San Juan Channel: Bird Survey and Branded Sea Lion

Yesterday afternoon we participated in a marine bird survey transect down San Juan Channel. In the fall, a class at the University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs has been conducting surveys down this transect for birds and marine mammals over the last several years, and my friend Phil is interested in establishing a year-round data set following the same transect. Seven volunteers gathered to do the first one yesterday on a drizzly but calm afternoon.

While on the water I saw 13 bird species, the vast majority of them rhinoceros auklets. We did one survey going north to south, and one going south to north, and both times the other side of the boat saw WAY more birds than my side in terms of numbers. Still, we counted several hundred rhino auklets in each direction. Some other highlights included almost a hundred common murres, about 20 red-breasted mergansers, and a single long-tailed duck, the latest in the season I've seen one.

In terms of marine mammals, we had only one harbor porpoise and one harbor seal within our survey zone, but there were other marine mammals out there. Lots of Steller sea lions were hauled out on Whale Rocks, and this California sea lion was hauled out on the Reid Rock buoy just outside of Friday Harbor:

You can't tell in the above photo, but this sea lion is branded with the number 670, and this is the fourth spring in a row he's been hauling out on this same buoy! He was branded in Puget Sound in 2000 as a two or three year old, weighing 235 pounds. He has been seen multiple times on San Miguel Island, California (where he was a territorial male in 2008), as well as at Cascade Head, Oregon, and in the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia. That's a known range of over 1200 miles! Pretty amazing. As a 15 year old (or so) now, he probably weighs 800+ pounds. According to Wikipedia, the average lifespan is about 17 years in the wild. It will be interesting to see how many more years he keeps returning!

Crossing Admiralty Inlet

As we headed back to Friday Harbor after a great trip to Sequim last weekend, the winds continue to blow as we took the Port Townsend --> Keystone Ferry across Admiralty Inlet. I thought that might hamper the bird sightings a bit, but I was surprised by how species many I saw during the 30 minute crossing. Here's my count:

Surf scoter - 1

Common goldeneye - 2

Red-breasted merganser - 3

Pacific loon - 1

Common loon - 1

Red-necked grebe - 1

Double-crested cormorant - 3

Pelagic cormorant - 2

Mew gull - 2

Western x Glaucous-winged hybrid - 2

Glaucous-winged gull - 3

Gull sp. - 5

Common murre - 1

Pigeon guillemot - 20

Marbled murrelet - 2

Rhinoceros auklet - 65

The highlights were definitely the pair of marbled murrelets (135), a year bird, a well as the number of rhinoceros auklets. While we see auklets in inland waters all year, most of then tend to head offshore to feed for the winter. All the ones I saw in Admiralty Inlet, the first ones back for the summer, were decked out in their breeding plumage.

I've had a couple of neat bird sightings since returning home. The other night, no fewer than 30 double-crested cormorants gathered together outside the marina, then took flight and swirled through the sky before settling to roost in the trees just down the shoreline from us. Then, this morning, I heard a European starling mimicking a Swainson's thrush....maybe I'm not the only one who is ready for summer?

Great Backyard Bird Count: Day 2

I got out for two and a half hours of birding this afternoon in the sunshine, out to see how many species I could find in my bigger backyard of San Juan Island. It was chilly and unfortunately with the wind a lot of the passerine birds were either hunkered down or difficult to detect in the waving branches. As a result I wasn't able to top the 44 species I saw during the GBBC two years ago the island, but finished the day with a respectable 38 species.

My first stop was Jackson Beach where the highlight was my only western gull of the day. The yellowlegs was no where in sight, but I did also see my only three green-winged teal in the lagoon. American Camp and South Beach were pretty quiet, but there was good birding to be had at Cattle Point where I found a flock of 17 black turnstones. Out in the turbulent waters of Cattle Pass were a lot of sea birds, including a red-necked grebes, horned grebes, pigeon guillemots, harlequin ducks, surf scoters, double-crested and pelagic cormorants, and my first Pacific loon (126) of the year.

I stopped by False Bay, and though it was high tide there wasn't much bird activity. The large flock of mew gulls was mixed in with the large flock of pintail, both of which seemed to be foraging on the sandbar that was still out of the water. I spent the rest of my birding time driving around some of the inland roads of the island, mostly looking at some of the freshwater lakes and ponds. I turned up many of the expected ducks, and had to pull out my camera for a close encounter with some trumpeter swans:

Adult trumpeter swan in the sun

Pair of immature trumpeter swans in the shade

Toward the end of the day, I also found a single common merganser, which made for a three merganser species day, which is always cool.

Here's my species count for the day:

• Canada goose - 18
• Trumpeter swan - 22
• Mallard - 2
• American wigeon - 50
• Northern pintail - 100
• Green-winged teal - 3
• Ring-necked duck - 30
• Lesser scaup - 10
• Harlequin duck - 8
• Surf scoter - 6
• Bufflehead - 115
• Hooded merganser - 2
• Common merganser -1
• Red-breasted merganser - 12
• Pacific loon - 3
• Common loon - 2
• Horned grebe - 10
• Double-crested cormorant - 20
• Pelagic cormorant - 30
• Bald eagle - 10
• Red-tailed hawk - 1
• Black turnstone - 17
• Mew gull - 100
• Western gull - 1
• Glaucous-winged gull - 120
• Pigeon guillemot - 4
• Belted kingfisher - 2
• American crow - 25
• Chestnut-backed chickadee - 6
• Red-breasted nuthatch - 1
• American robin - 6
• European starling - 120
• Song sparrow - 1
• Golden-crowned sparrow - 2
• Dark-eyed junco - 6
• Red-winged blackbird - 10
• House finch - 2

Great Backyard Bird Count: Day 1

Today is the first day of the Great Backyard Bird Count, and it was a beautiful day for it. After a gray, windy week today was partly cloudy and calm. The view from our marina over towards Mt. Baker was a beautiful one:

Over the course of the afternoon I saw a respectable 16 species (plus one hybrid). That already tops the 13 species I saw at my parent's house in Portland during last year's GBBC weekend. Here's the results of my count today:

• Surf scoter - 2
• Bufflehead - 18
• Hooded merganser - 1
• Red-breasted merganser - 4
• Red-necked grebe - 1
• Double-crested cormorant - 8
• Mew gull - 2
• Western x glaucous-winged gull hybrid - 1
• Glaucous-winged gull - 10
• Rock pigeon - 5
• Belted kingfisher - 1
• American crow - 30
• Chestnut-backed chickadee - 6
• Red-breasted nuthatch - 2
• Song sparrow - 1
• Dark-eyed junco - 7
• House sparrow - 1

So far it looks like I'm the only person to submit any checklists from anywhere in San Juan County! Looking at the past couple of years, only about 5-10 lists get submitted for San Juan Island, during the GBBC, so I want to make sure to contribute. Despite the name, you don't just have to count birds in your literal backyard, so since I got a good count at the marina today I'll probably go out tomorrow and do a good search around the island to see how many species I can turn up. Two years ago when I did a mini big day on GBBC weekend I found 44 species, including a new life bird! We'll see what tomorrow brings....

The "I'm On Hold" Bird Count

I was dreading the phone call I had to make today to dispute my internet/phone bill, which was incorrect for the third month in a row. From past experience, I knew I would probably be put on hold for a while as the appropriate supervisors were consulted with. I realized instead of letting my anger rise as the minutes of the hold ticked by, I would take advantage of the time to conduct an informal bird count out my window, in preparation for next weekend's Great Backyard Bird Count. Here's the decent list I generated during my 30 minutes (!!!) on hold:

9 dark-eyed juncos

1 belted kingfisher

5 glaucous-winged gulls

2 rock doves

1 Pacific wren

3 chestnut-backed chickadees

1 song sparrow

1 red-breasted nuthatch

And I even got the billing issue resolved!

Great Backyard Bird Count - Days 3 and 4

The second half of the Great Backyard Bird Count yielded much better results. For starter's, here's what I saw:

Sunday
American crow - 3
Black-capped chickadee - 3
Red-breasted nuthatch - 2
Spotted towhee - 1
Brown creeper - 1
House finch - 2
Song sparrow - 1
Western screech-owl - 1

Monday
American crow - 5
Black-capped chickadee - 7
Red-breasted nuthatch - 3
Brown creeper - 1
House finch - 2
Song sparrow - 1
American robin - 2
Steller's jay - 3
Varied thrush - 3
Northern flicker - 3

The single dark-eyed junco that came through the yard this morning - odd to see it by itself!

Thirteen species were seen and heard in the yard this weekend - not too bad! I definitely saw more activity by going out early this morning as opposed to counting in the afternoon.

The Great Backyard Bird Count helps give scientists a snap-shot of bird activity across the continent, but I can only imagine the monumental task of trying to pull meaningful trends out of the masses of data that are admittedly somewhat prone to error when including information from all levels of birders putting in varying levels of effort. For instance, I saw that there are eight different reports of blue jays , an eastern species, in Oregon; these are almost certainly actually sightings of Steller's jays, which are in fact blue in color so often get referred to by novices as blue jays. While I imagine pulling population trend data must be near-impossible, some of the other questions they are asking include the timing of migration movements, the status of irruptive species in a given year, and the differences in bird diversity in urban, suburban, rural, and natural areas.

All this backyard bird-watching also got me thinking about changing trends in my own back yard. There are several species that I used to see fairly regularly growing up here, but not anymore. Some examples are the pileated woodpecker, downy woodpecker, and band-tailed pigeon. Sadly, they have most likely been pushed out of this region as the surrounding city has developed further of the last two decades. Still, it's cool that I can be right in the middle of a metropolitan area and see more than a dozen species in the yard over the course of a winter weekend.

Great Backyard Bird Count - Days 1 and 2

It's been a pretty quiet start to the Great Backyard Bird Count for this backyard birder, with not many species or many birds spotted in the last two days. I've only spent about half an hour a day out in the yard, but the feeders have been very quiet which also contributes to the low counts. Here are my counts from the last two days:

Friday
American crow - 7
Red-breasted nuthatch - 2
American robin - 2
Northern flicker - 1
Steller's jay - 1

Saturday
American crow - 11
Black-capped chickadee - 2
American robin - 2
Northern flicker - 1

Only six species in these two days, so there's definitely some other possibles to be added in the next two. Unfortunately everything has been pretty far away, so no photos yet, but I'll report back at the end of the weekend and I'll try to get some pictures to share too!

Olympic Mountains and February Bird Count

Today Jason and I went down to the south end of the island to check out the red-tailed hawks. It was another wintery day with dark gray skies and cold winds. We spent some time hunkered down out of the wind watching the North Pair as they soared over the fields looking for prey. It was amazing to watch them kiting - just hanging in place without any movement at all. We didn't see them catch anything, although Garth (RTH1) made an attempt but apparently missed the little rodent or whatever it was he was after.

The most spectacular view was to the southwest, looking across the straits at the Olympic Mountains. While the slate gray clouds hung over the San Juans, the Olympics were lit up by pale sunlight and the view across to them was crisp and clear. Make sure to click on the photo to see a larger version.

Today also brings us to the end of the Great February Bird Count hosted by Northwest Nature Nut. The winner over at Pittswood Birds tallied a remarkable 46 species in their yard over the course of the month. I don't have quite that diversity here at our marina but I did tally a respectable 19 species over the month, the most surprising of which was a pied-billed grebe which I have never seen from here before. Here's my species list for the month, in alphabetical order:

• American crow
• Bald eagle
• Belted kingfisher
• Bufflehead
• Canada goose
• Chestnut-backed chickadee
• Common raven
• Dark-eyed junco
• Double-crested cormorant
• Fox sparrow
• Glaucous-winged gull
• Great blue heron
• Hooded merganser
• House sparrow
• Mew gull
• Pied-billed grebe
• Red-breasted nuthatch
• Red-necked grebe
• Song sparrow

5 hours, 278 photos, 44 species, NA life bird #311

American robin on split rail fence

Today was a beautiful, overcast, but calm day and I spent five quiet hours driving around the whole island visiting all my favorite birding spots. I was inspired to do this when I learned for the Great Backyard Bird Count you can actually report all species you see - not just those in your yard - and I wanted to top the ~25 species day lists I've been getting. So off I went (camera in hand and determined to spend some time at photography, too) and ended up stopping at about eight different spots. The full list for the day as submitted to the GBBC is at the bottom of this post.

Roosting double-crested cormorants

As you can see by the title of this post, I succeeded at my goal of topping 25 species by seeing 44! One nice surprise was actually a flock of red-winged blackbirds. European starlings are great mimics, and do excellent impersonations of everything from red-winged blackbirds to red-tailed hawks, killdeer to California quail. They're so good that I don't trust my ability to ID birds by call when I've seen starlings around. There have been several times lately that I've thought I might be hearing some red-winged blackbirds and they just turned out to be a flock a starlings. Today, however, the impersonations were just *too* good, and a closer investigation revealed that they really were red-winged blackbirds this time!

Bold downy woodpecker that flew up to a tree near where I was standing

I consider myself a decent birder, with good visual ID skills of all the common local species, therefore it's not often I raise my binoculars and find myself without a clue as to what it is I'm looking at. It's an exciting feeling!! That happened today though, as another awesome surprise was a pair of pine grosbeaks, a new life bird for me (#311 in North America), and a rare species for the San Juan Islands. After a little observation the name "pine grosbeak" did come to mind, probably from flipping through the field guide making day lists and having some subconscious recollection of what they looked like. As soon as I saw the field guide pictures I knew it was a match, and it was just doubly confirmed by the very accurate text that described the pine grosbeak as a large, sluggish finch that is relative uncommon and surprisingly tame. Indeed, the pair was very approachable, and even though I spooked off the red-winged blackbirds and flickers that were in the same tree, the grosbeaks stayed and allowed me to watch them and snap some photos to my satisfaction. When I finally moved on about half an hour later, they were still foraging in the same tree even though I had walked right up to the trunk!

Female pine grosbeak

Canada Goose - 50
Trumpeter Swan - 11
Gadwall - 8
American Wigeon - 19
Mallard - 10
Northern Pintail - 6
Green-winged Teal - 5
Ring-necked Duck - 25
Lesser Scaup - 125
Harlequin Duck - 6
Surf Scoter - 12
Bufflehead - 40
Common Goldeneye - 2
Hooded Merganser - 4
Common Merganser - 4
Red-breasted Merganser - 5
Duck sp. - 150 - too far away at False Bay but prob. N. Pintail
Common Loon - 6
Red-necked Grebe - 2
Double-crested Cormorant - 20
Great Blue Heron - 8
Bald Eagle - 2
Red-tailed Hawk - 2 - including the rufous morph at the south end of the island!
Black Oystercatcher - 2
Black Turnstone - 2
Mew Gull - 20
Glaucous-winged Gull - 50
Gull sp. - 150 - too far away to see at False Bay but prob. Mew Gull
Pigeon Guillemot - 6
Rock Pigeon - 4
Downy Woodpecker - 1
Northern Flicker - 15
American/Northwestern Crow - 50
Common Raven - 3
Chestnut-backed Chickadee - 2
Red-breasted Nuthatch - 3
Bewick's Wren - 1
American Robin - 60
European Starling - 30
Spotted Towhee - 5
Song Sparrow - 4
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon) - 15
Red-winged Blackbird - 25
Pine Grosbeak - 2
House Finch - 2
House Sparrow - 10

Birds and Birthdays

I went out birding today with Jason and we saw a couple of cool things of note. One was a western meadowlark down near South Beach! Apparently, western meadowlarks used to be common breeders in the San Juan Islands until about 1960. It's unlear why they declined, because there seems to be some great grassland habitat for them here. They're no longer believed to breed here, and are pretty much just seen from September-April, although I've only ever seen one and it was last October. It's ironic that they're mostly a winter visitor to the islands now, because when I saw its bold yellow chest with distinct black V it made me think of spring!

The mew gulls at False Bay were up to their foot-paddling again, which is such a comical little dance to watch.

Down at the south end of the island is a pair of red-tailed hawks that we think probably have a nest down there since they're always in the same area, and a few weeks ago we observed them carrying grasses (nesting material?!). Today was the first day I really got a good look at both of them, and it turns out you can tell them apart because they are different color morphs. Red-tailed hawks come in all sorts of colors that were originally thought to be different species. At first I thought the dark one we were seeing was a Harlan's hawk (the darkest red-tailed hawk) but I forgot this morph actually has a black and white tail. Instead, we were looking at the relatively rare rufous morph, which makes up only about 10-20% of the red-tailed hawk population. Jason put digiscoping to the test and took a photo of the other "regular" red-tail with his digital camera through the scope we were borrowing. He'll post the cool shot he got on his blog.

I also wanted to remind you that this weekend, starting tomorrow, is the Great Backyard Bird Count! The purpose of the project is to get a snapshot of the birds across the US and Canada, and to give birders an excuse to spend at least 15 minutes a day monitoring what's in their yards. Some of us bloggers are participating in the (much much smaller) Great Bird Count of February just for fun, but its definitely worth taking a weekend to report what's in your yard for the Great Backyard Bird Count.

Finally, you should join me today in raising a toast to the 200th anniversary of the birth of two very great men. Amazingly enough, both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on February 12th, 1809. They both changed the world in very different ways, but both for the better, in my not-so-humble opinion. I admire both these men, their genius, and their tenacity very much, and will be honor their legacy with a raised glass tonight.

CBC: Variety but not abundance

Today I participated in my second Christmas Bird Count (CBC) here on San Juan Island. There was light snow last night, but most of it melted today so I was able to get out to my count site at Lime Kiln State Park, as well as conduct a local count at our marina. It was cold and windy, but the precipitation luckily held off so it was a pleasant afternoon to spend three hours birding. Overall, I saw a respectable 25 species, but most species were just ones and twos. I have a feeling a lot of birds were hard to see/count because of the high winds. Here is my species list from my two count sites:Harlequin duck

Surf scoter
Bufflehead
Hooded merganser
Common loon
Horned grebe
Red-necked grebe
Pelagic cormorant
Bald eagle
Glaucous-winged gull
Gull sp.
Rhinoceros auklet
Northern flicker
Common raven
Chestnut-backed chickadee (topped the list at 22 individuals)
Red-breasted nuthatch
Brown creeper
Bewick's wren
Golden-crowned kinglet
Varied thrush
Spotted towhee
Fox sparrow
Song sparrow
Dark-eyed junco
House sparrow

An interesting species of late is the locally common glaucous-winged gull. When I got back from my holiday trip, my bird feeder was gone, and I assumed it had blown away in the strong winds we had up here. Now, I'm starting to think maybe it was the gulls! As soon as I put out a new feeder (read: flimsy disposable baking pan), two gulls immediately came over and started pulling at and bending the plate. I spooked them off yesterday, but this morning the plate was bent in half. I guess I'll have to come up with a sturdier, more permanent feeder. Here's a picture of one of the troublesome gulls on my roof, looking down at the feeder:


Also, Dave at Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventures told me that a glaucous-winged gull was recently seen in Cleveland, England which is along the northeast coast of the country. (You can read about the sighting on Bill Aspin's birding blog.) This is remarkable to me! Sometimes European and North American birds will end up on the wrong continent, but often it will be from the east coast of the US to the west coast of Europe, so the bird "just" has to cross the Atlantic Ocean. But in the case of this glaucous-winged gull, it is a WEST coast bird from North America and it has ended up on the EAST side of the UK! I have no idea how this could have happened, although Dave reports that apparently American birds end up on the eastern shores of England by "bouncing" off of Norway. If this bird flew directly from Friday Harbor to where it is in England, it would have had to travel more than 4500 miles, and that's if it flew in a straight line over the shortest possible route. Talk about ended up off course! Wikipedia does list it as a rare visitor to the western palearctic zone, with its first ever record in Britain in the winter of 2006-2007. Maybe the same bird is still there!