Celebrating Earth Day With Whales, Tulips, Birds, and Marching for Science

Last Friday the 21st circumstances aligned to get out on the water to see a group of transients - the T49As, T65As, and T65Bs, who have been regularly traveling together in recent weeks. It was a short but sweet visit with them off the coast of Sidney Island, BC.

Young adult male T49A1

It was cool to see the two young males (T49A1 and T65B2) hanging out together separate from the rest of the group. Interactions outside of a family group always get my mind going as to what could be going on in their social world. These two were close enough to be touching and seemed to be having a good time, doing some rolling and tail slapping.

The other, bigger group of females and juveniles was a bit further away but we got one nice look of all of them surfacing together.

After stalling out for a little bit, the males joined up and all the whales took off at high speed heading north, so we said goodbye and headed back to port.

T49A1 and family head north towards the Canadian Gulf Islands

I had to head back to my home island because I had a ferry to catch! We were heading over to Bellingham for the March for Science, and in the late afternoon the sun came out which made a detour through the tulip fields of Skagit Valley irresistible.

The weather was a bit less cooperative for the March for Science the next day, Earth Day. But that didn't keep more than 2000 people from taking to the streets in Bellingham along with tens of thousands of others around the world to make a statement in favor of adequate funding for, public communication of, and nonpartisan application to policy making of evidence-based science. 

A couple of very powerful speakers took the stage before the march, reminding us all of the importance of not just pursuing our scientific passions but taking the time to share our research and the scientific method with everyone so there's a broader understanding of just how powerful a tool science is. We might hope for certain results from our research, but we must accept whatever the results tell us, and these facts need to be used to inform policy. Selectively picking and choosing what science to listen to is irresponsible both to our environment and to the future of humanity.

After running some errands after the march, there was still time to get a little birding in before catching the ferry home. 

Caspian tern in Anacortes - photo year bird #148

After many excursions specifically trying for this elusive bird (and hearing them often but never seeing one), I also finally photographed a marsh wren!

Marsh wren - photo year bird #149

What will year bird #150 be?! That was my original target to start the year and now I'm wondering if I might reach it before the end of April!

Speaking of the end of April, as the days tick by closer to May, we're all wondering when the Southern Residents return. After making a few visits in March and early April (by just a couple matrilines), they've been absent again for the last couple weeks. Gone are the days with J-Pod regularly on the west side in early spring, so now we are all left wondering when they will take up their typical summer routine. I am just one among many hoping that it is sooner rather than later!

April Birds and Wildflowers

While the weather has been less than cooperative so far this month and the whales have been a bit too far from San Juan Island, we have taken advantage of some breaks in the rain and wind to enjoy the continuing spring arrivals and the first wildflowers of the season.

At Three Meadows Marsh we heard more birds than we were able to photograph (the marsh wren remains elusive, as does the Virginia rail which has always been the case - but so many friends have managed to photograph one this year that I've been hopeful!), but I did get a nicer shot of a yellow-rumped warbler.

Yellow-rumped warbler

I also was able to photograph my first tree swallow of the year. One cool aspect of the photo year list challenge is it gets me to attempt to take bird photos at times and of species I otherwise wouldn't even try. Swallows in flight? Yeah, right! But this year, this is my third swallow species I've photographed in flight, despite the challenges!

Tree swallow - photo year bird #137

 The other highlight was finding a pair of bushtits actively building a nest out of lichen! I've seen bushtit nests twice before, and all three times they've been built out of predominantly the same type of lichen. After staying still for a while, they were bold enough to continue working on the nest while we watched.

On the home front the feeders are more active than ever. I suspected the large winter flock of purple finches might have split up by now for the mating season, as the juncos seem to have done, but not so. They're still around in great numbers:

Meanwhile the woodpeckers are becoming more used our presence, leading to some fantastic photo opportunities!

Hairy woodpecker

Northern flicker

And every so often a new species turns out, like our first of the year American goldfinches a few days ago:

American goldfinch - photo year bird #138

Another surprise was a slate-colored junco! Considered part of the same dark-eyed junco species a our typical Oregon morph, the slate-colored is usually seen well east of here. Or perhaps it's a Cassiar morph? I didn't even know that was a thing until looking up the range of the slate-colored, and it's apparently somewhat of an intermediate between the slate-colored and Oregon morph, too subtle for me to really be able to tell where this one falls.

Yesterday I came across a birding hot spot at along an unlikely road near home. I pulled over to check out the swallows and ended up spending nearly an hour there and seeing/hearing more than 25 species, including killdeer, mew gulls, California quail, Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds, and three swallow species. I added a couple more to the year list, though my second attempt at photographing a northern rough-winged swallow this year failed again.

