End of August Check-In

As this unconventional year has gone on, the motivation to blog has been low, even though spending time in nature and the outdoors has been my greatest solace. This has been my longest hiatus ever from blogging, but I've still been doing a lot of photography and do miss having an outlet to share my photos! So here's an attempt at getting back to it again.

While July was an incredible month (read: like "normal" aka the old days) when we had visits from all three Southern Resident pods including a two-week stay by J-Pod. August, by contrast, has been very quiet on the whale front for us, with just a single brief shore-based encounter a few days ago. But we've still gotten out on the water a few times and have also been doing a lot of bird-watching, especially looking for shore birds, on land.

On August 16, with my parents visiting, we headed out on the water with Maya's Legacy on a trip that will be one of the highlights of the summer. It was a hot afternoon (so extra nice to be on the water with the cooling breeze) and the sky-blue waters were like glass. We saw two humpback whales: Two Spot (CS631) in San Juan Channel and Valiant (BCX1068 calf 2017) at Salmon Bank.

Two Spot in San Juan Channel

Valiant, missing a couple chunks out of his very scraped-up flukes, survived an encounter with killer whales when less than a year old. This whale is also known to be the calf of BCX1068 Split Fluke, who is in turn the offspring of BCY0160 Heather, whales known to migrate to Mexico. It's pretty awesome that we are getting to know the life histories of Salish Sea humpbacks to this extent!

The distinctive flukes of Valiant with the Salmon Bank marker in the background

Next we were lucky enough to get to head out to Smith and Minor Islands, which I've only been able to visit a handful of times. They're offshore due south of Lopez Island and offer amazing wildlife viewing both on their shorelines and in the extensive kelp bed that surround them. One of the main highlights there are the tufted puffins, which nest in burrows on Smith Island. There have been higher numbers of them there this year; in the past, there may only be one or two pairs seen, but on our visit, we saw more than a dozen tufted puffins, though we weren't able to spot the lone horned puffin that has also been hanging out there.

I'm not sure I've ever even circumnavigated Minor Island, where a long sand spit offers a haul out for harbor seals:

Back on land, as I mentioned, we've been scouting out shorebirds in particular. As fun as that has been, it's hard to believe the reason we're seeing them is because fall migration has already begun! Time, this year more so than any other, has been so bizarre in how at times it has been passing so slowly and in others so quickly. In any case, we've been having a lot of luck turning up a nice variety of migrating species!

Least sandpiper at Third Lagoon

Least sandpiper at False Bay

Sanderling at South Beach

Semipalmated plover at Jackson Beach

Western sandpiper at South Beach

While there have still been a lot of orcas in the Salish Sea in August, we're looking at the likelihood of the first August on record without the Southern Residents here, as it has been all Bigg's killer whales. While I've been tracking their movements (and many interesting social groupings and family splits) from afar, my only encounter with them was on August 26 when we saw the T46s and two of the T137s pass Reuben Tarte County Park. It was short, but sweet, and the way this year has gone, I was thankful just to see some dorsal fins.

T46E Thor and T137B Tempest off Reuben Tarte

At the very least, the weather has continued to be amazing, so we've been going out for walks a lot in the mornings and/or evenings when it's a little less hot, and yesterday were successful in locating several species we had been trying to find all week:

Lesser yellowlegs at Jackson Beach - the 200th bird species I've ever seen in San Juan County!

Short-billed dowitcher at Jackson Beach

Long-billed dowitcher at Jackson Beach

This morning, we decided to take our boat out as well to bird San Juan Channel, and again the conditions were perfect.

A pair of marbled murrelets in Griffin Bay

Right at the end we found our target species, too: a dozen red-necked phalaropes.

Red-necked phalarope

While this year has ended up looking very different than originally anticipated, I've been continuing on with our photo year list challenge, which this year expanded from birds to focus on any vertebrate. The red-necked phalarope was species #175 for the year, not too shabby considering we've been exclusively San Juan Island based since March! We'll see if I can still sneak up to my target of 200 by the end of the year, and I'll also see if I can back to at least a semi-regular habit of blogging!

End of one year list, beginning of another

With the end of 2019, so too came the end of my first decade tracking my bird year lists. While I traveled a lot throughout the year, I didn't go as far as some years, with just three states/provinces visited (Washington, Oregon, British Columbia). As a result, it's perhaps not surprising that 2019 was a tie for my second lowest year list count at 192 species. I fell short of my goal of reaching 200 species, and also fell just short of my goal of photographing 90% of the species on my year list, registering 88.5% with 170 species photographed.

Dave and my dad have also participated in the annual year list challenge, and my dad again won for the 8th time in the nine years he has participated, aided by some great trips to different regions. 

I added two life birds in 2019: the red knot while hitting the spring shorebird migration in Westport, and the lapland longspur during fall migration right on San Juan Island - a long sought after species for me, and a great photo op to boot!

