Bird Year List: End of 2018, Beginning of 2019

This was my ninth year keeping track of a bird species year list. My goals for 2018 were to reach 220 birds for my year list, and photograph 95% of them, for a target of 209 species photographed. I exceeded the number goals, tallying 261 (my highest ever) on the year list and photographing 243 of them, a 93.1% capture rate. Thanks to our road trip to Nevada, Arizona, and Mexico, I also tallied 21 life birds this year, second only to my 23 life birds on the Alaska trip in 2010.

Because it's fun to play with numbers, here's the break down over the years for bird species added by month:

Dave (from England) and my dad Rainer and I have also had a friendly competition over the years. For 2018 my dad tallied 266, winning for the second year in a row and the sixth time in eight years, and Dave came in at 195.

There were a lot of birding highlights in 2018 but here are a few of my favorites.

Madera Canyon in Arizona was one of the most incredible birding spots I have ever seen. Not only was it full of life birds for me, but the action at the feeders at Santa Rita lodge was captivating and ever-changing; one full day of sitting there doing nothing else was not nearly enough of watching! One of the most unexpected moments was, thanks to a tip from a couple fellow birders, locating a pair of elusive Montezuma quail:

Later on that same trip, we rented a boat in San Diego Bay to track down the "mega-rarity" - a Nazca booby. While it was a bit of splurge expense-wise, we knew it was a memory we would never forget, and it was definitely one of the major highlights of our two week trip:

While it's exciting to see exotic birds far away from home, some of the best sightings can also happen literally right in your yard. Another highlight this year was this barred owl who spent at least half an hour eying our domestic quail in their aviary in broad daylight.

For 2019, we are trying out a new twist on our photo year list, trying to take photos without the "hand of man" in them. So, no birds at feeders, sitting on wires, etc. Last year my photo year list had about 15% of the pictures with the hand of man, so I wasn't anticipating it would be too much of a challenge. Turns out there's a lot more things to think about than expected! For instance, I decided this lovely shot from Day 1 of 2019 shouldn't count, since this song sparrow is perched on pressure treated lumber.

On January 1st I tallied 44 species on my year list and got decent photos of 17 of them. This was my favorite shot of the day:

Greater yellowlegs at Jackson Beach on January 1

Given the more difficult photo challenge this year and the fact that I won't be traveling as far afield, I'm lowering my goals a bit for 2019. My goal is to reach 200 species on the year list and photograph 90% of them, or 180. Here's to another great year of birding!

Birding Around the Phoenix Area

Once we woke up and started birding in Arizona, it was very apparent we were in a different climate with a whole new host of birds! While we had started seeing new things along the way, here it felt like every species we saw was different from back home. 

Time to look even more closely everywhere! No longer just yellow-rumped warblers flitting around in the trees, but verdins as well

Our first stop of the day was to Zanjero Park in Gilbert where there is a burrowing owl nesting habitat. I knew this was a city park and had seen from people's photos they got quite close to the owls, but I wasn't prepared for anything like this! The owls were using the pipes just off the sidewalk as burrows, visible here as the little lumps on the left with poles marking and numbering each one (click to see a larger view) - maybe 30 feet off the path at most? It's amazing to me that they just sit there and watch while people, bikes, and dogs go right on by!

People have reported as many as 14 owls there before, but we were thrilled to see 2.

Next stop was the Riparian Preserve at the Gilbert Water Ranch, which has a series of ponds you can walk around. It's not surprising that this oasis attracts a lot of wildlife, including not just waterfowl but all kinds of birds! For starters, it was a great place to get photos in the sunshine of many species we've only seen in the gray weather this year back home.

But it didn't take much looking to start seeing species we don't get back at home, like one of my personal favorites, the black-necked stilt.

And for some reason these two species often seem to go hand in hand, as another pond also had the American avocet. So fun playing with reflections in sunny blue water!

There were many places to sit near the water partially obscured by vegetation where, if you were patient enough, even the more skittish species would start to approach.

Long-billed dowitcher

I wouldn't expect to have added in the neoptropic cormorant as a life bird in the middle of the desert, but there they were!

And while watching these guys, a juvenile black-crowned night-heron flushed from the bush above them!

To the careful observer it was more than just birds enjoying the water ranch, too; occasionally darting across the paths were these desert cottontail.

After a break for lunch we headed to the Desert Botanical Gardens, where even this time of year the heat of the afternoon was enough to make the birds more scarce. We thought it was hot, though it was probably cool to the locals - maybe close to 80? It was bizarre for us to see butterflies pollinating flowers in February!

We did end up finding a few avian species, but it would have been worth the trip just to see one of my desert favorites - the cactus wren.

