April 14 ~ Birding Trip with Maya's Legacy

Sunday, April 14th dawned a somewhat blustery and gray day, but that didn't stop a group of intrepid bird-watchers for heading out on a excursion with Maya's Legacy Whale Watching out of Snug Harbor. The birding started before we even left the docks with singing white-crowned sparrows, a pair of black oystercatchers on the rock in the harbor, and mew gulls foraging along the shoreline. As we slowly made our way out of the bay, we also spotted a great blue heron along the shoreline.

We didn't have to go far for our first "stop" in Mosquito Pass, where as usual in the fall, winter, and spring, there was a lot of bird activity, including bufflehead, red-breasted mergansers, red-necked grebes, and pigeon guillemots. We got a nice side-by-side comparison of double-crested and pelagic cormorants and also spotted what we may often think of as more freshwater species, Canada geese and mallards. Before continuing on into Spieden Channel we spotted a group of 7 of one of the most hoped-for species of the trip: long-tailed ducks!

Long-tailed ducks in Mosquito Pass

While our main focus was on birds, when you're cruising slowly through the islands you're of course going to see all kinds of things, and no trip along Spieden Island is complete without some of the exotic mammals that live there. I have made a lot of on-the-water trips to Spieden over the years, but I don't think I have ever seen as many sheep on it as I did on this day! Hundreds of them.

Mouflon sheep on Spieden Island

We counted more than a dozen bald eagles on or above Spieden, and they weren't just idly hanging around, either. This immature was nonchalantly dive-bombing lambs, making for some very distraught mothers. The eagle didn't seem very serious about the pursuit - perhaps just looking for any sick or injured, or just playing around - but the sheep were taking the threat seriously!

Bald eagle spooks some Mouflon sheep

A little further down the shoreline, four more eagles were huddled around a carcass of some sort (perhaps seal?), along with some northwestern crows.

Eagles and crows scavenging a carcass

When one of the immature eagles took flight, it was amazing to see how much white was on it!

Next we headed over to White Rock, where as hoped for we turned up our first shorebirds: a couple of black turnstones and about a dozen dunlin. There was also another eagle perched on top of the rock, making for a striking image with the harbor seals hauled out below.

Bald eagle and harbor seals at White Rock

Let's take a closer look at one of those seals....awwwwww:

Young harbor seal at White Rock

Next we continued north towards Monarch Head. The way there was a bit choppy, but we started seeing some new species for the day, including rhinoceros auklets and our only western grebes for the trip. At Monarch Head itself the only addition oddly enough was a pair of turkey vultures, but the stunning geology still made the trip worth it:

Cool rock formations at Monarch Head

Next it was over to East Point on Saturna Island where the first sight (and smell) we noticed was all the Steller sea lions:

Steller sea lions at East Point

A closer look at the birds on and near the same rocks, however, turned up four gull species (glaucous-winged, mew, California, and Bonaparte's), harlequin ducks, a couple of black oystercatchers, and another male long-tailed duck. A little south of us we spotted an active bait ball, so we started to head over that way. They mostly settled down by the time we got there, but there were still several dozen common murres, rhinoceros auklets, red-breasted mergansers, and, best of all, Bonaparte's gulls. The few sitting on the rocks at East Point were cool, but the reason they're one of my favorite marine birds is because of how awesome they look in flight. It's late enough in the season now that they also all have black heads, our only black-headed gull in the region.

Bonaparte's gulls in flight near Patos Island

As we cruises from Patos to Sucia, another small rocky reef had an unlikely pair sitting together: a harbor seal and a bald eagle.

It's rare enough that I get over to this part of the San Juan Islands that I didn't even know there was an impressive sea lion haul out on Ewing Island near Sucia. It was incredible to see how high up on the rocks these guys go!

Sea lions on Ewing Island

 Even the harbor seals seemed to want to show off their (admittedly less impressive) climbing skills:

Harbor seals at Ewing Island

Bird-wise there were many more pigeon guillemots, some harlequin ducks, a few surf scoters, and surprisingly our only loon of the day (a Pacific loon), but the best look was of a pair of black oystercatchers that came by to scold us for being in the area:

Black oystercatcher in flight near Ewing Island, with Steller sea lions in the background

We continued cruising south towards Peapod Rocks, where we found more black turnstones but none of the hoped-for surfbirds or plovers. There was plenty of bird activity though with a nice variety of the usual suspects all in one place, including glaucous-winged gulls, pelagic cormorants, harlequin ducks, and several more pairs of oystercatchers.

Peapod rocks

It was time to start making our way back to the home port so we picked up speed for really the first time of the day and wound our way west through the San Juans. We were still just short of 30 sepcies on the day, however, so instead of cutting back through Mosquito Pass, with the seas a little calmer we went on the outside of Henry Island in hopes of finding a peregrine falcon. Success!

Below the peregrine (who was high up but on such a photogenic perch) was a red-flowering currant clinging to the rocks, and amusingly there was a female rufous hummingbird feeding at it! While this is not my first time seeing hummingbirds from a boat, they're certainly not one of the species that comes to mind when you're thinking about marine birds. We were only a few minutes from the dock at this point, but the day list wasn't done yet: as we pulled back into Snug Harbor we also added hooded mergansers and rock pigeons.

Despite the less than ideal conditions it was still a beautiful day on the water. It was a nice change of pace, too, to slowly meander through the islands and enjoy many of the smaller sights that make this place so special. There is definitely so much to see here beyond just all the whales!

Kicking off the 2018 Year List

It's hard to believe we're already nearly three weeks into 2018! I've been busy birding - at least when the weather allows - and so far am up to 84 species on the "traditional" year list and 70 species on my photo year list. First bird of the year was an Anna's hummingbird at our feeder. They've been overwintering for about a decade now but this is the first time I've had them in the winter.

Anna's hummingbird - I don't know how they do it this time of year

Second bird of the year, a red-breasted nuthatch, is also still in the lead for cutest photo of 2018:

A little puff ball of a red-breasted nuthatch

It's been a treat having three woodpecker species regularly come to the feeders (downy, hairy, and northern flicker). I'm still waiting for a red-breasted sapsucker to show up, but no complaints about getting to watch these guys up close on a daily basis.

Female hairy woodpecker

Thankfully on January 1st, for my traditional day of birding, we even got some sunshine! One of the best birds of the day was this snow goose in with the Canada geese near Roche Harbor.

On January 3rd the birding was briefly interrupted for my first orcas of 2018. I've only seen killer whales once in the month of January before, so this was a pretty special treat! While J-Pod is still occasionally coming through the area, this was actually transients: the T100s, T124As, and T124C.

T124C off the west side of San Juan Island on January 3

As great as the birding is in the San Juans this time of year, especially with sea birds, there are a lot of species on the nearby mainland that just don't frequently visit. During the first weekend of the year, we headed for a day trip off island. First up was a quick pass through Skagit Flats. Sadly we heard but did not see the rare blue jay that is still hanging out near Bow, but we did quickly locate the also-unusual prairie falcon nearby.

Prairie falcon in Skagit Flats

The main goal of the day was to visit Semiahmoo, a spit near Blaine, Washington that I've never visited before. We had recently seen some amazing photos from there, including one a day or two before we visited where literally thousands of dunlin covered the whole spit. It was a pretty gray day and there were no dunlin in sight, but we still added lots of new species including sanderling.

I also got an unexpected photo op of a Pacific wren. I heard something in a bush and "pished" at it, and he or she immediately jumped out into the open to investigate me as the source of the sound. This is probably the best photo I've ever taken of a Pacific wren, as they are usually fast-moving and buried behind branches.

While we didn't see a huge abundance of birds at Semiahmoo (although there were a lot of white-winged scoters, more than I've ever seen in once place before), we did get a good variety. A couple of the best looks were at this female long-tailed duck, and while watching her, a common loon popped up very close.

Female long-tailed duck

Common loon

Last weekend remained gray, but that didn't stop us from trying to add a few more. The best add for me was this Hutton's vireo, an uncommon year-round resident, but one I didn't manage to photograph in all of 2017.

Hutton's vireo! A 2017 nemesis bird checked off early in 2018

Then we were treated to a much-needed couple days of beautiful winter sunshine. Even though our couple of hikes didn't turn up much in the way of birds, it felt great to soak up some light.

Beautiful afternoon at Granny's Cove

Thanks to a tip from a friend, we were able to locate one short-eared owl at American Camp, on the opposite side of the prairie where I used to see them in years past. For whatever reason it doesn't seem like there are as many of them down there as there used to be. This one was being harassed by a northern harrier. That's the harrier up top and the short-eared owl beneath. The owl had been perched, and after doing this barrel roll fell about halfway down the tree before catching another branch to perch on.

Harrier harasses short-eared owl at American Camp

There's been a lot of aerial acrobatics lately - today I caught this pair of bald eagles in what I presume was courtship behavior.

Bald eagle barrel rolls

There was supposed to be a break in the weather today; maybe it was, since it didn't rain and the wind wasn't blowing gale force. It was still pretty dark but with a major storm system coming we took the opportunity to make a quick jaunt over to Orcas Island. While waiting for the ferry we spotted this very cooperative juvenile Cooper's hawk at the Port of Friday Harbor.

This is not a bird that would come to mind when I think of beautiful birds, but seeing it up close, the detailing on the feathers was just remarkable, particularly those little teardrop streaks on the breast.

While birding from the ferry I was shocked to spot a turkey vulture flying over Shaw Island. This species is common here in the summer, and while I've heard about a couple of birds that regularly overwinter on Lopez, I've never seen one here off-season. This was a hastily shot proof of presence photo through the window of the ferry, but enough to document this surprising find.

Turkey vulture in the San Juans in January!

There's been a lot of reports of early arrivals such as barn swallows all throughout the region so I wonder if it will prove to be an early spring or if climate shifts are to blame for more individuals turning up at unexpected times of year. We shall see!

The most hoped-for species on Orcas was an American dipper, a bird I've searched for many times over there. We don't have the right habitat for them on San Juan, but a new Land Bank property called Coho Preserve recently opened up a public access along a creek where they've been reported. I had a good feeling about today and it paid off, as we found not one but two of them at the preserve! It was so dark in the forest it was impossible to get sharp photos, but I was pleased just to see them as it was a new county life bird for me and this photo is plenty good enough for the photo year list.

American dipper! A San Juan County life bird for me

Since this is a 365 day challenge, I decided to do less "post a photo of everything" and more "wait until I get a good shot of common species". This has me at a current mark of having photographed 83% of the species on my total year list to date, but I know that number will rise. I had seen and heard some distant oystercatchers before today but finally got a decent shot of one at Buck Bay on Orcas Island today.

Nearly-silhouetted black oystercatcher

It will definitely be a hunker-down day tomorrow with gale-force winds and more than an inch of rain in the forecast, but we'll see what the rest of the month brings. Then in the beginning of February it's time for a two-week road trip south where the bird reports from our destinations have me eagerly anticipating some life birds and many others I haven't seen in years. Oh, and hopefully some warmth and sunshine, too!

Birding the Fraser River Delta

With friends turning up some fantastic bird sightings just north of the border, it was time for another weekend trip to the mainland and into BC to see what could be seen. First up was a stop at Blackie Spit where ring-billed gulls were the first addition of the day.

Ring-billed gull (photo year list bird #82)

There were also a crazy number of Eurasian wigeon there in with the American wigeon!

Another highlight were the relatively tame black oystercatchers:

As well as the crows opening shells by dropping them on the rocks:

Crow diving to retrieve a shell it just dropped on the rocks

Next up was an afternoon at the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary. I'm not entirely sure how I haven't visited this place before! It's a bit more park-like than many birding areas in that there are hours, admission fees, and many people feed the birds there, but there are also natural trails to walk and an astounding array of species. It got me a lot closer to some species than I've ever been before!

Northern pintail

Sandhill crane (86)

And while I have been close to wood ducks before, this was still one of my favorite shots of the day:

Wood duck (88)

 It was also clearly a very popular place, and it was cool to see so many people communing with birds, including people who otherwise might not.

Man befriends wood duck

Girl befriends red-winged blackbirds (I also overheard her declare this the best day of her life!)

I, too, had a special moment, with an immature bald eagle who didn't seem to mind at all that the path went right by his/her favorite perch!

It's not often you get the chance to take photos like this of a wild bald eagle...

We also got to see the great horned owl and two saw-whet owls that roost right near the trails at Reifel, and also within just a few yards of each other! Unfortunately none of them were very cooperative for photos - we counted this one for great horned owl:

Great horned owl (92)

But I couldn't quite convince myself that this northern saw-whet owl was identifiable from this photo:

And one more cool find:

One of four black-crowned night-herons (91)

There was still a little bit of daylight left, so we headed over to Boundary Bay, where I went to see snowy owls back during that great irruption year in 2012. After visiting many other likely habitats so far this year, I finally saw my first short-eared owl of 2017.

Short-eared owl (92)

While I added 12 species to the photo year list challenge on the day, just like when visiting Skagit county, it was the bald eagles who stole the show. We thought seeing over 100 eagles on the day in Skagit was impressive - try over 500 within a few miles of each other in Delta, BC! I've never seen anything like it. There could easily be 50 eagles in a single stand of trees, and in one location I counted over 250 eagles while standing in one spot. Apparently they've been congregating there in the winter months for the last 10 years or so, right around the landfill and the turf farm. At first they thought maybe it was indicating a problem at their normal winter food source, but I'm assuming by the fact there are more and more of them there each year including loads of immatures that they've just found something they like. I'm still not sure what exactly is supporting that many eagles in that narrow area, but it's an incredible sight!

I felt sorry for this fella trying to work on his nest in one of these trees...nothing like trying to defend your breeding territory from 500 rivals!

With that many predators/scavengers in one place, the skirmishes were frequent - not only among the eagles but between the eagles, gulls, hawks, owls, etc.

Harrier causes short-eared owl to drop large rodent - winner was an immature bald eagle who came in and grabbed the prey

The next day, before heading back to the ferry, we decided to try and twitch some of the many rare bird sightings in the area rather than go for other more common species we're likely to add at some point throughout the year. It was a mixed result, as it so often seems to be when looking for rare birds, but I did come up with a life bird! This very distant glaucous gull at the landfill site was not easy to find among the 10,000 gulls that kept reshuffling anytime one of the hundreds of eagles took flight. I was glad to find him; the black-headed gull that was also in there somewhere remained elusive.

Glaucous gull (93)

With the weather taking a turn we drove to Pitt Meadows, where again we went 1 for 2, finding the prairie falcon but not the gyrfalcon that have been there for the last several months. It's crazy to me that two such similar looking rare birds would hang out in the same block of each other! If it weren't for the photos proving otherwise I would suspect the same bird had just been ID'd as two different species!

Prairie falcon (94)

Back on the US side of the border, we had enough time to try for one more rare bird - the yellow-billed loon in Anacortes. I just don't know how some people have success in nearly all the rare birds they attempt - perhaps they just have much more time to wait! The loon was seen a few hours before we were there according to reports by others, but no such luck for us. The scenery was a good consolation prize, though.

No yellow-billed loon, but the view from Rosario Beach wasn't too shabby

Back home, I just added ruby-crowned kinglet as the 95th bird species photographed so far in 2017. I usually have a loft goal of 100 species on my traditional year list in January if I can - I had no idea I would get so close for photographed species in month number one as well! I'm closing out the month with 106 species on the year list and 95 species photographed, for a 90% photo rate that is far ahead of expectations!

Next up I'm hoping for a birding trip that will result in more owls and more life birds, but the tenuous weather forecast may postpone that - we shall see!