Ozette: Visiting the Outer Olympic Peninsula

Last week we went on a four day camping trip to Lake Ozette on the outer coast of the Olympic Peninsula. This is one of those places I've long wanted to visit but hadn't ever been to until now. It's only about 180 miles from Friday Harbor, but with two ferry rides and lots of winding roads it took about seven hours to get there, which is part of the reason why it hadn't happened until now!

The town of Sekiu along the Strait of Juan de Fuca - namesake for one of our whales (K22)

The big draw for me to Ozette was the nine mile Ozette loop hike I've read about. While we didn't have the best weather for our trip (what do you expect for camping in a rainforest?), conditions did cooperate pretty well for our hike. It was overcast but not windy or rainy. The trail is an equilateral triangle with two sides being mostly boardwalks through the woods and one side being along the beach.

The boardwalk trail to Cape Alava

Foxglove

Bunchberry, or dwarf dogwood, against a backdrop of multicolored moss

About two miles out the boardwalk takes you through a clearing, the site of a historic homestead slowly being reclaimed by the forest:

"Ahlstroms Prairie"

Then, not too long after, our first glimpse of the rugged coastline. This part of Washington is the most uninhabited shoreline in the Lower 48, feeling more like Alaska than the rest of the United States. There's no road access here, or hardly anywhere along this part of the coast - this particular stretch goes over 20 miles with no driving access or development of any kind. Even the "trail" itself is really just the beach, which means the going is pretty slow! Stretches of gravel beach are interspersed with rocky shorelines that you just traverse any way you can.

It's a refreshing sight to take in: a beach in a fairly pristine state. Seaweed covered rocks, thriving tidepools, offshore roosts for pelagic birds, foraging bald eagles, and crashing waves. Nothing else. In fact, during our hike we saw just as many eagles (11) as other people.

We came across a gray whale skull not too far down the beach.

Keith pays his respects

Another highlight was locating some petroglyphs from the Makah tribe that predate European arrival to the Pacific Northwest. Pretty cool to see some killer whales etched into the rocks:

The true highlight, though, was the geology: all the sea stacks make for a very impressive landscape.

In some places, the headlands are only passable at low tides. There are overland trails you can take if you arrive at high tide, but I was glad we snuck through before the water got too high. This overland "trail" looked more like a rock climbing wall - notice the rope and near-vertical incline to the left of the sign. I would have been a bit scared to tackle that!

Of course, no where is truly pristine anymore, least of all the ocean. There was a fair amount of large garbage/debris that washed up, including lots of buoys, canisters, and derelict fishing gear. Several items appeared to be of Asian origin:

When we got to Sand Point, where the trail heads back inland, I was looking at some seals through binoculars and I was surprised to see a sea otter pop up! I really shouldn't have been surprised - when people identify our Salish Sea river otters as sea otters I often tell them how since the hunting era when sea otters were locally extirpated, they haven't returned to Washington's inland waters but are thriving on the outer coast where they have been reintroduced. Still, I wasn't expecting to see one! We actually ended up seeing about ten or so. I wasn't carrying my telephoto lens so unfortunately this is the only picture you get to see of one:

The hike was well worth the trip, but of course I was keeping my eyes open for wildlife all the time. In addition to the Swainson's thrush (170), warbling vireo (171), black-headed grosbeak (172), and cedar waxwing (173) that I added to the year list in recent weeks, on this trip I added purple martin (174 - in Friday Harbor while waiting for the ferry!), common nighthawk (175), and red crossbill (176). The most entertaining birds were the ones that visited camp, however - the normally skittish Steller's jays were quite the camp robbers:

Notice the blue "eye spots" indicative of the coastal morph of the Steller's jay - inland birds have white eye spots.

One of my all-time favorite birds, the Steller's jays are a Pacific Northwest icon conspicuously absent from San Juan Island. They don't like to fly over water - but have made it over the shorter waterways to nearby Orcas and Shaw Islands. As I mentioned, on this trip these guys were always hanging around looking to swoop in for food scraps. When we were packing up, with doors and the trunk open, I was surprised to see one fly out of my car!

There were also lots of fledglings being fed, particularly robins, chestnut-backed chickadees, and golden-crowned kinglets. Here's a young kinglet begging for food from its parent - it was amazing to see how many insects the kinglets could round up in a very short period of time! I guess you have to keep pretty busy to keep a hungry baby satiated.

Finally, no camping trip is complete without a couple of campfires - that's one of the best parts!

And a few roasted marshmallows, too....oops, burned this one!

