like experience to be hearing nothing but blackbirds in all directions. There were also wood ducks, mallards, and a few northern shoveler, plus a couple of calling greater yellowlegs. The most unexpected find was a shrieking great horned owl that I would have never seen had it not been yelling every few minutes. It didn't seem to mind our presence, as after giving us a stare-down it closed its eyes and yawned.

I got back home to the island this weekend and yesterday went out near dusk in hopes of seeing some whales off the westside of the island. Amazingly the morning fog still covered much of southern Haro Strait so I wasn't able to see the whales, but the water was calm and the lighting was beautiful so I just sat and enjoyed the view for a while.

The sunset was stunning with some of the fog blowing in the evening wind:

Things should calm down considerably as the week goes on, so hopefully I'll have some more time to get out. I would love to see the whales a few more times, but sightings will probably start to drop off pretty quickly as we approach October!

Update coming soon!

2011-09-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been a week since I've blogged! I'm not sure if that's ever happened before. But, I've been very busy with multiple different projects, though that hasn't kept me from seeing some things worth blogging about. This weekend I'll post more of a proper update, including San Juan bird sightings, Skagit County bird sightings, and perhaps in my following post some interesting facts learned at the conference I'm attending in Seattle. Right now, the view out my window isn't made up of Brown Island, Mt. Baker, and the hundreds of cross jellyfish that have been floating by on a daily basis, but rather I5 running through the downtown area:

The only wildlife seen from this window has been rock pigeons, crows, and glaucous-winged gulls. But more coming soon....

Fantastic Afternoon Aboard the Western Prince

2011-09-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

This afternoon was rainy and windy, but something told me it was going to be a good afternoon for a whale encounter so we jumped aboard the Western Prince. We were not disappointed! Not only did the seas lay down and the sun come out, but we had an amazing orca encounter and saw tons of other wildlife. Here are some photo highlights....(for any of these images, clicking on them will allow you to see a larger view in a photo gallery)

We headed south in San Juan Channel and out through Cattle Pass. A few miles offshore we met up with the L12 subgroup of L-Pod.


From left to right: L41 Mega, L25 Ocean Sun, and L94 Calypso. L77 Matia and L113 Cousteau were also present.

L89 Solstice

They seemed to be actively foraging, with whales splitting apart and coming back together, occasionally changing directions and lunging at the surface.

L89 Solstice with his mother, L22 Spirit

We followed along with Solstice and Spirit who were traveling together. I was just wondering where Solstice's brother L79 Skana was when all of a sudden he popped up a little ways behind us.

L79 Skana

He proceeded to swim along the side of the boat, surfacing four times - it was stunning!

I love this shot - the water flowing off the tip of Skana's dorsal fin as he comes to the surface

What was amazing when he surfaced closest to us (other than his size - wow is he big!) was all the scratches on the front edge of his dorsal fin. It looks like he's acquired some serious rake marks, probably from the teeth of another killer whale. Here's a close-up look:

Scratches on Skana's dorsal fin

Before we left, another bigger group of whales swam past. It turned out to be the K13 family group!

The K13s

As we headed back towards San Juan Island, we saw lots of birds, including several flocks of common murres. This one is transitioning between summer and winter plumage:

Common murre

In addition to the ubiquitous glaucous-winged gulls, there were lots of Heermann's gulls and a few California gulls (later on I saw a small flock of Bonaparte's gulls too).

Over near Long Island off of Lopez there were more birds, including harlequin ducks, a belted kingfisher, a turkey vulture, and these brandt's cormorants perched on a rock alongside a harbor seal:

Captain Peter set up an awesome photo op at Whale Rocks, with the Cattle Point lighthouse in the background. There's lots of Steller sea lions and harbor seals on Whale Rocks along with more cormorants.

Steller sea lions on Whale Rocks with Cattle Point Lighthouse in the background

Here's a closer look at some of those massive Stellers. One was branded, and another one had a huge wound on his side. Despite hanging out so close together, they don't really get along all that well - it was probably an injury from another Steller.

Steller sea lions

Did I mention there were LOTS of cormorants? I saw all three species: brandt's, double-crested, and pelagic.

On the way back to port the sun came out, lighting up our boat wake, though storm clouds could still be seen in the distance to the west behind us:

Overall, it was an awesome trip! You can view a photo gallery of all these images here, where you can also purchase prints or digital downloads.

Enjoying September

2011-09-13T23:10:00.000-07:00

The weather continues to be awesome and the wildlife continues to abound, helping September to live up to its billing as my favorite month on San Juan Island. Here are a few scenes from the last week or so...

Down at American Camp I was pleased to find a vesper sparrow (194) - not an entirely unexpected species here but still a pretty rare sight on San Juan Island. Not a great shot by any means, but enough to see the eye ring, streaked chest, and dark cheek patch bordered by white.

There have been so many cedar waxwings on the island this summer. Also at American Camp I came across this single bird, and then a little later a flock of a dozen:

On Saturday I saw the whales from Land Bank. Word was all three pods were there, but they were very spread out and mostly backlit, so I wasn't able to get many identifications. Some groups of whales were way out in the middle of the strait. Most of the whales went north, but the L12s and L2s stayed south. This male decided at the last minute to go south, and cruised by quickly, but closer to shore than most of the other whales had been.

On Sunday we went out to see the sunset (hard to believe it sets at 7:30 already, and getting earlier in the hurry!). We saw a few distant whales to the south, some harbor porpoises surfacing in the flat calm waters, and a couple of small bait balls made up mostly of glaucous-winged gulls. Although my favorite sunsets usually have some clouds, this one was stunning in its own right.

Finally, yesterday I went out to South Beach hoping to find some migrating American pipits to add to the year list. No luck with the pipits, but I was thrilled to find a flock of a dozen horned larks (195). Not only was this a year bird, but it's the first time I've ever seen this species on San Juan Island. If they hadn't flown a little ways I never would have seen them, because their camouflage against the sand dunes is amazing! Again, not a great shot, but enough to show what it is - I didn't want to get too close and flush them.

What will the next week of September bring? Hopefully some more whales, and according to the weather forecast also some of our first rain of the month...

Awesome Osprey

2011-09-09T14:56:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I was enthralled by the osprey at British Camp. A breeding pair returns every summer, and this season it looks like they fledged two chicks as we saw four birds in total. They were all calling to each other, intermittently flying around and perching in the trees. Although we didn't see them actively catching fish, I saw birds carrying fish in flight and one eating a fish while perched right below the nest.

This bird for some reason dropped a large headless fish back into the water, then circled around and landed in a snag right next to me:

I think that's the closest I've ever been to an osprey!

