April Birds and Wildflowers

While the weather has been less than cooperative so far this month and the whales have been a bit too far from San Juan Island, we have taken advantage of some breaks in the rain and wind to enjoy the continuing spring arrivals and the first wildflowers of the season.

At Three Meadows Marsh we heard more birds than we were able to photograph (the marsh wren remains elusive, as does the Virginia rail which has always been the case - but so many friends have managed to photograph one this year that I've been hopeful!), but I did get a nicer shot of a yellow-rumped warbler.

Yellow-rumped warbler

I also was able to photograph my first tree swallow of the year. One cool aspect of the photo year list challenge is it gets me to attempt to take bird photos at times and of species I otherwise wouldn't even try. Swallows in flight? Yeah, right! But this year, this is my third swallow species I've photographed in flight, despite the challenges!

Tree swallow - photo year bird #137

 The other highlight was finding a pair of bushtits actively building a nest out of lichen! I've seen bushtit nests twice before, and all three times they've been built out of predominantly the same type of lichen. After staying still for a while, they were bold enough to continue working on the nest while we watched.

On the home front the feeders are more active than ever. I suspected the large winter flock of purple finches might have split up by now for the mating season, as the juncos seem to have done, but not so. They're still around in great numbers:

Meanwhile the woodpeckers are becoming more used our presence, leading to some fantastic photo opportunities!

Hairy woodpecker

Northern flicker

And every so often a new species turns out, like our first of the year American goldfinches a few days ago:

American goldfinch - photo year bird #138

Another surprise was a slate-colored junco! Considered part of the same dark-eyed junco species a our typical Oregon morph, the slate-colored is usually seen well east of here. Or perhaps it's a Cassiar morph? I didn't even know that was a thing until looking up the range of the slate-colored, and it's apparently somewhat of an intermediate between the slate-colored and Oregon morph, too subtle for me to really be able to tell where this one falls.

Yesterday I came across a birding hot spot at along an unlikely road near home. I pulled over to check out the swallows and ended up spending nearly an hour there and seeing/hearing more than 25 species, including killdeer, mew gulls, California quail, Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds, and three swallow species. I added a couple more to the year list, though my second attempt at photographing a northern rough-winged swallow this year failed again.

Savannah sparrow - photo year bird #139

Barn swallow - photo year bird #140

Today we headed out for a morning hike up Mt. Young. I thought it might be a bit too early for some of the common spring birds I find there, as well as for the wildflowers. Turns out I was wrong on both accounts! I was thrilled to hear the singing Cassin's vireos, Townsend's warblers, and Pacific-slope flycatchers, though less than thrilled with my attempts to photograph them among the dense foliage. The vireo and warbler are two species I don't think I've even photographed before, as they tend to stay deep in the branches or high in the treetops. Hopefully I'll have a chance to improve upon these shots later this season, which are both blurry.

Cassin's vireo - photo year bird #141

Townsend's warbler - photo year bird #142

I'm already surprisingly close to my goal of 150 species photographed this year, figuring I would probably be able to photograph about 75% of the birds I identified and going off my usual goal of 200 bird species a year. Right now I'm at 142 photographed out of 154 on my traditional year list, for a much better 92% thus far.

The flowers proved much easier to photograph, and many of my early favorites were in bloom!

Fawn lily, also appropriately named Easter lily

Calypso orchid, aka fairyslipper

A yellow monkey-flower species, always found on the same little hill each year

Shooting star on the Mt. Young summit

Barred owl

Barred owl on Mt. Young last Saturday evening

A solemn moment

In the presence of an owl

Who is looking at whom?

Spring Migrants Arrive in Force

I had an amazing moment yesterday at British Camp where I just stood in one section of the trail for about 10 minutes and saw/heard more than 15 bird species. There were downy, hairy, and pileated woodpeckers. Warbling vireos, rufous hummingbirds, orange-crowned warblers, Townsend's warblers, and black-throated gray warblers. I've come across pockets of birds before - they're always exciting to see - but what made this especially amazing was that I also got three year birds there, all newly arrived spring migrants. The Pacific-slope flycatchers (172) were singing, and I saw one pair chasing each other around a tree. A western tanager (173) sat amid the blossoms of one tree, while a Cassin's vireo (174) sang its questioning song from the brush. It was awesome.

Pacific-slope flycatcher ~ Prints of this photo available here

A little further up the trail I found both Pacific and house wrens, more vireos and warblers, and chestnut-backed chickadees, dark-eyed juncos, and white-crowned sparrows. I also saw a single chipping sparrow (175), my fourth year bird of the day.

Their nest blew down over the winter, but the resident pair of osprey at British Camp returned and rebuilt it, and when I went by one of them was sitting on the nest (you can just see its head in the middle). I saw the second one fly in with a fish a little later on.

Golden-crowned sparrows are only winter residents here on the island, but there sure still seems to be a lot of them around, including this one, who blends in amazingly well to the tree bark except for his yellow forehead:

I ended up finding 33 species during my hour at British Camp - not bad!

