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!

Sucia Island Visit

My previous post was all about our boat trip to Sucia Island, but after our picnic dinner we had a chance to take a brief walk around part of the island, as well. The whole 564 acre island is a State Park, and a network of trails, 6.2 miles in total, lets you check out the coastline and associated views from all different angles.

The best wildlife viewing was right from the dock where we had our picnic, however. This family of Canada geese came by - probably looking for handouts. I thought it was interesting that the three goslings were still smaller than their parents but already had their adult-like plumage. There were several other goose families around and those goslings still seemed to be in between plumages. I took this photo right from the picnic bench:

A lot of the island is pretty narrow, so you can see water on both sides. There are lots of neat little coves with SANDY beaches - a novelty for those of us on San Juan Island where the rocky coastlines don't have much in the way of a beach, and when they do, it's just made of smaller rocks. There were also sea shells and different types of rocks than we see on "our" beaches. Here are four members of the crew doing a little beach-combing next to Fox Cove:

If one of the beach-combers pictured above took a left and walked about 75 yards, they would be looking at this cove, part of Fossil Bay, on the other side of the island. Check out those cliffs! (Do you see the two Canada geese? You may have to click to enlarge the photo...)

In addition to different rocks and shells, there were some different flowers on Sucia, as well. There wasn't time to take a close look at many of them, but these tiger lilies definitely stood out:

In addition to the boaters who moor in one of Sucia's bays, there is a campground on the island for kayakers or people who don't want to sleep on their boat. Each camp spot is equipped with a picnic table and fire pit, and there were a few group camp sites that had shelters built around the picnic tables. This would have been a perfect time to camp there - beautiful weather, clear views in all directions, and there was only one tent in sight. I can only imagine what it would be like there if every one of the 55 camp spots was full, though - more like a little city!

I climbed up a bluff at one tip of the island, and found this tree overhanging the cliff edge. The San Juan Islands are in the background:

Crew Trip to Sucia Island

This afternoon the owner/captain of Western Prince, Ivan, took his crew out for a dinner picnic to Sucia Island, a small island that's a state park just north of Orcas Island. On the way, we took in some cool sights, starting with a stop to look at the sandstone cliffs at Monarch Head on Saturna Island, one of the Canadian Gulf Islands. There are some amazing geological formations there, like this weird latticework inside a "hole" in the wall. I'm not sure how something like this forms, but I'm definitely going to look into it and will report back:

I didn't know this, but apparently there is a feral goat population on Saturna. Four of them came along the shoreline to check us out!

I took lots of pictures of the crew, but at this stop had a friend snap a photo of yours truly on the front of the Western Explorer:

We then headed over to check out the intense currents at Boiling Reef just off of East Point (the eastern tip of Saturna Island). There were lots of glaucous-winged gulls, harbor porpoise, and harbor seals feeding in the tide rips, but it was the current action itself that was most amazing. Most of the area reaches depths of about 500 feet, but there is a reef about 800 yards long between Saturna and Patos Islands that stretches up to about 20 feet below the surface. With the big tidal exchanges we get in the area, you can imagine what happens when huge volumes of rushing water hit an underwater obstacle as big as Boiling Reef.....lots and lots of turbulance! There are all sorts of tide rips, counter currents, upwellings, and whirlpools. Where steady upwellings are occurring the water looks glassy calm, like in the distance in the picture below. Where different currents are colliding, you get the wave action as seen in the foreground:

We saw several upwellings start occurring out of nowhere. In the case of the photo below, we were driving and the water was glassy calm for several hundred yards in every direction. All of a sudden, there were several standing waves, then an eruption of waves and turbulance all around us and expanding outward. I have never seen such unpredictable water! I can only imagine what the underwater "ride" would be like for a porpoise, seal, or fish.

There were harbor porpoise in literally every direction you looked, probably taking advantage of the currents to do some good feeding. I didn't have the zoom lens on my camera and they are super fast and hard to photograph, but you can see two in the image below:

We then cruised around the much calmer waters of the Sucia Island group (made up of Sucia and several small associated islands) before docking for our picnic. We drove through the larger bay, Echo Bay, and between the two Finger Islands and Sucia:

Then we pulled up to a dock in Fossil Bay, where we got out and had a picnic dinner of sandwiches from Market Chef, a local Friday Harbor restaurant. Here is the motley crew with dinner on the picnic table on the dock:

Next up - a closer look at Sucia and photos from our walk around the island!