I need to note a few updates to the year list, too - last weekend I saw a merlin (192) at Jackson Beach, and then at British Camp I saw a Hutton's vireo (193). With a little luck, I'll be able to reach my goal of 200 species for the year! Some other highlights from our hike at British Camp included a pileated woodpecker and 30+ double-crested cormorants.

It wasn't just birds at British Camp, however - we also came across a mama deer with a curious fawn:

September Superpod

2011-09-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

September is my favorite month in the San Juan Islands: usually the weather is nice, the whales are around a lot, and the busiest part of the tourist season is over. I kicked off the month in style yesterday by spending much of the day on the west side of the island. In the morning, I beat the crowds to Lime Kiln Point State Park and spent some time reading on the rocks in the sunshine. No whales were around at that time, but there were lots of harbor seals fishing in the flat calm waters. I'm also pretty sure I saw two harbor seals mating - the first time I've ever seen that!

I went home for lunch but with word of the whales coming south I went back to Lime Kiln in the late afternoon. At first it looked like the whales, who were slowly approaching, would pass well offshore. I settled in to wait, and as they approached the park many of them veered in towards shore. Yes!

It started with just one or two whales passing by at a time, but then all of a sudden there were whales everywhere. It was an amazing sight!

Though the whales were backlit, making them hard to identify, the lighting was actually pretty cool. The water was calm, making for some nice reflections, and the late day sun just lit up the blows and splashes around the whales. I love more abstract shots like this one:

I was able to identify some members of all three pods. I'm pretty sure all of J-Pod, all of K-Pod, and about half of L-Pod were present. One group that passed close to shore included most if not all of the group I call the L55s. Here's L27 Ophelia:

L27 Ophelia

Nearby was L112 Sooke, Ophelia's niece:

L112 Sooke

Sooke's mom L86 Surprise was there, too:

L86 Surprise

A little further offshore was another L-Pod matirline: the L47s. Mom L47 Marina is in the middle, and she's flanked by her two daughters. That's L91 Muncher on the left and L83 Moonlight on the right.

From left to right: L91 Muncher, L47 Marina, and L83 Moonlight

Moonlight's son L110 Midnight was just ahead of them, and I hope L47's one year-old calf L115 was in there too!

L28 Baba and her nephew Crewser came by next, and I was glad to see that Baba's daughter L90 Ballena was not far behind them. Ballena was the whale involved in the alleged vessel strike last weekend. While researchers could find no external injuries and determined she was not in fact hit by a boat, she was acting strangely, spending a lot of time at the surface, breathing with apparent difficulty, and later on lagging behind the other whales. She's a whale the Center for Whale Research has been concerned about for a long time because of her small size and strange shape. They figured she may be sick or, given her age, potentially experiencing a difficult first pregnancy. When the whales left shortly after the incident, many of us worried about L90 and whether or not she would return with them. I was glad to see her out there yesterday. Though she was traveling behind her family members, she seemed to be breathing normally and was not the very last whale.

L90 Ballena - still with us on September 4, 2011 after a strange incident on August 26 (see link above)

The last whales to pass close by were K40 Raggedy and her brother K21 Cappuccino. It's been a while since I've seen them so it was nice to "check in" with them!

K40 Raggedy and K21 Cappuccino

I was really glad that a lot of the people I saw or met at the lighthouse in the morning made it back to see the whales in the late afternoon. There were many visitors that were very hopeful for whales, and they sure got a special encounter! A gallery of all of today's whale photos can be seen here, where you can also order prints.

The whales continued on south, and a little later on there was a spectacular sunset. There were sun dogs on either side of the setting sun, though the one of the left, seen here, was brighter:

What an amazing place I live!!

Exploring Near Campbell River, BC

2011-09-03T16:15:00.000-07:00

After our whale-watching trip last Saturday, we had a full day to explore near Campbell River on Sunday. We spent some time on the trails near Elk Falls Provincial Park along the Campbell River. We didn't see any elk, but did see a mama deer with this fawn:

Despite being relatively close to the roadway, it was a beautiful trail through the woods:

It was an interesting site right along some industrial complexes. The bridge visible in this picture was actually built on top of a pipeline that crosses the river there. There were also lots of people actively fishing, and a few snorkeling down the river. One thing they advertise that you can do in Campbell River is go snorkeling with salmon - interesting!

We got to Elk Falls when the lighting was just right to create this little rainbow. It made for an interesting contrast in a bright waterfall lit by the sun, the dark shadows of the river valley behind, and the scintillating rainbow:

It was a warm day - warmer than most of the afternoons we've had on San Juan Island this summer - so after birding a little along the shoreline of Discovery Passage it felt great to sit on the shade of the deck at the hotel and enjoy this interesting beverage: hard cider made out of saskatoon berries. Known in the US as serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia), the road or trail side plant often gets overlooked by Americans. Canadians, however, enjoy the fruit in pies and jams, dried, or infused into beverages. Look at that color!

That's Quadra Island in the background of the above photo, reflected both right side up in the middle of the glass and upside down at the top of the liquid.

We also made two visits to Tyee Spit at the mouth of the Campbell River, and this was the best little birding spot we found in our explorations. On each visit we saw half a dozen bald eagles, multiple swallow species, harlequin ducks, common mergansers, Canada geese, mallards, killdeer, and several hundred Bonaparte's gull. On our second visit, however, we also found a single mute swan (year bird 191)! The mute swan, introduced to North America, is more established on the east coast, and only has a few population centers this far west. One is at the southern end of Vancouver Island, and occasionally they roam over to the San Juan Islands from there, though I have never seen one in San Juan County. I was surprised to see one this far north on Vancouver Island, but I have no idea if this is normal or not!

The park at Tyee Spit, looking inland

Overall it was a great trip to Vancouver Island! I also succeeded in proving to myself that it's really not so hard to get over there - after all, it's only a ferry ride away, just like the mainland. Next year I hope to go back, spend a little more time, and get a little further north on the island.

Johnstone Strait - Northern Resident Orcas and Dolphins

2011-08-30T14:12:00.000-07:00

As we pulled out of Campbell River on Saturday, August 27th we went across to Quadra Island to pick up a few more guests. On the rocks near the dock several harbor seals were lounging:

We started cruising north up Discovery Passage, and I enjoyed watching several hundred Bonaparte's gulls actively feeding on the surface of the water. They swarmed around the boat as we picked up speed.

As we reached the north end of Quadra Island and pulled into Johnstone Strait, we started searching in earnest for killer whales. We were the first boat out for the day, so we didn't know if or when some orcas might pop up, and we didn't know if we might find residents or transients. Some of the other passengers commented that it almost didn't matter if we found any whales - the scenery itself was so beautiful, and it was enough to just sit in the sunshine and soak it all in....

