Kickin' Off the 2015 Year List

January 1st brought the beginning to another year list, and the New Year's Day tradition for birding for most of the daylight hours. Stepping out into the yard before breakfast, my first bird of the year was a common raven (1) followed shortly (and somewhat surprisingly) by a Pacific wren (2) and golden-crowned kinglet (3). The usual feeder species helped round out the list at 8 species before heading out to meet the rest of our family birding group.

Our first stop was Sportman's Lake, which turned up almost all of the expected waterfowl in a single stop! Some additional bonuses included a pair of bald eagles (19), a belted kingfisher (21), and a pied-billed grebe (24).

Next was a walk at Three Meadows Marsh - the moment documented by the one non-birder in our group, my mom :)

As you can see, it was frosty out, but we would definitely take the sunshine! The first year bird at the marsh was a surprising Lincoln's sparrow (25), one of the best species of the day. My pishing also turned up the hoped-for marsh wren (29), but we didn't have any success in getting a Virginia rail talk back, though Keith amazingly saw one!! But it's still a "miss" on my year list.

Next up, Jackson Beach turned out to be a fantastic stop for our first shorebirds and sea birds of the day including greater yellowlegs (33), common goldeneye (36), and another great find - a pair of long-tailed ducks (39). Along with a couple of the common grebes and loons, and a northern harrier (44) flyby, I was well on my way to my goal of 60 species on the day.

Cattle Point was next, where we spent almost an hour and a half. The first species when we got out of the car was another great one - peregrine falcon (45). We filled in the other expected seabirds by scanning with my dad's scope, including the hoped for but by no means expected marbled murrelet (50) and ancient murrelet (52), with decent flocks of both species!

I also had to pull my camera out for the first time of the year to photograph this pair of bald eagles, two of six we saw from Cattle Point!

Leaving Cattle Point I had 58 species on my list, and we went over to the Redoubt Road at American Camp. I was hoping for meadowlarks or a shrike, but there was hardly a bird in sight. There was yet another pair of bald eagles in the distance, and a small flock of golden-crowned sparrows (59), and that was it. 

On our way to False Bay I thought some birds we flushed off the side of the road didn't quite look like robins, and I'm glad we stopped, because they were varied thrushes (60)! That helped me reach my goal of 60, which I've managed to reach on January 1st each of the last four years.

These are likely my best-ever photos of a varied thrush, too, as they're usually skittish and/or hiding in the tree branches.

The light wasn't great at False Bay - there's no way we could have picked out a Eurasian wigeon among all the wigeon there, if there was one around. But we did still add northern pintail (61), dunlin (62), and western sandpiper (63). 

Dad scanning False Bay

The day still wasn't done, as a stop at the grocery store turned up the expected house sparrow (64), and then at home there was a downy woodpecker at the feeder just before dark (65). Not a bad total for the day!

Since the first, the weather has been gray, wet, and windy, and despite putting in a few more hours birding the only addition has been a ruby-crowned kinglet (66) in the yard. There's been several other great species reported on the island in the last few days, though, so as soon as it gets nicer you know I'll be out there looking! As of today, that puts Dave ahead of me at 73, but there's a loooong way to go yet!

Finch Feeding Frenzy

Our feeders have remained popular with three finch species: American goldfinch, red crossbill, and pine siskin. The other day when I got home I parked up above where you can overlook our houseboat. The finches were out in full force and it was fun to watch them going to and from our feeders to the trees that were right at eye level.

Red crossbills and American goldfinches at the feeders

 

In total there were about thirty pine siskins, twenty crossbills, and between five and ten goldfinches.

Female red crossbill on top of a madrone tree

American goldfinch in the madrone tree

While watching all the finches, a male rufous hummingbird came by and started feeding at the orange honeysuckle vines on the hillside:

The madrones have been in peak bloom over the last week - noticeable both by their smell and the tiny snow-like blossoms falling to the ground. Here's what the trees have looked like:

If you're not familiar with the Pacific madrone (Arbutus menziesii), it's a native west coast tree related to manzanita and rhododendron. It has leaves, not pine needles, but is an evergreen, and is notorious for the red, paper-like bark that peels off to reveal green wood underneath.

My co-worker Dave brought a couple of the tiny white flowers into work last week and we looked at them under one of our microscopes. The tiny structures inside are amazing! Check it out:

I can only guess what I'm seeing, but it looks like maybe tiny seeds with roots starting to emerge, and sticky hairs with balls of nectar on them?

Next up, get ready for some crazy cuteness....

Scope Success and Swan Update

On Sunday I took the new scope out for a spin, and was successful in adding two species that had thus far been too far away for me to confirm IDs: marbled murrelet (109) and long-tailed duck (110). Overall, it was amazing how much more activity I could observe in Cattle Pass! I spend about 45 minutes just scanning with the scope, watching numerous alcids, loons, grebes, gulls, sea ducks, and seals foraging on the ebb tide.

Also, I heard back from the USGS about the banded swan I saw on Fir Island last weekend:

This bird, a male, was banded as an adult in August of 2006, meaning he's at least eight years old. The average life span for wild swans is about 12 years. He was tagged 55 miles northwest of Galena, Alaska, a distance of over 1700 miles from Fir Island. It's pretty amazing to think of far he's flown in his lifetime! It's always so neat to take small part in such research by reporting a sighting and learning part of the life history of a particular animal I saw.

Skagit Flats

I actually added a year bird from work this week, seeing a pair of California quail (105) out the window of the lab.

With some great birding reports coming in from nearby Skagit County, I decided to get off island today to see what I could turn up on the Skagit Flats. It's known for being great this time of year for raptors, and today did not disappoint. As I drove up Bayview-Edison Road, I had to stop repeatedly to take in great looks of red-tailed hawks, bald eagles, and rough-legged hawks.

By the end of the day, I estimated I had seen close to 50 eagles. This was my best view:

With temperatures still hovering in the low 30s during the day, there's a lot of frozen standing water in the regional farmlands. These dunlin (106) were all standing on ice, many of them on one leg, mostly with their beaks tucked under a wing. It was pretty comical to see a few of them reshuffling by hopping on one foot, not even fully raising their heads. This is the biggest flock of shorebirds I've seen in a long time - a conservative estimate I made at the time was 2000 birds. If this photo shows about a quarter of the flock, I figure there may have been well more than that:

I went up to a WDFW property on Samish Island Road known as West 90, where some of the recent amazing bird reports have been coming from. About a week ago someone reported standing in one spot and scanning and seeing about 40 short-eared owls! A long-eared owl, a potential life bird for me, has also made numerous appearances. This was one of my main reasons for going off island, and when I excitedly got out of the car and scanned I saw....not a single owl! What! There were multiple northern harriers flying around as well as more red-tails, eagles, and rough-leggeds. Determined, I put on my rubber boots and tromped across the partially frozen mud, which yielded one short glimpse of a short-eared owl (107), but it really wasn't at all what I expected. Is it possible I just have absolutely no idea what a sitting short-eared owl looks like?

Not all was lost on my walk out in the marsh, as in addition to the owl I saw a lot of western meadowlarks (108). The Skagit Flats are an interesting area to bird this time of year, not just because of the wide variety of bird life, but because the best birding season coincides with hunting season. As I walked out at West 90, I was following behind a camouflaged hunter shouldering a rifle, his black lab bounding through the tall grasses and leaping back and forth over a water-filled ditch. Every so often throughout the day I would detect distant movement, raise my binoculars, and find instead of a bird a human crouched in the bushes. There are a lot of people out there looking to shoot birds - some with guns, others with cameras.

Still hankering for a better owl sighting, I took off for Fir Island. Rawlins Road didn't disappoint, where I found two more short-eared owls, one of them close enough to photograph:

While watching the owl a great blue heron flew up and landed near me:

I did another loop around Fir Island after that, in part to look for a gyrfalcon that had been found. No luck there, but there were lots of trumpeter swans and snow geese to be seen. These two trumpeter swans flew right overhead:

I noticed the one on the right was banded with both a neck band and, upon closer inspection of the photo, a silver leg band. I did a little research online when I got home, and I believe the number on the neck band indicates that this bird was banded in Alaska in the north-central or northwest Arctic region. That's at a minimum over 1500 miles away.

As I made my way back towards Anacortes, I drove the March Point loop. I did a double take when I saw all these herons in a field together. I've seen herons roosting or nesting in trees in groups, but never gathering on the ground like this. There were three or four more nearby that aren't in this shot:

Despite the frozen standing water, there were still lots of waterfowl out on the bay. I saw hundreds and hundreds of American wigeon and northern pintail, a good number of mallards, and smaller numbers of common goldeneye, green-winged teal, and bufflehead. The best sighting was not one but two Eurasian wigeon hanging out right together:

Then, on somewhat of a whim, I decided it was time for me to bird in style, and I splurged on a spotting scope from Anacortes Telescope. I tried it out on its mini tri-pod at the Anacortes ferry terminal while waiting for my ride home:

It's niiiiice. Tomorrow I may just have to try it out here on the island and see if I can pick myself up a long-tailed duck off the south end.

The ferry ride back to Friday Harbor was beautiful. In addition to seeing more bald eagles, all three merganser species, a nice group of common goldeneye, and some various alcids, the lighting was stunning as the evening neared sunset. The sun was behind an island, but the bright golden light made the clouds above it look like they were on fire, complete with a dark trail of smoky gray clouds above.  Much of the rest of the sky was a deep lavender, with a few misty low-hanging clouds looking like they were illuminated bright pink from within. I was just sitting and taking it all in rather than taking any photos, so you're going to have to picture this one for yourselves!