Lapland longspur: one of my two lifers in 2019, and also one of my favorite bird photos overall for the year

I did manage to tally 144 species in San Juan County for the year, just above my annual average of 140 species, but still well short of the 176 species tallied by Phil! 

Ever since I started the year list challenge, January 1 has become a big day for birding. The last several years have been limited to San Juan Island, which alongside less than optimal weather has made for lower than hoped for Day One totals. This year, I was excited to be able to start the year list north of the border near the Fraser River delta, one of my favorite winter birding areas. On top of that, after a very stormy end to 2019, we got sunshine and no wind to start 2020!

The first and main stop for the day was the Reifel Bird Sanctuary, where despite not getting a super early start we still managed to beat the holiday crowds and tally 43 species at the preserve. The first unexpected find was a very cooperative flock of cedar waxwings.

It was so nice to start off the year with great photo ops of many of the common species; it feels so much better to add sunlit photos to the photo year list rather than dreary gray images!

Two more unforeseen additions were this fox sparrow and a flock of 30 (!!) greater yellowlegs:

About a dozen of us have also been participating in a photo year list challenge for the last three years. in 2019 we added the twist of no "hand of man" in the photos, meaning no birds sitting on wires, with buildings in the background, etc. The 2020 edition of the photo year list is now expanding beyond birds to include all vertebrates, and my first non-avian addition was this eastern gray squirrel. The first mammal I saw was actually a mink, which would have been an awesome addition as it's not guaranteed to make the list this year at all, but sadly he was too fast for me to get the camera up in time!

Mammal #1 for the year: eastern gray squirrel

One of the most hoped-for species at Reifel was the sandhill crane. We got a flyover early on in our visit, and I thought that was going to be it, but thankfully just before we left we came across five of them in just a perfect setting for photos.

After Reifel we made two other stops that were a bit disappointing in their lack of birdiness, and the best species added over the rest of the day indeed came alongside the road and not at one of our stops: a rough-legged hawk. (Yay for the no hand of man rule!)

Sadly after one awesome day it looks like the weather will be turning again, but we've still got a couple days of play before heading back home and to work, so fingers crossed there is still some good birding to be had despite the weather! Day one, though, certainly did not disappoint, with 54 species on the bird year list and 37 species on the vertebrate photo year list.

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!

A Guide to Birding Puerto Peñasco

One of the big draws to continue heading south to Puerto Peñasco, Mexico was to continue looking for more unusual bird life. Unlike Madera Canyon, or many other popular birding spots in the US, there wasn't a lot of information out there on where to go or what to look for. I was mostly guided by eBird hot spots, but even that didn't provide information on how to access these locations, which proved to be more difficult (and in some cases requiring more of a sense of adventure) than expected. So, I decided to share in this blog post not only some of the highlights of what we saw, but to also make this a bit of a guide for anyone else looking to bird the area. Click any of the maps below to see a larger version.

eBird hot spots that I'll reference

Increasingly, in areas where there are resorts or communities of higher end homes, access requires going through a gate house. The only way to have guaranteed access to these areas is to be staying in them, though we found in many cases that simply saying we wanted to see the area/beaches/hotels/restaurants was enough to get us through. I didn't like pulling the "I'm an American" card, but that seemed to work, though I suspect this may continue to change and become more difficult unless you're staying there

Location: Puerto and Malecon

Place to stay to guarantee access: Any

Sense of adventure required: Low

Pros: Easily accessible, lots of shore and water birds

Cons: Lots of aggressive street vendors

Additional notes: The port had a lot of bird activity but was pretty industrial so it was hard to get near the water. Eating at a restaurant on the Malecon is probably one of the best bets to have an extended waterfront viewing time without being bothered by any street vendors. We also discovered another great beach that I recommended as an eBird hot spot: Mirador Beach near the bottom middle of the map. We parked near the corner of Calle Matamoros and Aven Campeche where there's an abandoned lot you can walk across to the beach which is a nice mix of sand and rocks. You can also access this beach from Playa de Oro RV Park.

Yellow-footed gull, an endemic to the Sea of Cortez and a lifer for me, near the Puerto

A brown pelican on the rocks in the Puerto

Semipalmated plover at Mirador Beach

Brown pelicans at Mirador Beach

Location: Bahia la Choya

Place to stay to guarantee access: Any
Sense of adventure required: Low

Pros: Easy to access, potentially more open and rocky shoreline birds

Cons: Limited access - we parked at the boat launch (near JJ's Cantina) which didn't seem to be a problem

Additional notes: Looked for but didn't see an access to the supposedly public Tucson Beach. Tide was high when we were there but from the boat launch moving along the shoreline required some scrambling over rocks - may be better at lower tide

A Heermann's gull on the rocks near the Punta Roca del Toro boat launch

Location: CEDO and Las Conchas

Place to stay to guarantee access: Rent a house in Las Conchas, or tell guard gate you want to visit CEDO

Sense of adventure required: Medium

Pros: Long sandy beach nearly empty of people with lots of birds

Cons: Hard to find beach access if you're not staying at a house, probably best to park near CEDO and find one of the walkways down

Additional notes: This was our favorite birding area, but probably in part because we were staying in Las Conchas so we were here the most and it was easy to get to.  CEDO is an intercultural center for research on the regional desert and ocean and has a visitor center that's worth the visit regardless, but will probably also be the easiest way for non-residents to get access to the beach.