There was a lot more to look at than the scenery, however. Some splashing caught my eye in the distance, and it turned out to be a group of about 20 Pacific white-sided dolphins! While it looked to our naturalist like they were actively foraging, a few still broke off and came over to ride our stern wake. Another one leaped about 8 feet in the air - an amazing sight! After a few minutes, they went back to foraging, and we continued north.

We passed a lot of interesting vessels along the way - ferries, tugs and barges, purse seiners, fishermen, and....I'm not sure exactly how to categorize this one:

We also spotted some Dall's porpoise, but by this time the captain decided not to stop. There was word that some Northern Residents were well to the north, right at the edge of the range they're able to travel on one of their trips, and we were going to go for them. It sounded good to me!

I learned as we approached Cracroft Island that members of A1 Pod were in the area. The Northern Residents, made up of 16 pods and well over 200 whales, are, as their name suggests, sort of the northern counterpart of the Southern Resident population of orcas that I spend most of my time viewing. They're fish eaters, spending the summer and fall in the inside passage along the north end of Vancouver Island feeding on the salmon runs. Despite their close proximity to one another, it's not believed that Northern and Southern Residents interact or interbreed. They seem to have split up the salmon rivers, and stick to their own territory for the most part.

Cruising up Johnstone Strait

If you've been following my blog for a while you probably know the Southern Residents are J-, K-, and L-Pods. If you're wondering about pods A through I, that's where the Northern Residents come in. Pioneering killer whale researcher Michael Bigg started the first orca photo identification study, and the first whales he saw became "A" Pod up north. The additional Northern Resident pods became B, C, etc, and J, K, and L were the letters by the time he reached the south end of Vancouver Island. Since then, some of the pods have been lumped or split, so there isn't a pod for every letter, and some letters are actually multiple pods. For instance, A1 Pod is just one of three pods with an "A" designation.

I was really intrigued to make connections about the similarities between Northern and Southern residents as our naturalist talked about A1 Pod. He knew their typical traveling routes, just like I do with the Southern Residents, and also their typical association patterns. The first three whales we saw were A12 Scimitar, an elder female who has left her daughter's family to travel with A37 Plumper and A46 Kaikash, two adult males who are her nephews and lost their mother in 2009. It reminds me of L87 Onyx of the Southern Residents, who has linked up with one elder female after another since the passing of his mother. (My friend Katie details Onyx's story beautifully here.) It really underlines how important older females are to resident killer whale communities - without one, adult males often die soon after their mothers.

A46 Kaikash, a 29 year-old member of the A1 Pod

Scimitar, Plumper, and Kaikash were spread out and foraging off Cracroft Island, just north of the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve, a sanctuary for orcas created in 1982 protecting a place of particular cultural importance to the Northern Residents - one of their rubbing beaches. While Southern Residents like to swim through kelp beds, Northern Residents like to rub on round rocks at the bottom of a select few shallow bays. They don't participate in this behavior if disturbed, so boats and land-based visitors are prohibited from Robson Bight. It's an area I first heard about a long time ago, so it was neat to finally see it.

Robson Bight Ecological Reserve

The A34 matriline was just making their way out of the Reserve, so we went over to see them, too, before we left. A34 Simoom is believed to be the daughter of Scimitar, and she has five offspring and three "grand" offspring, making for a total of 9 whales in her matriline. There's one adult male in the group, A55 Echo, and we saw him close into shore, swimming upside down and pec slapping with a younger family member in tow. Two other whales were closer to us. I'm not 100% positive of these IDs, but I think this might be A62 Misty and her six year-old calf A83 Dusky:

All too soon it was time to leave and begin our long journey back south to Campbell River - just south of Hanson Island, we were at about the northern limit for our seven hour trip. On the way home, however, we came across another group of about 10 Pacific white-sided dolphins. These guys were even more playful than the first group we saw, coming closer to the boat. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the encounter:

A Pacific white-sided dolphin surfacing just off our stern wake

One dolphin liked to clear the water on each of his surfacings. That resulted in this image - with the dorsal fin of one dolphin in the center, and the tail of the dolphin in front of him visible on the right.

I took a short video clip that maybe I'll upload at some point, too. Needless to say, it took a while for the smile to leave my face after this amazing dolphin encounter! The whole trip was a huge success, and I saw both of my "hoped for" species - Northern Resident orcas and Pacific white-sided dolphins.

Finally, I just want to say that as someone who has worked as a marine naturalist on a whale-watching boat for six years, I was really impressed with the job done by the folks at Discovery Marine Safaris, who we went out with. Their respect for the wildlife was apparent, and our naturalist Mark was one of the best in the business based on what I've seen over the years. He presented information that was accurate and relevant, and he did so in an engaging manner. He talked about residents and transients, the amazing social lives of killer whales, acoustic dialects, the live capture era, and also important conservation issues relating to salmon, pollutants, and boats, and he did so in a concisely while encouraging everyone on board to take actions to help at home. I was really impressed! I definitely picked up a few things that I could use to make my talks about orcas more interesting. So, if you find yourself wanting to go whale-watching out of Campbell River, check out these guys - you've got my recommendation!

Heading North To Campbell River

2011-08-28T21:16:00.000-07:00

On Friday morning I got on the ferry from Friday Harbor to Sidney, British Columbia on Vancouver Island. The plan was to spend a long weekend in Campbell River, and give myself a chance at seeing the Northern Resident population of killer whales. Despite spending so much of the last decade on San Juan Island, I'd never made it further north on Vancouver Island than Victoria. I finally decided to remedy that this weekend! Although at some point I would love to spend more time further north on the island, this was a good way to start for this summer.

It's a scenic drive from Sidney to Campbell River. After looping around the Saanich Peninsula, there was this amazing viewpoint, with San Juan Island visible in the distance (marked by the arrow):

It's about a four hour drive north to Campbell River, and upon arriving at the hotel I was thrilled to see the view from the deck of our room. I walked straight through the room and out the sliding glass door, binoculars in hand as I soaked in the panoramic view across Discovery Passage to Quadra Island:

Within the first few minutes I spotted five species of gull: Bonaparte's, mew, California, ring-billed, and glaucous-winged. While looking at four of these species perched on a single floating log, my attention was grabbed by something breaking the surface of the water nearby. Porpoises? No, these looked different....they were Pacific white-sided dolphins! This was my first time seeing this species, and along with spotting Northern Residents was one of my high hopes for this trip. Pacific white-sided dolphins are also known as "Lags", a nickname they get from a shortened version of their scientific name, Lagenorhynchus obliquidens. There were about eight of them in this group, and I was thrilled. Surely it was a good omen for the trip!

Later in the evening I was spending some time reading on the deck, when no fewer than 12 common nighthawks flew by. I've never seen that many at once! They flew one way, then came back a little while later going the other direction. While still not close, this is probably the closest I've been to one, too, as often they are very high in the sky:

First thing Saturday morning we headed out on an all-day wildlife watching excursion. Would I see my first Northern Residents? Would I see more Lags? My next post will feature photos from our trip!

Pulling out from Campbell River to go whale-watching

J41 ~ Eclipse

2011-08-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

Note: this blog post is part of a Pacific Northwest blogger scavenger hunt! Answer a series of questions while learning about some great northwest nature blogs and try to win a prize! Read this post for details on how to participate. You have til Sunday night (Aug. 28) at midnight to enter.

July 2005

Moments of quiet are rare during the week of 4^th of July on San Juan Island. It was early morning at Lime Kiln Point State Park and the tranquil waters mirrored the sky, calm enough that you could hear the harbor porpoises breathing as they surfaced a quarter-mile offshore. I sat at a picnic table with my journal. There were a few other people scattered along the shoreline, but all were engaged in similarly personal activities, everyone taking in the beautiful morning in their own way.

A blow much louder and longer than that of a harbor porpoise broke the silence. That was signal enough to abandon everything else, grab the camera, and head to the shoreline. I climbed down to my favorite rock in front of the lighthouse, as low to the water and as close to the whales as you can get. Even as more people gathered on the rocks above me in anticipation, from down at the water’s edge I can block out all other distractions. It can be just me and the whales, and that’s how it felt that morning.

In the lead, as they often are, were J1 Ruffles and J2 Granny, a little further offshore and well ahead of the rest of the pod. This meant J-Pod, who had spent the last several days in Rosario Strait, had looped around into Haro Strait during the night. Behind Ruffles and Granny came J8 Spieden, her wheezing blow especially noticeable. I immediately started looking for her granddaughter J19 Shachi, who a couple of days before had been reported with a brand new calf. Everyone who saw J41 on that first day commented on how small she looked, so I was anxious to see if she was still with Shachi. Shachi had lost her first calf, J29, in 1992. Sure enough, Shachi wasn’t far behind Spieden, and popping up just beside her was the smallest orca I have ever seen. Still the bright orangey color typical of a newborn, J41 also had visible fetal folds on her forehead and down her back. Though she must have been the typical five or six feet long of an infant, she was dwarfed next to her adult mother, her tiny curved dorsal fin just a fraction of the height of Shachi’s. The mother and calf surfaced together three times in front of me, and on the last dive Shachi gave a tail slap, her flukes disturbing the flat-calm water, almost as if celebrating the arrival of her new daughter.

J41 as a newborn in July 2005, behind her mom J19 Shachi

* * *

Most people seem to form a special bond with one particular whale, a whale with which you have numerous significant encounters, and that whale for me became J41. So small, so vulnerable, yet so full of life, J41 was a symbol of hope for a population on its way to being listed as endangered later that year. I had seen other calves, but there was something about the connection that was forged that morning that moved me, studying to be a scientist, to poetry to try and capture what I had experienced.

Your dorsal is still hooked in youth,

destined to subtly blossom like a flower into the fin of a matriarch

I laugh as you wave your tail in the air,

for now just a shadow of the whale you will become

She came back in 2006 having grown a lot, now the traditional black-and-white color of a killer whale having lost her baby pink. On her first birthday I saw her alongside Shachi leading a superpod through Haro Strait, and later in the summer she was named Eclipse through The Whale Museum’s Orca Adoption Program.

Eclipse (Age 1) and Shachi, 2006

One of the amazing things about this population of killer whales is that the same animals return year after year, and they are all individually identifiable, which means we get a rare opportunity to watch individuals and families change and grow year after year. Every spring, I anxiously look for Eclipse to see how much she has grown over the winter.

Eclipse (Age 2) and Shachi, 2007

One summer I was on a whale-watching boat when a young calf surfaced by itself behind our parked boat, excitedly lunging in all different directions. It took me a moment to recognize Eclipse, now aged three, who proudly spyhopped with a small fish in her mouth. A moment later Shachi came over to collect her calf, and the two swam off together.

Eclipse (Age 3) and Shachi, 2008

Another time I was on a kayak trip with some friends off the west side of San Juan Island. We had no sooner launched our kayaks and pulled into a kelp bed than we were circled by Shachi and Eclipse. Even though she was only a few years old, it’s amazing how much bigger Eclipse looked from the perspective of a kayak, as this time I felt I was definitely a visitor to her world, rather than watching from the shoreline or from the deck of a boat.

Eclipse (Age 4), 2009

Eclipse (Age 5) and Shachi swimming into a summer San Juan sunset, 2010

This year, I really couldn't believe how big Eclipse had gotten! I hardly recognized her next to her mom, though her dorsal fin is starting to show the same characteristic hook as Shachi's - a true mother-daughter resemblance.

Eclipse (Age 6), 2011

To view a photo gallery of Eclipse photos, including the ones featured on this blog post and more, click here.

Quick Check-In

2011-08-24T20:47:00.000-07:00

The Southern Residents have been a bit scarce over the last week, something that's not atypical for August when there's a lull in the salmon runs so they spend a bit more time out at the open ocean. In case you, like me, need a brief "whale fix", here's a short video clip from the last time I saw them last weekend.

I've been fighting off another round of this summer cold, so I haven't had the chance to get out or take too many pictures. I did make it down to Cattle Point last week where I saw three white-winged scoters (190), bringing me within 10 species of my year list goal.

Remember to check back on Saturday for the northwest nature blogger scavenger hunt. I'll also be spending a long weekend over on Vancouver Island, so I'll definitely have some things to blog about when I get back!

Another Summery Week

2011-08-20T19:07:00.000-07:00

We've been enjoying another sunny, warm week on San Juan Island, finally getting the summer weather we've long been anticipating! It's made for a pleasant commute to work by bike, outdoor afternoons, west side sunsets, Shakespeare under the stars, and of course: bird and whale watching.

Ravens cavorting above False Bay

I've been seeing as many as 500+ peeps at False Bay, made up mostly of western sandpipers but with some least sandpipers mixed in. It's very cool to see them in such numbers. If there's been anything rarer mixed in, like a semipalmated sandpiper, I haven't been able to find it. But that certainly doesn't mean it's not in there somewhere!

