August 28th: Last Official OBI Encounter of the Season

As August came to a close, it was about time for my research partner Michael to head back to start his senior year at Reed College....but not before one final whale encounter! It happened out at Lime Kiln as J- and K-Pods went north in spread out groups, our 59th research encounter of the summer.

J41 Eclipse

J47 Notch

J27 Blackberry and J46 Star

From left to right J27 Blackberry, J31 Tsuchi, J28 Polaris, and J46 Star

At the end of the passby, some of the K13s were north and some were south of Lime Kiln. The pods have been splitting into smaller and constantly changing groups over the last few years, but it's still highly unusual for a matriline to split, so we figured one of he partial groups of the K13s would go join up with the other. Indeed, that's what happened - though it took K20 Spock going back south to round up the rest of her family! She went down there, got them, and then they all came back north.

Spock detours back south to get the rest of her family

While I'll still continue to collect some behavioral data as I have whale encounters throughout the year, this marked somewhat of an ending of our first field season at the Orca Behavior Institute. It's worth taking a little time to reflect on all the data we collected this year - much more than I think either of us hoped for! 

Our 59 research encounters resulted in over 91 hours of behavioral observations and 129 hydrophone recordings totaling more than 38 hours. Surprisingly, K-Pod was present for more of our encounters (47) than J-Pod (46), though our most encountered matriline was the J19s (present for 38 encounters).

Here's how our 91 hours of behavioral observations parsed out in terms of which pod or pods were present:

It seems to be making less sense to look at socialization in Southern Residents in terms of pods, however, as pods aren't as stable as they were when studies began 40 years ago. Instead, matrilines seems to be the most stable social unit. Here's how our data collection for the summer breaks out by matriline, showing which family groups we spent the most and least time with. J-Pod families are in blue, K-Pod in yellow, and L-Pod in red. The two smallest bars, L12+ and L54+, refer to the L12 and L54 sub-groups which are stable units made up of several small matrilines.

Finally, our behavioral observations ranged throughout most of the daylight hours, from before 7:30 AM until after 9:30 PM. Here's how out observations of the Southern Residents broke down by time of day. The peak observation hour ended up being between 5 and 6 PM:

Much more advanced analysis will be happening over the coming months as Michael works on his senior thesis, but for now I thought this was an interesting overview of who we spent time with this summer. Stay tuned for much more from the Orca Behavior Institute, and in the meantime, my whale encounters certainly haven't come to a stop!

2013 Year List in Review - UPDATED

DEC. 31 NOTE: For the second year in a row, blogging the review a day early got me in trouble, as there's still plenty of birding to be done on the last day of the year! This year, Dave tied me on the waning days, and despite my efforts, I couldn't regain the lead on December 31st. I did, however, add one more species - the eared grebe - to my county ear list. 

There's one day left in 2013, which means one more day to add bird species to my year list. I've stalled out at 192, well short of my goal of 200 species, but still a single species ahead of exactly tied with my competitor Dave in England, who added the tying species on December 31st!. My dad, with his trip to eastern Canada, will finish well ahead at 219. Here's how the numbers break down this year:

	2010	2011	2012	2013
Total # Bird Species	233	203	222	192
Dave's Total	237	206	275/205*	191 192
Dad's Total		230	204	219 222
# States/ Provinces	6	4	5	4
# Life Birds	23	3	6	3
# SJ County Species	133?	157	145	148 149
# Species by Month
January	87	114	105	110
February	19	13	52	6
March	25	12	3	14
April	21	25	12	20
May	37	17	24	10
June	24	2	14	5
July	1	4	0	1
August	2	4	3	2
September	3	5	0	1
October	2	1	6	0
November	4	4	0	22
December	8	2	3	0

*World total/Europe total

Last year the world traveler Dave was nice and granted me the win compared to his Europe total, but if I can hang on one more day this really feels like the first time I've beat him! (Nope, it's a tie!) I find it interesting how close we've been every year, and the fact that we're both in the low 190s this year after being above 200 in all the previous years.

The monthly numbers are interesting, but to make a comparison you also have to take into account when I've traveled outside of the northwest. Last year, it was a California trip in February. This year, it was a California trip in November!

The birding highlight of 2013 was undoubtedly my trip to California, which is also where I added my three life birds of the year, finally pushing my North American life list to over 350 species. My favorite hour of birding happened at Malibu Lagoon State Beach, where the year birds came fast and furious and the species diversity - so different form what I see in Washington - was really apparent.

So, what are the plans for 2014? I'm keeping my goal at 200 species, and hope to make it as well as add a few life birds on a trip south in February. It will likely be a slower start to the year list as for the first time I'll be starting it on San Juan Island instead of in Portland, where there's a better chance for a wider variety of species. I like to try and reach 100 species before the end of January, but I think that will be a tough one this year, even with a trip or two off island! I'll still give it a shot, so we shall see!

The Year List In Review

There's still a couple of days left in 2011, but with the unpleasant weather and no real outings planned it's looking like the year list is going to stay stuck at 203. The only realistic potential species is the gray jay, which occasionally visit my parents' feeders - so I'm still holding out a little hope!

It did, however, seem like a good time to look at the numbers for this year and compare them to last year, when I did my first year list.

	2010	2011
Total # Bird Species	233	203
Dave's Total	237	206
#States/Provinces	6	4
# Life Birds	23	3
# SJ County Species	133?	157
# Species by Month
January	87	114
February	19	13
March	25	12
April	21	25
May	37	17
June	24	2
July	1	4
August	2	4
September	3	5
October	2	1
November	4	4
December	8	2

It's no real surprise that 2010 was a better year for bird sightings overall since it included my trip to Alaska! That's where most of the life birds came from, too. Entering this year, the 3 goals I set for myself were to see 200 species, reach 100 species before the end of January, and add 11 life birds to my list. I succeeded in doing the first two, but knew the third one would be a bit of a stretch, though that was the number I needed to bring my North American life list to 350 species. 

Alas, Dave, who just posted his own year in review, has beat me by just a couple of species to years in a row! It's amazing to me that he, in England, and me, in the Pacific Northwest end the year with such a similar number of species on the year list. His total last year was also higher than this year due to a trip to Florida.

Some of the birding highlights of 2011 included the following:

• Starting the year off in New York allowed me to get eastern species like northern cardinal, blue jay, and tufted titmouse on this year's list. It's also where I got my first life bird, the common redpoll.
• Coming back to Portland for a few days at the end of January before heading back north to the San Juans provided the time I needed to push my year list to 99 species (I had only 48 after returning from New York). The 100th species, a common raven, did indeed come in January and was seen while driving north on I5 to catch the ferry home.
• It was a late spring, and the two real migratory peaks in my bird sightings occurred in mid-April and three weeks later a week into May. One major highlight for me was ten minutes spent standing in a single spot at British Camp where I heard and saw 15 species, including 4 year birds.
• Unlike last year, which was most of the trip to Alaska, June of this year was spent entirely on San Juan Island, which resulted in the dramatically different year list totals between the two years. The highlight of this June was the huge number of cedar waxwings everywhere on the island.
• During the fall migration in September, I saw my first-ever horned larks on San Juan Island, a sighting that turned out to be very valuable later when.....
• .....in November someone pointed out to me that I was close to the published record for bird species seen in San Juan County. This led to a late rally to break that goal, leading to a couple of year list additions like the ancient murrelet, and some other memorable sightings like a rough-legged hawk. I ended up beating the existing county record by 1, but another birder bested my number by four species.
• One of the most memorable birding moments of 2011 was the brief look I had of a snowy owl, my 200th species for the year, in November.

So, what lays ahead in 2012? With some tentative trips in the works that will take me beyond Oregon and Washington I should be able to beat this year's total of 203, and hopefully add some more life birds along the way. It would be nice to also beat Dave by a couple of species for the first time! As always, I'll report my progress here on the blog, so I hope you'll follow along with me for another year of wildlife sightings starting in January.

Year List in Review

It's December 31st, 2010 and I've seen 233 bird species since January 1st. Going in to the year, I hoped to see 175 species, but I beat that goal by a whopping 58 species thanks to the trip to Alaska and a few bonus species on the east coast to close the year out. I added 23 life birds this year, 16 of which were on the Alaska trip. I really didn't expect to see so many species....233 is actually 69% of my entire North American life list.

Downy woodpecker at suet feeder in Eden, New York in December

I also had a goal of seeing a year bird during every month of the year, which I succeeded in doing. Here's the year bird total by month:

January ~ 87 species

February ~ 19 species

March ~ 25 species

April ~ 21 species

May ~ 37 species

June ~ 24 species

July ~ 1 species

August ~ 2 species

September ~ 3 species

October ~ 2 species

November ~ 4 species

December ~ 8 species

I was in an unofficial competition with Dave over in England, who also started the year with a target of 175 species. He ended with 192 species seen in the British Isles, but 237 species including his trip to Florida which edges me by four!!

I think 2010 is going to be a tough year to beat, but my goal for 2011 is 200 species. I hope to reach 100 species by the end of January, which may just be possible since I'll be birding on both coasts. Another lofty goal I may not be able to attain is to add 11 more life birds to bring my North American life list to 350. Stay tuned....we'll see how I do!!

First "Blogoversary"! And July Wildflowers

It's hard to believe, but it was a year ago today that I started my blog! My first post featured some Dall's porpoise photos, and I have featured many species since then from orcas to other whales, seals, sea lions, flowers, birds, mushrooms, otters, insects....I first thought I would focus mostly on cetaceans but my true inner naturalist has won over and this has really become an outlet for all my natural curiosities.

I didn't know what to expect when I started my blog, but the first year has been pretty successful. Here are a few stats to sum up year number one - thank you for being part of the journey!

In my first year I have posted 237 times and had 5,275 unique visitors, 57% of whom have returned again. I have had hits from 85 different countries and more than 1700 cities, with the top 5 nations represented being the United States, Germany, the UK, Canada, and France. Iran and India are also in the top 10. Pretty cool stuff! Here's to another successful year between now and July 2010....who knows how many awesome sights I have yet to see! You can be sure I will continue sharing them with you as my adventures continue.

But it wouldn't be appropriate for my first blogoversary post not to feature some photos, so here are some wildflowers I saw out on a walk today.

Chicory (Cichorium intybus)

Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris) - turns out I was wrong a couple months ago when I identified one of the plants on my street as self-heal. It was actually purple dead nettle (Lamium purpureum).

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Western dock (Rumex occidentalis)

Almost-but-not-quite-yet-bloomed-out western St. John's wort (Hypercium perforatum)