Next up, I'll be turning my attention (and my camera lens) towards wildflowers - I hope the weather cooperates!

Great Birding at Mt. Young

Today we decided to hike up Mt. Young. Since it's an uphill hike, I was lazy and decided to take my binoculars but not my camera, so no pictures today. It was a bit overcast and being in the woods there wasn't much photo-worthy today anyway, but it turned out to be some great birding.

We only detected about 15 or so species, and both heard and saw most all of them, which was great for improving my knowledge of bird calls. The only species we saw and didn't hear were the turkey vultures, of which there were four soaring around at the top of the hill. One of the birds we heard and didn't see, however, remains a mystery. The song was very distinct and coming from the tree tops, keeping the bird out of view. I've learned that using mnemonics are helpful when learning bird calls or for remembering those that you hear in the field, and Keith came up with the very accurate "get get get out of my way beep beep!" for this call. I listened to a lot of possible candidates online after getting home, but still wasn't able to pinpoint the caller.

On the climb up we heard lots of pacific-slope flycatchers, orange-crowned warblers, dark-eyed juncos, and red-breasted nuthatches. After getting to the top and sitting down to take in the panoramic view looking west over Haro Strait, I heard my first year bird of the day: the "whip, three beers!" of the olive-sided flycatcher (154). The next two birds came right to me, as well. Perched at the very top of a pine tree was a female red crossbill (155), a fantastic find! I have seen crossbills once before on San Juan Island but often get frustrated looking for them throughout the Pacific Northwest as they are usually reported as heard calling as they fly by in a flock overhead, which is not conducive to relocating them. This bird was very cooperative, though, and in addition to providing a great view also called a few times. Maybe next time I'll be able to ID them flying overhead too!

Right after the crossbill flew away, I heard another unfamiliar call from behind me and saw a chipping sparrow (156) at the top of a madrone snag! This is one bird I've expected to find on the island and I've been looking for it in some of its common hang outs, but I this time I guess I just had to wait for it to find me!

On the way back down the hill, one more unfamiliar call echoed loudly through the trees. Patience paid off and I spotted the singer: a Hutton's vireo (157). Actually seeing the bird singing really helps me cement its call in my memory, and just before the parking lot I was able to pick out another singing Hutton's vireo from the cacophony of other calls.

I didn't think there would be too many more days this year when I would get as many as four year birds in a single day, at least not on San Juan Island. Great stuff, and it helps me to close the gap on Dave in the year bird race, as he had pulled ahead by a full ten species after a recent oceanic trip.

Mt. Young Lichens

Rain was forecasted for today, and while I heard some showers during the night, I woke up to dry skies with even a few hints of the sun peeking few, so I was drawn back outside. Since the clouds seemed to be parting I decided to walk up Mt. Young (also known more realistically as Young Hill - it's only 650 feet tall). The above photo is a view from a lookout just below the summit, looking over the northern most San Juan Islands towards the Canadian Gulf Islands.

For whatever reason there aren't a lot of birds on the Mt. Young Trail - mostly some chestnut-backed chickadees and the occassional call of a raven. On the top I was treated to an eye-level view of a soaring bald eagle, but on the trail I focused my sights lower and got back into hunting for lichens. You may remember my first lichen identifications based on an ID book I got for Christmas. Here are a few new (for me) species I was able to identify.

If you read my other post, you may recall that most lichens are easily identified by their genus, as many species designations are still unclear and taxonomies undefined. The above photo is of the genus Cladonia, and I'm pretty sure the species is Cladonia ochroclora. Cladonia is one of the largest Pacific Northwest lichen genera, characterized by two distinct parts: the small leaf-like scales of the squamules at the base and the erect stalk of the podentia. The podentia of many of the species have a cup-shaped apparatus at the top of the stalk, and my reason for concluding this is probably C. ochroclora is because there is only a very small indentation at the top.

Along a mossy hillside there were many specimens of this large, leafy lichen, and at the time I thought they were probably all the same species. On closer inspection of my photographs and after consultation with the field guide, there were probably at least a few different Peltigera species present in the area, like the one pictured above. While I'm not confident in my ability to analyze the microstructures to determine the different species, I was able to observe a common phenomena in this genus that is captured in the photo above. When wet, the lichen is a virbrant green color, but when parts of it dry out, it becomes a tan, drabbish green until moisture returns.

The final genus I identified is a member of Vulpicida. You would think such a bright, yellow-orange lichen would stand out on the forest floor, but it remains remarkably camoflaged primarily by being so small. All the specimens I've seen were loose on the ground, but they probably fell off of shrubs or the base of a tree because I don't think they grow on soil. While substrate is often a huge clue in identifying lichens, I'm sure of this identification because of the color. It is the only bright yellow genus of this morphology in the Pacific Northwest, and it attains its color (and received its name) for the poisonous pigment vulpinic acid. Examining a specimen under a hand lens reveals tiny, powdery soredia, which are asexual reproductive structures present on the surface of some lichens.