Western sandpiper at False bay

Least sandpiper at False Bay

Just before leaving False Bay one afternoon I spotted a small hawk perched in a tree. I thought at first maybe it was a merlin, but as soon as I got the binoculars on it I saw that it was something else: a sharp-shinned hawk (year bird 189). Sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks are notoriously difficult for identifying in the field, but this bird was small, with a small head, thin legs, and, when it flew, quick, erratic wingbeats - all clues it was indeed a sharp-shinned.

Also this week was the San Juan County Fair, a yearly tradition that's a big hit with our local community. In addition to our home-brewed beer winning a blue ribbon, Keith played acoustic guitar for an hour-long set:

Today, I headed out to Lime Kiln hoping to find some whales. It sounded like they were coming down from the north, so I settled in to wait. It was a real surprise when seven whales suddenly came up from the south! It was the L2s and L54s, presumably going north to meet up with the other whales.

L2 Grace and her adult son L78 Gaia

About half an hour later, the whales did come back south. K20 Spock and K38 Comet passed pretty close to shore, while K27 Deadhead and calf K44 were a little further off.

K20 Spock and her seven year-old son K38 Comet

Many whales were way offshore a mile or more, but another big group of whales did pass about 200 yards offshore. IDs were difficult because of the back-lighting, but I saw whales from the J14, L55, L47, and L26 matrilines - if all members of these family groups were there, that would be 23 whales, which seemed about right.

People wonder sometimes with all the whales I've seen and all the photos I've taken if there's still new shots to be gotten. Of course there is! The whales are always in different groups, doing different things in different places. Here's something I had never seen before - a big male (I believe J30 Riptide) is doing a pec slap as a calf comes to the surface in front of him (click to see a larger view):

There were sort of three groups traveling parallel to one another, each maybe about 50 yards apart. Here's four whales from the "middle" group surfacing together.

Finally, I wanted to announce that next week Saturday, the 27th, I'll be participating in a Northwest Blogger Scavenger Hunt! Or rather, I hope that you will be participating! There are so many great Pacific Northwest blogs, and a few of us, recruited by author Pat Lichen, are banding together in this creative endeavor. On the 27th, a list of questions will be posted on Pat's blog, and the answers will be found on each of the participant's blog sites, including one here on Orca Watcher. Your job is to visit all the blogs, find the correct answers, and submit them by the end of the day of the 27th. In addition to seeing some great photos and reading some interesting writing, all correct answers will be entered in a drawing to win a prize from one of the bloggers. Our hope is that our readers will learn about some of the other interesting blogs out there in a more interesting manner than just off a blog roll, so please come back next Saturday to participate!

Big Group of Whales - Day 2

2011-08-15T22:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to the west side again just to see what was going on, and arrived just in time to see a huge group of playful whales pass by close to shore at Land Bank's Westside Preserve. This was one of those encounters where photos do so much more than words....

Nine of the 30 or so whales on the surface at once, heading towards Land Bank

A young whale breaches alongside five others who have just surfaced

A whale surfaces upside down, pec fins in the air

The same whale does an inverted tailslap

The same whale then rolls over and does a pec slap as J27 Blackberry surfaces behind

J28 Polaris surfaces nose-to-nose with her calf J46 Star

A young whale does an inverted spyhop, surfacing between an adult male and a calf

An orca doing an inverted tailslap sends strands of kelp into the air alongside four other whales

J28 Polaris surfaces with a small strand of kelp across her nose

Having seen only J-Pod whales and the L12 subgroup, I was surprised to see L82 Kasatka and her calf L116 pop up

L22 Spirit

L89 Solstice

L85 Mystery with a strand of kelp across his dorsal fin and saddle patch

L41 Mega

The whole thing only lasted a few minutes, but boy was it amazing! See larger version of all the photos in this photo gallery, where you can also order prints.

Big Group of Whales - Day 1

2011-08-14T21:49:00.000-07:00

Friday when I got off work I heard killer whales on the hydrophones so I went out to the west side to see if I could see them. It was nice and sunny in town, so I was surprised when I got out there to see the morning fog hadn't burned off at all! Not only did I not see the whales, but I couldn't see much of anything with visibility of less than 100 yards:

I had better luck on Saturday, when I got to Lime Kiln just as J and K Pods turned around and started coming back south. They were traveling in one large group, and when they were still more than a mile away they started getting super active. I estimate that, through binoculars, I saw about 15 breaches in less than a minute! What an impressive sight, even at a distance. As they got closer, it was also impressive to see so many dorsal fins at once:

The whales weren't quite as active as they passed the lighthouse, but there were still some tailslaps, spyhops, and breaches:

One whale breached very close to this fishing boat! Just as a side note, this boat was parked there well before the whales were around, and remained stationary throughout the whole passby.

You can't quite tell in these photos, but the water was pretty rough out with some swells larger than we normally see in the summer. Some of the smaller whales were surfacing higher out of the water, presumably to make sure they were clearing the swells to breathe. Here's J41 Eclipse rocketing to the surface:

The whales quickly made their way south, and after a while I decided to go check out the birds at False Bay. I was amazed to see more than 500 peeps there! I put on some boots and went out onto the mudflats to take a better look. They were mostly western sandpipers with a few least sandpipers mixed in. If there was another rarity in there I'll never know. They were all spread out feeding, making it look almost like the mud was crawling with ants.

The patterns in the mudflats looked pretty neat in the outgoing tide, too:

While I was thrilled with my whale encounter for Saturday, little did I know it would be topped by another encounter with a big group of whales on Sunday. Stay tuned for my next post...

August Birds

2011-08-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

I've never really thought of August as being a great month for birding. I mean, I know there's no bad month for birding, but at first glance it doesn't seem like there would be much going on in August. The breeding birds are long past the courtship phase and thus have returned to their more cryptic ways, and the fall migration has yet to really get going. Regardless, the birding this month has been awesome! Not only are there fledged young of all species out and about, but the weather has finally been great, and the first of the fall migrators - some of the shorebirds - have been showing up. Every time I go out I've been seeing something cool!

Last weekend when I went out early looking for whales, I also went looking for birds. I found this bald eagle perched right alongside False Bay Road:

A little further on, I found a California quail sitting in a bush. This is a species that's always eluded me photographically, so I was especially thrilled to get a photo like this!

Down at American Camp, I went looking for and found some of the red-necked phalaropes (188) that are migrating through. I was surprised when a flock of bushtits joined me on the rocks by the shoreline.

There has been a lot of shorebird activity at Fourth of July Beach, with lots of least and western sandpipers and some greater yellowlegs hanging out. With many shorebird species looking so similar, and all the various plumages within a species given winter/summer and juvenile colorations, I spent a long time trying to figure out just what species I was looking at.