It had been more than 10 years since my last trip to Arizona, but it used to be at least an annual trek when my grandparents on my dad's side were alive. While originally from Germany, they ended up spending much of their lives in Scottsdale, which is also where my dad graduated from high school and, later on, my parents would meet and live for the first few years of their marriage. So, somewhat unexpectedly, there are some Wieland roots in Arizona, and was a bit nostalgic to be back. It felt fitting to make a visit to my grandparents' memorial which I hadn't seen in person before.

When I made a similar trip for my grandparents on my mom's side a few years ago, I got a life bird, and I was surprised when the same thing happened again here - after visiting the memorial a vermilion flycatcher flew into a nearby tree.

Thank you for the life bird, Omi and Opa!

Perhaps it was due to the cooler late afternoon, but the birding was actually better here at the memorial gardens than it had been at the desert botanical gardens! A couple of mute swans have apparently made their home here for many years; the light and everything else was perfect for this photo - except the feather on its beak!

When you get a roll birding, whether it's seeing lots of new things or trying to reach a target number of species for the day, it's easy to get a bit trigger-happy. A memorable moment my dad and I often recall is when we were doing a Big Day and light was fading and we were just short of our target and we thought we saw a western screech-owl that turned out to be a robin. I was guilty of the same thing when the last bird we saw of the day flew from a tree and I called out, "Zone-tailed hawk?!" No - the photos would prove later it was "just" a dark morph red-tailed hawk. That's part of what makes birding so fun, though, is the never knowing what you'll see. In a new area you're likely to see all kinds of new things, but it was a good reminder that some of the regulars are still around, too.

Winter Wildlife and December 2nd with J-Pod

Overall, the weather has been windy and rainy, not conducive to much outdoor activity. It hasn't stopped us from getting out there completely, as a couple weekend ago we went off island to do some birding, and successfully saw two different owl species.

Snowy owl at Sandy Point near Ferndale, WA

Short-eared owl hunting on Fir Island in Skagit County

With some family visiting over the Thanksgiving holiday, we went down to check out the foxes at South Beach. This one provided a welcome splash of color in an otherwise very gray landscape on a very gray day!

We've also been able to do a lot of bird-watching from the comfort of our own home due to some very active bird feeders, which we have been keeping a closer eye on than usual with the start of Project FeederWatch. Thanks to the counts we've been doing, we realize we get visits from about a dozen species a day totaling about 60 birds! The vast majority of these are a huge flock of juncos, but we also regularly get visits from four different species of woodpeckers.

Pair of hairy woodpeckers

Anna's hummingbirds have been steadily expanding their year-round range northward over the last couple decades. Ten years ago it was rare to have one overwinter on San Juan Island; now, it's commonplace. For the first time I'm getting them as regular visitors to our feeders during the winter. How do they survive without blooming flowers? These adaptive little guys eat insects and sap - though they aren't above sugar water, either!

Anna's hummingbird - in December!

This afternoon (December 2nd) we got word of orcas in San Juan Channel. They were heading away from us, but a bit later a friend on shore saw them turn around, so we headed out to Reuben Tarte county park to take a look. A few others were already there looking, and surprisingly, the first whales they pointed out to us were a pair of humpbacks! Shortly thereafter we spotted three orcas in the distance heading down San Juan Channel. They were spread out and far away, but since we didn't see any others, we assumed they were transients. Later in the afternoon, however, we got a chance to hop aboard a boat out of Friday Harbor with Maya's Legacy Whale Watching. We thought we needed to go a ways to catch up with them when I spotted a whale right near Point Caution just north of Friday Harbor. I zoomed in on the first photo I took and spotted a large "finger" on the saddle patch - something you don't see on transients! It was J17 Princess Angeline and her youngest J53 Kiki.

Surprise! Residents! J17 Princess Angeline and J53 Kiki in San Juan Channel

The whales were very spread out both north-south and across the channel, but slowly more and more came into view. It's amazing the energy and mood boost that comes from seeing whales, especially apparent this time of year when the winter dolrums have set in. 

J35 Tahlequah

J40 Suttles

Some of the whales practically went right into Friday Harbor! I've seen whales right near Friday Harbor from shore, but I've never had the opportunity to photograph resident killer whales with Friday Harbor in the background before. Another item off the orca photographer bucket list! ;)

As the daylight was fading the last two whales we saw approaching were L87 Onyx and J45 Se-Yi'-Chn. The colors of the sunset were becoming more spectacular and we were all crossing our fingers for a perfect surfacing from them in the amazing lighting. Of course, right when the sky looked like this they took a long dive.

Beautiful winter sunset....but what happened to the whales?

After surprising us by doubling back, we did finally get a look at the big male Onyx in front of Friday Harbor. The light had changed by then, but I'm not complaining - at least it wasn't dark yet! It was pretty awesome to see him right off the Friday Harbor ferry terminal, complete with ferry at the dock!

L87 Onyx and a ferry at the dock in Friday Harbor

Unexpectedly seeing J-Pod and L87 was a thrill that helped make up for the long stretch of dreary days. Luckily it looks like there's a lot of sunshine in our near future, so hopefully I will have more photos to share again before long!

September 1st and 2nd: Three Transient Encounters in Two Days

The end of August and beginning of September have been even crazier for transient killer whales in the Salish Sea in a season where sightings have already been off the charts. For a couple days we had Ts in as many as a dozen places throughout the Salish Sea, with multiple groups in Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia. By my rough count there were at least 60 whales in the area! Luckily a few of them did pass through the San Juan Islands and within our range as well.

On September 1st, the T60s along with T124A1 and the T124Ds made their way up Haro Strait. Jason and I just missed them at Lime Kiln but heard they were close to shore, so we quickly hopped in the boat and met up with them just north of County Park. I was super excited when it looked like they might go through Mosquito Pass, the narrow channel between San Juan and Henry Islands. Ts go through there occasionally and it's a place I've dreamed of seeing whales. These guys got partway in, and then seemed to second guess themselves. I'm anthropomorphizing here, but it looked like they were just cruising along when they got surprised by how narrow/shallow of a channel they were in, and then they had to have a little powwow to decide how to proceed.

Uh...do we really want to go this way?

All the boats including us were positioned to the outside of the pass, ready to follow behind them as they made their way through. Once they decided to abort continuing on, however, their direction change ended up taking them right through all the boats, giving us and everyone else a memorable head-on look as they aimed for Kellett Bluff.

After another detour deep into Open Bay, they followed the Henry Island shoreline for a while. We left them when they made another sharp turn to aim across Haro into Canadian waters.

T60C sets course for Canada

The next day, September 2nd, we got a surprise early afternoon report that another group of transients had appeared out of nowhere off Lime Kiln. Having again missed them from shore, we again headed to the boat, and again caught up with them not far from Mitchell Bay. It was the T65As and T100s, and at first they were traveling together in one mixed group.

Just north of Henry Island, however, they split into their respective matrilines. The T65As headed inshore, and we briefly followed the T100s as they continued north up Haro.

The T100s

The T100s off Battleship Island

As the T100s continued north, we headed in towards the T65As who were angling towards Spieden Island. At first it looked like they might take Spieden Channel, but instead they cut around the west edge of the island and took New Channel. This area, that we call the "back side" of Spieden, is a magical spot to see whales. The island has a steep cliff and is all forested on this side, with no developments. It makes a perfect backdrop for backlit blows, like we saw on this afternoon.

T65A2

More of the T65As

Later in the evening, after having been on the water and in general spending a lot of the day running around, yet another report of transients on the west side came in. I'll share here what I wrote when I got home from this encounter, adding in some photos:

A snapshot of my life: I'm at home and tired from a day of running around when a friend lets me know a group of transient killer whales is on the west side of San Juan Island heading south and hugging the shoreline. I'm at the wrong end of the island to try and see them, but to get those magic moments, you learn early on: if you can go, go.

When I get to my first stop at the south end some visitors let me know they've just seen whales pass by, which means I've missed them. I speed walk back to my car and try another spot further down the coast. I see the blows and a couple whale watch boats offshore. They're way further out than before but at least I see them. I settle down on a rock content to take in the sunset and collect what data I can from a distance. The other people beside me head back to their car, the final whale watch boat takes off to their home port, and the whales disappear for a moment offshore as the sun sinks towards the horizon. It sounds like a tranquil scene, and it was, for a moment.

The T36Bs and T99s offshore under the Olympic Mountains

  

Then I spot the whales again, and now they're all in a line aiming right at me. Even from a distance and even after all these years seeing seven dorsal fins all lined up at the surface takes my breath away.

They continue coming closer to shore, directly where I'm sitting, when they go on their long dive. Which way are they going to go now, up or down the beach? I had taken my shoes off but I put them back on. There's only one thing that can get me to run and I have a feeling I'm about to.

Indeed, the whales surface to my left, aiming right for the Cattle Point Lighthouse and right off the kelp beds off the beach. Let's just say I'm glad no one was their to witness my scrambling after them, though I assure you it was graceful, as I tried to take photos, run, and not lose lens cap, pen, data sheet, keys, cell phone, or sweatshirt, not aided at all by the ridiculously shallow pockets that are always in women's shorts.