Marbled godwit at Las Conchas

Black-bellied plover and Forster's terns at Las Conchas

Willet at Las Conchas

Fin whale skeleton at CEDO

Location: Playa Pelicano

Place to stay to guarantee access: Laguna del Mar or Laguna Shores resorts

Sense of Adventure Required: Medium

Pros: Huge sandy beach, also several man-made ponds with lots of activity, not much human activity of any type going on out there

Cons: Guard gate (we asked to go see beaches), two up and coming resorts may make this more difficult

Additional Notes: The ponds near the Laguna del Mar resort were hopping with birds - ducks, grebes, gulls, shorebirds, swallows, a great blue heron rookery, and more. The sandy beaches were pretty busy, too, with the highlight for me being the Wilson's plovers, but we just had to park in front of the private homes and walk down to the beach from there (again, no issues with doing this.) We didn't go around further to the north closer to Laguna Shores where there were roads to access even more beach, so I'm not sure what access is like here but it looks like there's a lot more to explore. There is another guard gate if you go this way. Watch the tides when you go because when they go out here, they go waaaaay out.

Wilson's plover (lifer!) at Playa Pelicano

Great blue heron on a nest near Laguna del Mar

Location: Estero de Morua

Place to stay to guarantee access: Playa Encanto

Sense of adventure required: Medium

Pros: Amazing huge estuary habitat - good for herons, boobies, shorebirds

Cons: Takes some creativity to find places to view from

Additional notes: The easiest access points are off Freemont Blvd/ City Hwy 3. One of them is marked on the map below as Camino a la Morua. If you look for either the Oyster Farm or the oyster restuarant El Barco on Google maps you will see the two roads. These are sandy roads; our VW Jetta did okay but be careful on the offshoots as there is some deeper sand and some vehicles could get stuck. There didn't seem to be any problem with walking past the oyster farm or restaurant to the beach to bird. The estuary can also be viewed from the end of the road at Las Conchas, though it looked like you would have to walk a long ways across the sand to get near the water. We found a final good viewing area from Playa Encanto near Coopertiva Punta Roja (see Google Maps). This required getting through another guard gate (we said we wanted to see the town), but then we parked near this restaurant and walked down onto the beach with no problem.

Black skimmers and gulls at Estero de Morua

American oystercatcher at Estero de Morua

Loggerhead shrike on the road to Estero de Morua

Location: Estanque de Aguas Residuales (Sewage ponds)

Place to stay to guarantee access: Any

Sense of adventure required: High

Pros: Unknown

Cons: A very poor part of town - lots of trash in the roads, looked pretty sketchy, we didn't feel comfortable getting out of the car

Additional notes: You can apparently park at the end of Sonora Blvd and walk up onto the dikes

Location: Estero de la Pinta

Place to stay to guaranttee access: Mayan Palace or Grand Mayan Resorts

Sense of adventure required: High 

Pros: Previously some impressive bird reports from here

Cons: Apparently no way to access without a pass to the resort, also a local said the birds have moved away from this estuary more due to all the construction

Additional notes: You used to be able to get past this guard gate like the others by asking to visit the restaurant or see the resort, but now it apparently requires reservations or a guest pass. Getting a guest pass means signed up for a breakfast and 1.5 hour (or longer, if what we heard is true) presentation to try and sell you a time share. This gets you a day pass to the grounds and all the facilities. If you want to do this, don't worry, the EcoFun representatives in the Malecon area will find you.

Location: Sandy Beach

Place to stay to guarantee access: Any of the Sandy Beach resorts

Sense of adventure required: Low?

Pros: Unknown

Cons: Unknown

Additional notes: We didn't see an easy way to get to this beach without going through one of the resorts, but we heard you may be able to access it via one of the RV Parks on the bottom left of the map below.

In total, we saw a respectable 60 species in the few days we were there. The "big misses" were the brown and blue-footed boobies that were no where to be found, though were some great finds including the yellow-footed gull and magnificent frigatebirds.

And I've got to finish out this post with a few non-bird related photos from our time in Mexico....

Bottlenose dolphins off Las Conchas

 There was amazing street art everywhere:

And every sunset was pretty amazing, too: