Part 2: The Sequim Coastline

After visiting Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, I wanted to visit several other places along the shoreline near Sequim that I had read about. The first couple of stops were along Dungeness Bay. One of the neatest places was Oyster House Road, which provides the closest view of the protected Graveyard Spit that juts off of Dungeness Spit. The parking lot at the end of this road also gives you a chance to scan Dungeness Bay and its associated mudflats. When we pulled up, I was delighted to see a flock of shorebirds not too far away. There were over a hundred dunlin, and mixed in were about twenty black-bellied plovers (133). I was excited because, along with the brant, this was one of the two species that I really thought I had a good chance to see while in Sequim.

Above Oyster House Road we spotted a bald eagle perched on a snag. Nearby was a tree full of bustling European starlings, but one starling was perched right below the eagle, singing his heart out. Maybe they're too small for eagles to bother with? I still think he was pretty brave. It was quite a sight!

Many of the rural roads also had productive birding, with lots of ponds filled with a variety of ducks. Along Jamestown Road we found a nice mix of non-aquatic species. While there were no raptors perched in the "Jamestown snags", we saw our only Steller's jays of the day and a mix of House sparrows and golden-crowned sparrows. In an orchard were a flock of California quail (134), my first of the year. A little further on in the same field was another flock, this time of eight Eurasian-collared doves. I don't think I've ever seen more than two at a time before.

Marilyn Nelson County Park was one of the biggest highlights of the afternoon. This park is situated near the mouth of Sequim Bay and you can walk down the rocky beach of the half-mile Travis Spit. From there you also get a view of Protection Island, a national wildlife refuge in the Strait of Juan de Fuca that is one of the most productive breeding seabird colonies in the state. I've read about it so much that it was nice to finally see it, even from two miles away!

There was surprisingly little activity out on the water, but I realized shortly that was because all the birds were right along the shoreline! This female bufflehead was one of the few diving ducks present:

Up one direction of the beach I spotted an immature bald eagle feeding on something. At first I thought it was a dead harbor seal, but upon closer inspection I realized it was actually what looked like a deer carcass. The deer are known to swim across some of the channels in the region...maybe this one drowned and washed up? I didn't want to get too close to examine it more carefully, since it was pretty clear it "belonged" to this eagle:

Along Travis Spit were about a hundred brant right along the beach. After seeing them only way in the distance from Dungeness Spit, it was nice to get a closer look. They were actively feeding on eelgrass, their primary food source, in the shallows. These are the typical black brant of the west coast. The brant on the Atlantic are gray, and were formerly considered a separate species.

After stopping a couple more places along Sequim Bay, we headed over to the Dungeness River Audubon Center which has a trail over a railroad bridge and through the woods. The feeders near the visitor center were very active. We saw both black-capped and chestnut-backed chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches, and more golden-crowned sparrows. There was also a pair of Anna's hummingbirds taking advantage of the hummingbird feeders. You can only barely make it out on this lower resolution version of the photo, but she's actually sticking her tongue out a little bit:

By this time we had been birding for 7 hours straight and I was famished. The trail mix and bananas we had been subsiding on all day weren't quite enough to keep me going, so we headed back to Sequim for an early dinner. After having some great Mexican food at Las Palomas (an appropriate restaurant for the day - la paloma is Spanish for dove), it was still light out so we headed out for one more short excursion back to walk on the trails we didn't have time for at Dungeness Recreation Area in the morning. I wondered if we would be able to add two more species to the day list? 

The best part of this trip actually turned out to be on the drive there, when we pulled off on a side road to where a huge flock of several hundred wigeon had just landed. The pond was very active, and within the American wigeon I found two male Eurasian wigeons - a new species for the day list. There were also a pair of Canada geese, a small flock of ring-necked ducks, and along the edges a pair of pied-billed grebes - another day list species! 

The grebe turned out to be the last new species for the day, and when I tallied it up at night back at the hotel, we reached a nice even 60 species for the day. Not bad at all, and definitely better than the 39 species recorded the day before. It was an awesome day - one of those real breaks from everything else that goes on in life, and a chance to just explore a new area and look at birds. Can't complain one bit.

Part 1: Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge

Today we had a full day to bird-watch around Sequim, and I intended to take full advantage of it. The morning started out a little tenuous, however, as in the aftermath of the huge earthquake off the coast of Japan we learned that a tsunami advisory had been put in place for much of the west coast, including Washington. When your plan is to walk out one of the longest natural sand spits in the world, this is not good news. 

After a little research, we learned that the advisory was pretty minor for the Strait of Juan de Fuca, so we decided to go ahead with our plans. Our first stop was Dungeness Recreation Area, which is adjacent to Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge. On the way there I spotted my first bird of the day: a hooded merganser. A good start! Within the Recreation Area are viewpoints atop a bluff, where we encountered quite a few tsunami watchers hoping to see what was projected to be a one-foot tsunami.

While the locals were convinced the waves were a little bit bigger than normal, they really weren't all that impressive and I was far more interested in the bird life. Out in the strait I could see some surf scoters, horned grebes, and red-breasted mergansers, as well as a single red-necked grebe. On the bluffs just below the lookout were a flock of gulls. Most of them were glaucous-winged, but there were a few western gulls as well.

Looking the other direction from the water, back towards Sequim, was a pretty sight as well. I just loved all the colors:

We continued on to Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, the highlight of the day. The refuge, made up primarily of a long sand spit and its adjacent tidelands, also includes a bit of forest and that is where the trail began. In the half-mile stretch of woods we found our first chestnut-backed chickadees of the day, as well as a singing Pacific wren. There were several bird feeders near a maintenance building that also attracted a flock of juncos, a few golden-crowned sparrows, and a surprising nine spotted towhees (I don't think I've ever seen so many in one place). A couple of native Douglas squirrels and a chipmunk were taking advantage of the seeds, but this fox sparrow was taking advantage of this small puddle in order to have a bath:

Dungeness Spit itself is an impressive sight. It juts four and a half miles out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, with a lighthouse perched on the very end of it. Graveyard Spit, long in its own right, breaks off from the main spit and is entirely protected from public access to provide undisturbed habitat for birds, including the thousands of brant that over-winter here.

 One side of Dungeness Spit is open for walking (the other side is also protected for shorebirds), but there is no established trail. You have to make your way over the gravelly beach, which is strenuous walking. They tell you to allow 4-6 hours to make the whole trek to the lighthouse and back, and with other sites we wanted to see we decided to just walk partway out.

One of the first birds I saw out there was a loon. Upon getting a closer look, I realized it wasn't a common or Pacific loon, but rather a red-throated loon (129) - my first of the year! We ended up seeing about eight of them out there. Note the speckled back and thin, upturned bill that help characterize this species:

After getting a ways out on the spit, I decided to peak over to the restricted side to see what birds were in the tidal lagoon. They were way far away over by Graveyard Spit (near the eelgrass beds that they feed on), but I was able to make out that the nearest birds were indeed brant (130). If all the specks in the distance were also brant, there were easily hundreds and hundreds of them.

At about a mile and a half out we decided to turn back, but I stopped to take one more scan up the beach to see what was ahead. I saw a large flock of shorebirds land another half mile or so up the beach and was just about to insist on pressing on a little further when a small flock of shorebirds landed right in front of me. They turned out to be about a half-dozen sanderling (131) and about ten dunlin (132). This glaucous-winged gull didn't seem to mind at all that these birds were foraging all around him:

Satisfied at picking up four year birds on the spit, I was ready to turn back and go explore other areas, but not before snapping a photo of the lighthouse at the end of the spit. This was as close as we got today, but one day I'd like to come back and do the full hike.

With fewer stops for photos and looks through the binos, the hike back was a bit faster, and soon we were leaving the refuge and driving back through the recreation area. While driving through the marshlands, a male northern harrier was keeping pace with my car and then landed near the road. I pulled over and was able to snap this photo of him:

We had spent between 3 and 4 hours at Dungeness but had a lot more exploring left to do. Next up, I'll report on what all we found in the afternoon....