I was a little bit behind them, but close enough to follow them around the corner as they cut a sharp turn right by the lighthouse and into Cattle Pass. I went as far as I could on the trail, then sat down to watch them continue on their way in the dimming light. Before making the long trek back to my car (did I really run this far?) I was surprised by a pair of fox kits, saw three deer silhouetted on the top of the hill behind me, and was passed by a bald eagle carrying the remains of a salmon to a nighttime roost. Oh, then on the way home I had to stop to take a photo of an owl.

It's a charmed life, I know, and I'm thankful for it every single day.

February 18: Owls, Owls, and More Owls

Last weekend my family and I went out on a birding trip in southeast Washington/ northeast Oregon with Khan Tran of KTBirding. It's a trip my dad and I have talked about taking for years, reading with longing his regular trip reports that listed many potential life birds for both of us right here in our home states. Our initial trip plans got postponed due to weather, but thankfully, we finally made it happen!

It didn't taken long fro Khan to impress with his birding skills, as practically the first bird of the day was a northern pygmy-owl he somehow spotted as we drove up to higher elevations near Walla Walla. First bird of the day, first life bird of the trip for me!

Northern pygmy-owl in the early morning fog: North American life bird #369, photo year bird #103

While we didn't spot any hoped-for great gray owls, we did see some other new species for the year.

Townsend's solitaire, photo year bird #104

Back down at lower elevations, we picked up our second owl species of the day when we checked out some long-eared owl roosts. It was incredible in that Khan knew they were likely there, but on our first pass by, no one saw any owls. On our second pass, Khan spotted a couple, and even when he pointed out right where they were it took a few minutes for the rest of us to see them. Talk about camouflage!

Spot the long-eared owls!

Then the more we looked, the more we started seeing! There were at least a dozen birds in the first roost we saw, and we ended up seeing an astounding 30 or so of them as we checked several other roosts. And that's just the ones we saw - we could have easily missed twice that many for how hard to see they were!

Long-eared owl, photo year bird #106

Next we went to look for northern saw-whet owls, and en route spotted a pair of great horned owls - third owl species of the day!

What are you looking at? You, you great horned owl!

And sure enough, we found two saw-whets, too - an amazingly tame wild bird!

Northern saw-whet owl - photo year bird #109

On a roll now, we made a slight detour to look for a roosting barn owl, and found one. Not exactly a great photo op, but the first barn owl I've seen in many years and owl species #5 on the day!

Roosting barn owl - photo year bird #111. Who made that owl-sized hole in the cliff, I wonder?

The drizzle started falling and the fog moved in again, which slowed down the birding during the mid-afternoon. While in the area, we made a brief stop at Lower Monumental Dam - one of the four Lower Snake River dams that have received so much attention lately among the whale and salmon community. I can see how people living in the area aren't aware of the connection between these dams and the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales that live so far away, but the river that runs from one to the other is the direct link. To learn more about why these dams need to go, check out this blog post of mine on the topic. 

Lower Monumental Dam - of the four Lower Snake River dams that are largely obsolete and among the best candidates for removal to help recover endangered wild salmon and killer whale populations

We also made a stop at Palouse Falls, a state park that provided a stunning vista!

Palouse Falls

Next we weren't lucky in turning up any more saw-whet owls, but we did find a flock of wild turkeys.

Wild turkeys - photo year bird #112

While the focus of the trip was birds, we also saw a fair number of mammals throughout the weekend, including huge herds of elk and both white-tailed and mule deer.

 

We have our fair share of deer on San Juan Island, but we don't see them in congregations like this!

With the light fading, we made another trip up to higher elevations where we had been in the morning, to a peak where locals have seen several pairs of great gray owls this year. The great gray owl is also known as the phantom of the north; it's the largest North American owl but very elusive, and a species I have dreamed about seeing for many years. The snow started to fall and it got darker and darker, and with all of us scanning we made several trips up and down the road to no avail. Hope started to fade as it was nearly getting too dark to see when, on our last pass, Khan spotted it. Like a vision through the snow, this male great gray owl lived up to its nickname as a phantom. We all got a good view of it and then it spread its massive wings and disappeared right before our eyes.

Great gray owl - the phantom of the north. North American life bird #370 and photo year bird #113

We headed back to town for dinner, abuzz with the excitement of having lucked out to see this incredible owl species. After dinner, we decided to go for owl species #7, and sure enough, we found a pair of calling western screech-owls in a nearby neighborhood. Too dark for photos, but 7 owl species in one day is, I'm pretty sure, a personal record I'll never break!

At the end of day one I had added 2 life bird and 11 photo year birds, but we still had another full day of birding ahead of us!