Western sandpipers - black legs, drooping bill, rufous scapulars

Least sandpipers - a little smaller, yellowish-green legs, mottling on chest

Western sandpipers in flight

Today I stopped by Jackson Beach to check out the shorebird activity. The first thing I saw when I stepped out my car, however, was an American goldfinch feeding on their favorite plant: thistle.

The shorebirds were also there: three greater yellowlegs, and a flock of thirty killdeer. In with the killdeer were three semipalmated plovers - cool! The semipalmated plover is on the left, and a killdeer on the right:

I wonder what the rest of the month will bring??

Whales I Haven't Seen in a While

2011-08-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

This weekend I got the chance to see some members of L-Pod that I hadn't seen yet this year. While the L12 subgroup has been in inland waters for a while, the "big part" of L-Pod has been scarce until the last few days, when all the members of the Southern Resident Community of killer whales have been traveling together. The whales have been very spread out so it hasn't quite been the exciting social superpod you might be imagining, but it's still awesome to know there are that many whales (88 at last count) in the area.

On Saturday all three pods made their way down from the north, and passed by Lime Kiln between 1 and 3 in the afternoon. J2 Granny was in the lead, followed by the J14s, K13s, and K12s. Most of the other whales were way (read: several miles) offshore, but then after a half hour gap another group came by close enough to be identified. In the lead of this group was L47 Marina and her youngest calf L115. It's exciting to see L115 still going strong. Marina has two adult female offspring in L83 Moonlight and L91 Muncher, but her next four calves after that (L99, L102, L107, and L111) all died within a few weeks of birth. This led to speculation that maybe Marina wasn't able to lactate or was having some other type of difficulty, but L115 has now made it for a whole twelve months!

L47 Marina and calf L115, who turns 1 year old this month

Following L47 was a big group with lots of females and juveniles who I believe was the L55 family group. This is another group of L-Pod I don't get to spend much time with, and that combined with the fact that they are fairly nondescript when it comes to individual markings means they're a challenge to identify. I'm fairly confident I identified L82 Kasatka and her first calf L116, who is one year old as well, and the rest of the group seemed right given the number of adults/juveniles in the rest of their family.

This morning I woke up and immediately felt like I should head out to the west side. Following my intuition turned out to be a good idea, as when I got out there whales were already passing by heading north past Lime Kiln. The first whale I saw was L2 Grace, the mother of a family group I hadn't seen yet this year!

L2 Grace, estimated to be 51 years old this year

The whales proved difficult to track this morning as they were going on long dives and were again spread out. In fact, I only saw Grace on this one surfacing and not again! Well offshore I did see her younger son L88 Wavewalker.

The K12s were around again, as I saw K22 Sekiu and her nephew K37 Rainshadow. L79 Skana was swimming with his mom L22 Spirit - those two seem to have a really close bond:

L79 Skana and L22 Spirit

Finally, I saw the L54 family group, another part of L-Pod I hadn't seen yet this year. It was a little confusing to have both K22 Sekiu and L54 Ino in the same vicinity as one another because they have very similar saddle patches on their right sides. Only Ino has a one-year old calf, though, and L117 was right in there beside her. One of the other whales traveling with Ino (perhaps her oldest son?) breached:

Breach - perhaps by L100 Indigo?

And then, can you believe this? The sequence of shots of the above breach resulted in this image:

Breaching whale upstaged by immature gull

What are the chances of THAT happening?! That immature gull crossed in front of the camera right as the whale was the furthest out of the water. Despite all my years of taking whale photographs nothing like that has ever happened before!

Scenes From the Last Week

2011-08-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, July 31st the K12s, K13s, and K14s of K-Pod headed south past Lime Kiln. They later met up wtih the L12s, J-Pod, and the other four K-Pod whales off the south end of the island. Here's K25 Scoter with his nephew K38 Comet:

On August 1st I was at the redoubt near American Camp when I came across a pair of "teenage" foxes. This one hopped up on the fence to get a better look at me over the tall grass:

Prints of this photo available here

On the way home, I had to pull over to snap a shot of this amazing rural scene with Mt. Baker in the background:

Speaking of Mt. Baker, it was looking especially striking in the evening of August 2nd. I went up to the deck above our marina to take this shot:

Today I went birding down at American Camp. I heard a young bald eagle making a lot of racket near the visitor's center, but it took me a while to locate him - a dark bird hidden in the shadows of the trees. I wonder what all the fuss was about?

Another pair of birds making some noise nearby also caught my attention. They turned out to be a pair of western wood-pewees - cool!

I made another stop at Jackson Beach to look for shorebirds, and I wasn't disappointed. There were 13 killdeer out on the spit. A small flocks of peeps was also foraging nearby. I crouched down and they slowly approached me. Just when I was ready to take a photo, they all took flight! This was the result:

There were 5 western sandpiper and 3 least sandpipers in the mix. I also found six greater yellowlegs. This time the "sit and wait" method was a little more successful, as a pair of them were feeding in the shallows and got close enough for me to take this shot:

They're almost hard to see in the above photo (except for the legs), but the pictures where there was gravel in the background they were almost completely camouflaged! There was also a flock of about 20 mew gulls on the sand spit, and I was surprised to see a pair of Caspian terns hanging out with them! I occasionally see a tern flying overhead at Jackson Beach, but this was the first time I've seen them on the ground there.

As you can tell from all the above photos, the weather has been pretty nice this week! We're finally getting some summer weather now that it's August. Here's hoping it continues through the weekend so I can have some more sunny wildlife encounters.

Barred owl

2011-08-02T21:39:00.000-07:00

Barred owl on Mt. Young last Saturday evening

A solemn moment

In the presence of an owl

Who is looking at whom?

Catching Up on Birds and Insects

2011-07-30T17:20:00.000-07:00

Just because most of my recent posts have been about fantastic whale sightings, it doesn't mean I've stopped paying attention to birds or the rest of the natural world! Here I'll play catch-up by posting some bird and insect sightings from the last month.

When we had family in town a couple weeks ago, we went to see the place they were staying up on Cady Mountain. It was a spectacular sunset that night.

While we were outside enjoying it, I saw and heard three common nighthawks flying around high up above.

The same evening, a band-tailed pigeon (186) called and then flew by, helping the year list slowly trudge along towards my goal of 200 species. I also went out birding yesterday after reading some reports of migrating shorebirds starting to show up. Out at False Bay I found 2 killdeer, a flock of 20 western sandpipers, and 2 semipalmated plovers (187) - nice! That leaves me behind but within reach of Dave, who sits at 192 :)

Also yesterday I went to Fourth of July beach to do a COASST survey. No beached birds, but the highlight was this barn swallow nest with three chicks that must be close to fledging. They won't have any choice but to leave the nest if they get much bigger! This one was basically sitting on top of the other two:

Now on to the insects!

Western sheep moth, Hemileuca eglanterina, larva - about the size of an index finger!

Garden silphid, Heterosilpha ramosa, a beetle that feeds on decaying organic material

Rose leaf gall wasp, Diplolepis polita, found on Nootka rose

A tattered swallowtail butterfly, probably the pale tiger swallowtail, Papilio eurymedon

Finally, we came across an ant hill the other day, and it was pretty amazing to watch these guys at work. I accidentally disturbed their structure before I realized what it was, and they immediately poured out of the holes and set to work rebuilding it. These part-red, part-black ants are western thatching ants (Formica obscuripes) and build large nests out of dead plant material. It was impressive to see the size of the pine needles and twigs they were carrying and maneuvering as they climbed across the ant hill and the rocks it was built up against. It was worth kneeling down and watching all the drama play out in their little world, and after a while I had to pull out my macro lens, too.

Western thatching ant picking up a pine needle

A Whale of an Afternoon

2011-07-28T13:49:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday right after I got out of work my friend Katie gave me a head's up that there were whales heading towards the lighthouse. I made a quick stop at home to pick up lunch and my camera bag and off I went! I got there just in time to see the first whales from J and K Pods heading slowly south against a strong flood tide at about 12:30 PM.

K25 Scoter and his mother K13 Skagit porpoising south - prints of this photo available here

The whales were super spread out, both north-sound and east-west, so they took a long time to pass by. Some were way out in the middle of Haro Strait, but a few others were much closer to shore. The groups I spotted closer to shore started with the K13s, K12s, and K14s. I'm not sure which whale this is, but she veered off and started heading right for the rock where I was sitting. As me and other onlookers waited for her to come to the surface again, I spotted her underwater, gliding by just off the kelp bed not 20 feet from where I was sitting. She surfaced just past me, continuing to head south. This full frame shot is uncropped - nothing in the world like being this close to a wild killer whale!

Prints of this photo available here

Around 3:30 PM there were still whales to the north of us in addition to all those that had passed by heading south, but now they all started going every which way. Many whales went north again further offshore, but one group with lots of juveniles and calves just hung out in front of the lighthouse for a while. I found this moment especially touching - the two youngest K-Pod whales, from different matrilines, with their moms. All four of them surfaced together several times before veering a little offshore and playing for about 15 minutes.

From left to right: K12 Sequim, K43, K44 (barely visible above mom), K27 Deadhead

Here's another shot showing silhouettes of just K27 Deadhead and her son K44, who is about three weeks old now:

There were lulls between groups of whales passing, and I was very close to leaving after it looked like they had all gone north. I was even halfway up the hill when I turned around and saw a whale surfacing directly off from the lighthouse - so back down to the rocks I went. Sure enough, they all came back south again. It was well worth the wait, as around 5:30 the last big group of whales came by. Included in this group were a bunch of males - J27 Blackberry, J34 Doublestuf, L41 Mega, L79 Skana, L87 Onyx, and at least one other.

Two tall male dorsal fins close together

It was hard to count whales when they were as spread out as they were, but I saw or identified in my photos whales from every family group in J-Pod and K-Pod plus the L12 subgroup of L-Pod, so there were probably about 60 whales out there!

L79 Skana

The males were having a very good time together, tail slapping, rolling at the surface, and swimming upside down.

A big male orca lunging upside down at the surface - prints of this photo available here

They were clearly enjoying themselves, as I saw several "sea snakes" (orca penises) extended. It's not unusual for orcas, or other species of dolphin, to engage in sexual behavior for fun rather than just for breeding, and that includes sexual behavior among individuals of the same gender which is definitely what was going on that evening!

An upside down male orca with his "sea snake" visible, with a second male swimming towards him from the left

After that big group of whales passed I had to leave, already late for somewhere I was supposed to be by 6 PM. But as I drove south past Land Bank, I had to stop again because the whales were going slowly and were even closer to shore. It was impressive to see such a large group together, and it was kind of neat to see them from the road rather than down on the rocks where I usually am! It was more of a perspective from above:

J28 Polaris and another female surface inshore of the kelp bed off Land Bank

I was on the west side for five and a half hours, with whales in sight the entire time I was there - definitely a whale of an afternoon! It reminds me of some of the epic passbys we had during some of my first summers here, where a superpod would just go back and forth on the westside for hours at a time.

Three adult male orcas - the one in the middle is throwing a little tail slap as he dives

A photo gallery of all the photos in this blog post can be seen here, where any of them can be ordered as prints.

That Was Awesome

2011-07-23T21:09:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those days - the kind of day that made me want to live on San Juan Island in the first place. The title of this blog post is rather unoriginal, but it's probably the phrase I most uttered today, so I thought it was appropriate.

We went out to the westside around noon today with word that some whales were heading down from the north. Just as soon as the boats and some distant blows were coming into view to the north of Lime Kiln Lighthouse, we heard some people screaming to the south of us. I turned around and saw a big disturbance in the water just offshore of the rock to the south of me. A few seconds later, just long enough for me to grab my camera but not to adjust any of the settings, this big male orca surfaced just north of me, cruising north towards the other whales heading our direction. Surprise!

L85 Mystery heads north to meet up with J and K Pod whales

It was L85 Mystery, and right behind him were the rest of the L12 sub-group. This family group of whales likes to spend a lot of time off the southwest end of San Juan Island, going up and down, up and down, but rarely really committing to going north. They're well known among shore-based whale watchers as the group that just comes into view at Lime Kiln before nearly always turning south again. This afternoon, however, they were interested in going just a little bit further north to meet up with some of their J and K Pod friends. Best of all, as they sped north, they did so very close to shore.

L12 Alexis - the best photo I've ever gotten of this female estimated to be 78 years old. Prints of this photo available here

L41 Mega - prints of this photo available here

The whales all met up just north of the lighthouse, and spent a bit of time milling around before slowly making their way back south. While we were waiting for them to come back, we noticed a very unafraid little bird making its way through all the whale watchers on the rock. It was an immature brown-headed cowbird, and it was totally unfazed by all the human activity. It hopped right between my feet, and perched on my radio sitting with my stuff right next to me:

I've never seen anything quite like it! He even seemed to perk up and get interested as the whales started coming by, but then I must admit I lost track of him as my focus returned to the orcas.

All the male orcas seemed to be grouped up, which was an impressive sight with all those tall dorsal fins. Here's L41 Mega and K25 Scoter, and at least J27 Blackberry and J34 Doublestuf were in there with them, so I suspect the other L12 subgroup males were as well.

This large group of whales, including more than just the males, was a little ways offshore, but they were playful. They were just slowly making their way south, doing some tail-slapping, cartwheeling, upside-down swimming at the surface, logging on the surface, and they threw in a couple of breaches for good measure:

Prints of this photo available here

Then I noticed two whales that were much closer to shore, and heading right for us. Let me tell you, my favorite feeling in the world is sitting on a rock on the west side of San Juan Island and seeing this - a wild killer whale heading right for you:

Prints of this photo available here

It turned out to be J31 Tsuchi and L77 Matia, two female whales ages 16 and 24. I always think it's especially cool to see whales from different pods hanging out together. It's a glimpse into the social lives of these animals outside of their matrilines, with whom they travel with 24/7.

J31 Tsuchi - prints of this photo available here

A note on this next photo, to give you an idea of just how close these whales come to the shore - this image is not cropped, and my lens was only zoomed in to 180mm to take it:

L77 Matia - prints of this photo available here

So after the L12s had gone north, the L12s, K13s, and half of J-Pod (the J11s, J22s, and J17s) came back south. Where was the rest of J-Pod? They were coming down San Juan Channel past Friday Harbor, which gave us enough time to drive down to Cattle Point to see them down there. We got there a little ahead of the whales, and while waiting for them we saw lots of other wildlife, including a single male Steller sea lion over on Whale Rocks.

I was also watching a single rhinoceros auklet diving on a school of small fish. Every time it dove, bait fish would start jumping at the surface, and a single glaucous-winged gull was sitting on the water nearby and taking advantage of this feeding opportunity. As we watched, more gulls came in, and then more auklets, and then some pelagic cormorants, and some Heermann's gulls, and before we knew it a nice bait ball had formed.

Then the whales came into view passing Cape San Juan close to shore, heading south towards where we were on the rocks in Cattle Pass. I was excited they were on "our" side of the channel, but I know they usually veer out and go around Goose Island. In fact, I heard some people commenting on the radio that they had never seen them go inside of Goose Island. Well, if you keep watching these whales, every so often you are going to see them do something you've never seen them do before, and today was one of those days! They swam through the San Juan Island side of Goose Island!

They continued swimming close to shore as they passed us at Cattle Point, and since they were active and surfacing a lot I was able to find each and every whale from the J2, J14, and J16 family groups in my photos. The lighting was also perfect, much better than the harsh lighting off the lighthouse earlier in the afternoon. Here's J2 Granny with a Vancouver Whale Watch boat in the background:

Prints of this photo available here

J26 Mike was looking good - I remember seeing him before he was even a sprouter male, and now he's so huge!

J26 Mike - prints of this photo available here

He must have been feeling good, too - look at that tail slap!

Tail slap by J26 Mike - prints of this photo available here

The whales don't travel through San Juan Channel very often, but when they do I've never seen them kelping at Cattle Pass. That's what some of them were doing today, though! Here's J16 Slick, Mike's mom, with kelp draped on her dorsal fin:

J16 Slick kelping - prints of this photo available here

Not to be outdone by her mother, J37 Hy'shqa surfaced with kelp, too - a lot more of it!

J37 Hy'shqa kelping - prints of this photo available here

Behind the J16s were the J14s. J14 Samish was surrounded by all of her offspring. Here's a close-up look at Samish, who was what looks like black scribbles going through her saddle patch. I always think of Samish as having the most perfectly shaped dorsal fin. She always stands out to me:

J14 Samish - prints of this photo available here

Samish's oldest son, J30 Riptide, is another big male in J-Pod. He surfaced here with Mt. Rainier visible in the distant background:

J30 Riptide with Mt. Rainier in the background - prints of this photo available here

If you want to take another look at all the above whale photos from today, you can look at the gallery here or see a slideshow of them here. I'm sure you can see how after this epic whale-of-a-day, the only words I could come up with to summarize it were: That was awesome.

Whales Go Up and Whales Come Down

2011-07-20T20:02:00.000-07:00

On Monday after work we went out Land Bank on the westside after hearing the whales had been around a lot that morning. Some whales had already passed heading north, but right when we got there the J14s were passing by in a tight group close to shore - it was an awesome sight.

From front to back: J37 Hy'shqa, J30 Riptide, and J14 Samish - prints of this photo available here

I couldn't *quite* get all five members of the J14 matriline up in the same shot, but here are four of them:

From front to back: J37 Hy'shqa, J30 Riptide, J40 Suttles, and J45 Se-Yi'-Chn

There was a gap after that, then another big group of whales came, including many members of J-Pod and the L12 sub-group of L-Pod. J27 Blackberry and J34 Doublestuf, two males from J-Pod, were doing a lot of rolling around with L77 Matia, a female from L-Pod. At one point Doublestuf lifted her out of the water:

Matia lost her first calf last year, but maybe she'll be having another one in about 17 months??

Shore-based whale watchers at Land Bank's Westside Preserve

Yesterday afternoon I decided to try my luck on the westside again. The L12s came back south on Monday, but the rest of the whales had continued north and I expected them to be making their way back down towards San Juan Island. Soon after I got to Lime Kiln lighthouse the L12s started coming up from the south, but just as they got into view they did the expected (for them) and turned back south again. I just saw a few breaches and cartwheels in the distance before they disappeared. Up north, J-Pod had split into two groups. One group went down Rosario on the east side of the San Juan Islands, and they other group was heading north (away from the lighthouse) at Moat. I was just getting ready to leave since the whale prospects looked slim, when I heard that the Moat group turned south.

Settling in for a bit of a wait, I passed some of my time by turning my camera to the big waves in Haro Strait. There were a lot of kayak groups out for day trips, and I suspect some of them probably shouldn't have been out there. This group decided to turn back but they were still dealing with some pretty rough seas. It didn't look like much fun to me!

Since we're in inland waters here we don't often get much wave action along the rocky shoreline, especially in the summer. Yesterday was an exception, so I took some wave photos while I was waiting, too. Here's one of my favorites:

Finally around 6 PM we could see some blows to the north, and by 6:30 the whales were passing us, porpoising south through the waves against the strong flood tide. This isn't a black and white shot, but it almost looks like it since it's taken into the harsh late afternoon light:

The highlight of this passby was seeing new mom K27 Deadhead and her calf K44 porpoising side by side. The little guy was almost completely hidden by the splashes they were creating, with usually just his dorsal fin visible. Here's the one shot I got that shows a little more of him:

K25 Scoter was one of the last whales to pass by, and he was porpoising a ways offshore. It was a neat sight with the Olympic Mountains lit up in the distance behind him: