Birding From Portland to San Juan Island

With a stretch of warm, summer-like weather I took advantage of some great days for birding. Before leaving Portland, I stopped by Vanport Wetlands where I added yellow-headed blackbird (143) to the year list. This was just a stop on our way to Smith and Bybee Lakes, a beautiful wetlands area nestled right near the Oregon-Washington border. It's a very green place in spring time, and the first part of the trail was just humming with yellow-rumped warblers - there were probably hundreds of them there!

There was lots of osprey (144) activity around - we saw three different pairs at or near the wetlands. There were numerous adult and immature bald eagles, too. Nothing outnumbered the turtles sunning themselves on logs, however. There were easily more than 100 visible from one overlook!

We saw a nice variety of waterfowl here, and some more uncommon sightings included a pair of bushtits and a calling pileated woodpecker.

The next day, Wednesday, it was time to start heading back north to the San Juan Islands, but we got an early enough start to make sure we had ample time to enjoy Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge on the way. We spent two hours there, and it was pretty amazing to see that the parking lot was full on a weekday morning!

The number of people present didn't seem to put a damper on the bird sightings as I saw or heard nearly 40 species while we were there. The cliff swallows were in abundance, and were busy building their nests on the visitors center and on the Twin Barns. Tree swallows were also busy coming and going from nesting cavities in the deciduous trees along the first part of the walk. Pretty much all the expected duck species were present in pretty good numbers, too: northern shoveler, northern pintail, mallards, American wigeon, green-winged teal, bufflehead, ring-necked ducks, gadwall, and Canada and cackling geese. A pair of pied-billed grebes chased each other around the marsh and more savannah sparrows were singing around every corner. On the first stretch of the trail I also saw my first brown-headed cowbird (145) of the year, and I also heard a sora (146) call once.

In addition to all the waterfowl, the marshy areas were noisy with singing marsh wrens and common yellowthroat. The yellowthroat are often secretive, but one pair of males seemed to be in the middle of a territorial dispute and were chasing each other back and forth in plain sight. It was still tough to get a photograph of them, as whenever they landed they were obscured by grasses. This is the best picture I got - you can see the second male behind and to the right of the one in the foreground.

Out on the boardwalk part of the trail the bird activity quieted down substantially, but the landscape and the colors were still impressive to take in:

It was low tide, and only a few green-winged teal and a pair of greater yellowlegs seemed to be foraging in the mudflats. In the distance some glaucous-winged and mew gulls could be seen too. 

Time went quickly and all too soon it was time to get back on the road to catch our ferry. We made it home in the evening, but it wasn't straight back to work for me - I took a few extra days off to make sure I could enjoy a few days of spring time here on the island, too. Thursday was another awesome day with temperatures nearing 70 degrees, and I spent several hours out in some of my favorite birding spots. Inspired by the sora I heard at Nisqually, I wanted to see if I could turn up the species on San Juan Island as well, and indeed I heard a couple of birds at both Swan Valley Marsh and False Bay Creek. Also at False Bay Creek, the swallows seemed to be selecting nesting boxes and four turkey vultures soared overhead. Just like at Nisqually, I heard some more marsh wrens, common yellowthroat, and savannah sparrows, but also saw a hunting northern harrier and heard a single Virginia rail.

Down at the south end of the island, common camas is starting to bloom in the prairies:

We haven't quite hit our wildflower peak here yet, but the careful observer can still find lots of species in bloom right now:

While walking the prairies in search of wildflowers, a pair of American goldfinches (147) flew overhead, my first of the season. Large flocks of surf scoters and red-breasted mergansers could still be seen off of South Beach, and another northern harrier cruised over the grasslands. Savannah sparrows, seeming especially abundant this year, were also everywhere. The biggest surprises of the week were still in store for me, however.

As I drove along the Redoubt Road, I saw a bird fly up from near the ground to perch on a tree. At first I assumed it was another savannah sparrow, as nearly every bird I lifted the binoculars to throughout my walk had turned out to be one of these streaky sparrows with yellow by the eye and a buzzy call. Something about this one struck me as different, however, and am I ever glad I stopped! It turned out to be a female mountain bluebird (148). This species is usually only seen east of the Cascades, but a few always migrate west of the Cascades while heading to more northern climates and sometimes stop over on the San Juan Islands. This is only the second time I've seen the species in the county and my first time seeing one on San Juan Island. The bird flew further along the road and I was able to get this photo of it before she took off and flew out of the sight to the north:

From here I scanned the American Camp prairies with my binoculars and saw a beautiful red fox still in its lush winter coat, surprisingly my first fox of the day. Usually this time of year the prairies are active with foxes - to my surprise I saw lots and lots of rabbits (the national park has attempted and is to eradicate these guys from the historic grasslands) but only this one fox! With further scanning I saw something perched in a stand of fir trees, and I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it was a short-eared owl. I thought all these owls had taken off by now, as they're usually only seen here in winter and I hadn't heard of any sightings since the last week of March. But, there it was! I was thrilled when after watching it for a few minutes it took flight, giving me the opportunity to get what I think is probably my best shot of the week:

Next up, the weather has turned cloudy again, but I've still got a few days off and plenty of places to explore. I'll report back with what I find!

Birding Cooper Mountain, Ridgefield NWR

With the nice weather yesterday, the weekend chores got postponed til Sunday and my parents, Keith, and I all went birding instead. In the morning we went to Cooper Mountain Nature Park, a beautiful preserve in the outskirts of the city that thankfully was protected from development. It was opened to the public only within the last year or so, and this was my first visit to hike the trails that overlook the Tualatin River valley.

It never ceases to amaze me the abundance of wildlife you can find in parks like this that are otherwise surrounded by metropolitan areas. Near the beginning of the hike I couldn't walk more than 10 yard before something stopped me - a wildflower, a bird song, a fungus, a butterfly. It seemed like life was thriving in all its diversity around every bend of the trail! There's so much to share that I'll save the wildflowers for my next post, and focus on the animals today.

As soon as I stepped out of the car I heard my first year bird of the day, the savannah sparrow (125). A lesser goldfinch flew right through the parking lot, and tree swallows swooping over the hillside. Along the trail I heard another familiar call, and even saw a couple of the drab orange-crowned warblers (126) which are now back in force. Lots of birds were singing, including white-crowned sparrows and ruby-crowned kinglets. We also found two pairs of western bluebirds (127). One pair was hanging out near a tree cavity that looked like a likely nest site for them, and nearby were also a couple of foraging white-breasted nuthatches and a solitary yellow-rumped warbler. Here's a photo of one of the western bluebird pairs:

It was a great spot to see raptors soaring overhead, and while there we spotted a turkey vulture, red-tailed hawk, Cooper's hawk, northern harrier, and two American kestrels.

In the last week or two the first butterflies have been emerging, and at Cooper Mountain there were Sara orangetips (Anthocharis sara) all over the place. Their bright orange wingtips were evident in flight, which helped us identify them at home, but unfortunately none of them would settle down to have their photo taken. You can see what one looks like here.

After a stop for a bite of lunch at a local pub, where we shared a few morsels of our meal with a curious spotted towhee, it was north up to Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. The auto-tour route at this refuge is one of my all-time favorite places to bird, and at the entrance kiosk there is always a white board where visitors can share their latest sightings. Of course you never locate all the fantastic birds you read about there, but it certainly whets your appetite for the birding trip to come!

The great raptor sightings continued, as we saw an osprey (128) and bald eagle soaring over Rest Lake, bringing the raptor count for the day up to seven species. Pretty much all the expected duck species were still present, though most of them in much smaller numbers as many of headed north and others are pairing off for the season. Most numerous were the American coot and northern shovelers, a pair of which are pictured below:

Now for a somewhat controversial sighting - we saw a single common teal among the green-winged teals! You may recall I've pursued a couple other sightings of this Eurasian version of the duck this year, but had come up dry. Today we knew where to look for this bird based on a sighting reported on the white board, and as we searched among the green-wings for one with a horizontal instead of a vertical white shoulder stripe we spotted one that seemingly had no stripe at all. It took flight, and shortly resettled back to the same spot, at which point its white horizontal stripe (key field mark for the common teal) was clearly visible.

The reason this sighting is controversial is because I was debating whether or not to include it on the year list as its own species. The green-winged teal and Eurasian green-winged teal used to be considered separate species, but now most of our North American field guides list them as different races of the same bird. My dad yesterday was adament that I cannot count it as another tick for the year list! However, I remember Dave saying they are considered separate species in Europe, so I decided to research it further, and the conclusive evidence for me comes from the world bird list put out by the IOC. On this waterfowl page, the green-winged teal (Anas carolinensis) and Eurasian teal (Anas crecca) are listed as distinct species. So, I'm counting the common teal (129)!

Getting back to the wildlife sightings, it wasn't just birds. The western painted turtles (Chrysemys picta bellii) have come out of hibernation and were sunning themselves on the logs in the creek:

The highly invasive nutria (Myocastor coypus) were also abundant. At one point through the scope we located what looked like a nutria den, with 8+ animals romping along the shoreline and wresting with each other. Here's one that swam through the water-filled ditch right outside the car window:

Towards the end of the auto tour loop we spotted a large flock of 20+ white birds circling over the lake. From the way they were carthweeling they looked like gulls, but they were pure white. Through the binoculars it was evident they were actually all great egrets! I have never seen so many flying together, or flying in such a manner, so it was quite a sight. Unfortunately no photos of that spectacle as it was too far away, but here is a great blue heron who seemed to have something to say:

On the last stretch of the loop the red-tailed hawk pictured below soared over the car, just before we stopped to look for the reported great horned owl nest that I have been unable to locate on my last couple of visits to the refuge. Today we finally made out which lump in the trees was the active nest, and a look through the scope confirmed that there was an adult owl on the nest! That boosted the raptor species total up to 8.

Finally, it was somewhat of a disappointment not to see any yellow-headed blackbirds at Ridgefield, one of the few locations we regularly see them. I know I won't see them on San Juan Island so I wanted to find one before heading north again next week! Luckily on the way home was Vanport wetlands, where my dad had seen a couple just a few days before. We didn't get a great view, but one did show itself (130). Keith, a relatively new birder, was using the scope to check out a flock of mew gulls resting on a sand bar when he said, "Is that a greater yellowlegs?" I was doubtful, but he had just looked it up in the field guide while at Ridgefield since one had been reported there. Guess what, he was right! Nice find, a greater yellowlegs (131) to conclude the year bird list for the day at seven species.

Close to Vanport wetlands is Force Lake, an odd lake right next to a golf course that always seems to have an abundance of ducks, including several species not often seen elsewhere. While it didn't turn up the hoped-for redhead, there were a dozen or more canvasback there. In the end, we listed 60 species on the day, and a good photo to end this post is this male canvasback in the late afternoon light:

Big Day: Birds, Flowers, Amphibians, Mammals, Insects....

Every year my dad and I try to do a "Big Day" of birding, where we try to visit as many habitats and see as many species as possible in a day. Our record is something like 90 species in 14 hours. Today was somewhat of a mini Big Day, with "just" 9 hours of birding, and a focus on more than just the birds.

On our drive to our first destination we picked up a respectable eight species: song sparrow, red-tailed hawk, American crow, European starling, rock pigeon, barn swallow, Brewer's blackbird, and American robin.

Our first stop was just outside of Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in Washington. Other birders had reported Lazuli buntings in the meadow there, and sure enough, I was able to hear them. The only way they made our day list is because someone else had already reported them and we had played the Lazuli bunting call so I knew what to listen for. Otherwise, they easily would have been dismissed as a sparrow or finch call, and we never saw the bird. At this same meadow we also heard our first Swainson's thrushes of the day, a Pacific-slope flycatcher, a western scrub-jay, and we also saw a Steller's jay harassing a hawk to the point that it flew off its perch.

Right next to where we parked our car to listen for Lazuli buntings was an ant colony:

The meadow was also filled with wildflowers like oxeye daisies, St. John's wort, clovers, and these purple thistles that some American goldfinches were feasting on (Cirsium sp.):

Down at the entrance to the refuge itself we heard and saw some recently fledged Bullock's orioles, heard our first savannah sparrows. As we started on the auto-tour loop that takes you through the wetlands and forested areas of the refuge, we picked up two more swallow species (violet-green and rough-winged), and saw families of mallards, pied-billed grebes, and American coot. Common yellowthroats could be heard singing, great blue herons foraged in the shallows, a turkey vulture soared overhead, and both red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds perched in the cattail marsh. We also heard the winnowing of airborne common snipe.

Nearby we noticed this western painted turtle that was out of the water basking in this odd pose with its rear legs fully extended:

At the edge of the cattail marsh my dad noticed these plants, which thanks to paging through my field guides I immediately recognized as Arrowhead (also known as Wapato, or Sagittaria latifolia):

We stopped to get out at the blind that overlooks the largest lake along the auto tour route. The six American white pelicans - a rarity for the refuge - stood out like a sore thumb against the brown and green background of the marsh. There were also several dozen Canada geese, many gadwall, a small handful of northern shovlers, and an American kestrel perched in a nearby tree. We almost missed this barn swallow on her nest in the blind, and only noticed her just as we turned around to leave:

We drove through the rest of the refuge with the windows down despite the swarms of mosquitos that were everywhere. Amazingly, they seem to have mostly avoided me in favor of feeding on my dads arms and feet. As we drove through the woods along a stream, we saw a white-breasted nuthatch, our first tree swallows of the day, and a cinnamon teal. In one small marshy area I was lucky enough to spot the normally elusive American bittern walking across an open waterway, at one point apparently swimming through the deepest part of the water. While watching it through binoculars we also saw a nutria swimming the other direction behind the bittenr. Finally, as we crossed the bridge to leave the refuge, we spotted a few cliff swallows, making it a respectable five swallow species day.

We've often talked about birding both wetlands and the coast in the same Big Day, but today was the first time we actually did it. We drove out to Happy Camp beach on the Oregon Coast to conduct a COASST survey for beached birds on my dad's stretch of beach, while looking for live birds at the same time. While walking along the beach we heard a common raven, orange-crowned warblers, white-crowned sparrows, House sparrows, and a spotted towhee. We didn't find any beached birds, but we did see about a dozen of these huge jellyfish:

From his beach we also added the pigeon guillemot, pelagic cormorant, Western gull, glaucous-winged gull, and Caspian tern to our list, as well as 10 or so harbor seals. We then headed closer to the rocks in the photo below to scan them with his scope. Through the scope we could see tens of thousands of common murres and a few dozen brown pelicans (the first time either of us has seen two pelican species in one day). We were also surprised to see small flock of black scoters, and wondered what they are still doing in the area this time of year. The base of the rocks were also covered with a couple hundred sea lions. Just as we pulled out of the small town of Oceanside, we saw a juvenile bald eagle cruising overhead.

The next stop was Cape Meares lighthouse, where we know a pair of peregrine falcons has nested in the past. On our way down the trail we heard a singing winter wren. It didn't take my dad much time to locate the falcon nest on the nearby cliffs, and through the scope we could see both of the falcons preening and stretching their wings near the nest.

We drove along Tillamook Bay before heading inland again, and were rewarded with a few more species for the day list. We saw a few double-crested cormorants, heard a belted kingfisher, and saw a juvenile brown-headed cowbird. On our drive back through the coast range we stopped along the Wilson River in hopes of picking up an American dipper. We didn't, but I did see a spotted sandpiper and a mourning dove to add to the list.

Our last stop of the day was at Killin Wetlands near Banks, Oregon. We heard several more American bitterns here. We were hoping a sora or Virginia rail would help us break 60 species for the day; we didn't hear either of these rails but did see a wood duck family and hear some marsh wrens to bring us to 60 species. As an added bonus, on our way out of Banks we saw a pair of Eurasian collared doves, only the second time I've seen this species.

All in all, a great day's birding, and a decent day list of 61 bird species!