The Trials and Tribulations of a Bird Lister

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....

Birding Around Portland

My dad and I had a couple hours to go bird-watching on Monday morning and we started out going to a wetlands behind the post office in Tualatin. It sounds like an odd place to bird, but in addition to the ring-necked ducks and flock of double-crested cormorants, we were there to see a pair of American white pelicans (77) that had been reported the day before. We see these pelicans occasionally around the Portland area, but this is an odd time of year for them. The population is known for having some fairly localized areas where they are seen with regularity, but the field guide notes that vagrants can "appear almost anywhere". I was happy to see the, as this species is by no means a gimme for the year list:

Next up we went to check out a park in southeast Portland where a large mix of gulls had been reported, including a first-year glaucous gull. Much to our disappointment, there was only a single glaucous-winged gull present, and otherwise the park was extremely quiet bird-wise. We decided instead to head over to Westmoreland Park, which is always good for gulls, but on the way we stopped at the Rhododendron Gardens.

As expected, wood ducks (78) were aplenty at the Gardens:

We also found several Steller's jays (79):

And western scrub-jays, a common species that I don't get a chance to photograph close-up very often:

While scanning the edge of the lake hopeful to pick out a stealthy green heron, we were surprised to see a small flock of greater white-fronted geese (80), a species that eluded me until November of last year. All the other expected waterfowl were present as well, including Canada and cackling geese, American coot, lesser scaup, bufflehead, gadwall, American wigeon, and mallards.

We also came across a large mixed flock of woodland song birds, where I saw my first golden-crowned kinglets (81) for the year. A hummingbird zoomed in quickly for a look at some early blossoms, but I wasn't able to get a good enough look at it to confirm that it was for sure an Anna's hummingbird, the only species that regularly overwinters here.

We continued on to Westmoreland Park, where we were only able to find the glaucous-winged, herring, and ring-billed members of the gull crowd. My disappointment at not picking up another gull species was more than made up for by finding a beautiful pair of Eurasian wigeon (82) in with a flock of American wigeon:

The male Eurasian wigeon stand out in a crowd, but it was nice to get another chance to compare the females of the two species. The most noticeable difference is that the Eurasian female has a brown head and chest, while the American female has a brown chest but a gray head. By the end of the day, I was able to add six more species to the year list.

This afternoon we made a stop at Koll Center wetlands before heading down to the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge just south of here. They've drained the wetlands quite a bit at Koll Center, and there wasn't much activity aside from some common mergansers and green-winged teal. There was a single common teal in with them, already by second of the year! It seemed similarly quiet as we started our hike at Tualatin River NWR, but then we came across a pocket of birds that included dark-eyed juncos, bushtits, and a pair of Bewick's wrens (83). Also nearby was a spotted towhee (84) digging through the leaf litter. I'm surprised this species fell all the way past number 80 for the year!

As we continued walking I asked my dad if he had a pileated woodpecker on his year list yet. He said he didn't. Then, not a minute later, I heard and then we both saw a pileated woodpecker (85) fly over the marsh and land in an oak tree!

The main reason for our visit to the refuge was to see the western screech-owl (86) that has been reliably perching right by the path during the day. I always love seeing owls, but it is especially amazing to see them up close and apparently completely undisturbed by all the commotion of people walking by on the trail. He/she was on the exact same branch that my dad saw him on a couple of weeks ago. Here's the owl snoozing, not paying us the least bit of attention and unwilling to open its eyes to have its photo taken:

Before leaving the wildlife refuge, we took my dad's scope to the wetlands overlook and scanned all the waterfowl, hoping to turn up a cinnamon teal. We didn't, but we did see another pair of Eurasian wigeon (this is the first time I've seen Eurasian wigeon and common teal in the same day!), a pair of bald eagles, a couple red-tailed hawks, and loads of cackling geese:

We still had a bit of daylight left so we decided to swing by Coffee Creek wetlands on the way home. There were several tundra swans out on the lake, along with a big flock of ring-necked ducks, lots of gadwall, and a pair of lesser scaup. The most exciting activity was in the brush alongside the marsh where we found another mixed flock of woodland birds. In the mix were black-capped chickadees, bushtits, golden-crowned and ruby-crowned kinglets, and also my first brown creeper (87) of the year.

Tomorrow the plan is to return to Fernhill Wetlands where we participated in the Christmas Bird Count about a month ago. Wouldn't it be nice to find some of the same species there again! Some of my target species include the Lincoln's sparrow, marsh wren, western meadowlark, and Thayer's gull. We'll see how I do!