Savannah sparrow - photo year bird #139

Barn swallow - photo year bird #140

Today we headed out for a morning hike up Mt. Young. I thought it might be a bit too early for some of the common spring birds I find there, as well as for the wildflowers. Turns out I was wrong on both accounts! I was thrilled to hear the singing Cassin's vireos, Townsend's warblers, and Pacific-slope flycatchers, though less than thrilled with my attempts to photograph them among the dense foliage. The vireo and warbler are two species I don't think I've even photographed before, as they tend to stay deep in the branches or high in the treetops. Hopefully I'll have a chance to improve upon these shots later this season, which are both blurry.

Cassin's vireo - photo year bird #141

Townsend's warbler - photo year bird #142

I'm already surprisingly close to my goal of 150 species photographed this year, figuring I would probably be able to photograph about 75% of the birds I identified and going off my usual goal of 200 bird species a year. Right now I'm at 142 photographed out of 154 on my traditional year list, for a much better 92% thus far.

The flowers proved much easier to photograph, and many of my early favorites were in bloom!

Fawn lily, also appropriately named Easter lily

Calypso orchid, aka fairyslipper

A yellow monkey-flower species, always found on the same little hill each year

Shooting star on the Mt. Young summit

Weekend Wildlife

With my parents up visiting, it was the perfect time to get out and about with the cameras to see what could be seen last weekend. While we didn't see any whales, we did see lots of other wildlife, starting with the 50 or so Steller sea lions that have been hanging out at Green Point on Spieden Island. Unlike my last visit, this time most of them were in the water, and some of them were very curious!

Spieden's terrestrial wildlife was also out in abundance, with one group of Mouflon sheep taking advantage of the low tide to be down on the rocks at water level. We thought they were probably licking salt off the rocks, but a closer inspection of my photos showed that some of them were actually eating seaweed!

Sometimes you don't appreciate the photos you take until you see them on the computer at home - that was the case with this snap, which gave me a laugh when I saw the surprised-looking expression on this mama Mouflon as her baby nursed (click to see a larger version).

There were so many deer and sheep out enjoying all the green grass, but we also spotted one bald eagle surveying the scene.

This is a great time of year for watching sea birds, too, because they've transitioned into their summer colors, like this common loon:

Same goes for these pigeon guillemots, though they've been sporting their "summer" plumage since February:

Back on the home front, more signs of spring seem to be appearing on a daily basis. While looking for year birds across the island didn't turn up any, at the end of the day I added two right in my own front yard! A yellow-rumped warbler drew me outside, but this singing orange-crowned warbler stole the show.

Orange-crowned warbler, photo year bird #135

On Sunday, we headed down to Cattle Pass, one of our favorite places to scope out birds - literally. Here's my dad scanning Goose Island, shortly before we found a flock of nearby shorebirds.

At first it appeared the shorebirds were all black turnstones, a species I've seen a couple times this year, though it feels like more occasionally than usual. Without more turnstone encounters, I hadn't turned up their sometimes companion, the surfbird. Until now! Three surfbirds were in and among the turnstones, adding another year bird to the tally.

Black turnstone

Surfbird, photo year bird #136

Surfbirds and turnstones can be difficult to tell apart. Turnstones are darker with reddish legs, while surfbirds are grayer with yellow legs. In flight, their wing patterns are also distinct, with the turnstones (top and bottom) having the additional white striping compared to the surfbird (middle):

As much as it felt like spring this weekend, it's back to feeling like winter this week with chillier temperatures, lots of rain, and heavy winds. I thought it was March that was supposed to be in like a lion, out like a lamb? In any case, the taste of warmer, sunnier weather has me more than ready for more days outside with the camera again!

Let the season begin!

After one of the coldest, wettest winters in recent memory, we've all been more than ready for spring to arrive! I had to send my camera off for some maintenance, so was worried the nice weather, spring migrants, and whales might start to show up while I was unable to document them! As luck would have it, I was down and out with the flu and there were many rainy days while my camera was gone, so I didn't miss much. A few spring migrants did begin to arrive, but Jason let me borrow his camera for our photo year list challenge.

First rufous hummingbird of the year - photo year bird #130

Thankfully, my camera returned in time for this weekend, because this morning for the first time in way too long the conditions were right to hop on the boat and see some whales! We met up with the T36s and T46s near Waldron Island and followed them over towards San Juan Channel.

The most impressive whale in the bunch was the huge 14 year old male T46E:

They were in quick travel mode until they reached O'Neal Island in San Juan Channel, when they suddenly fanned out and presumably made a kill, as they started circling and becoming more active at the surface while gulls came down to partake in the feast. Meanwhile, we saw some other boats further south in the channel and soon saw blows - they were with a second group of whales, heading towards us!

What followed was the closest thing to a transient "greeting ceremony" that I've ever seen - the group we were with lined up at the surface, hanging there as the other whales (later determined to be the T99s) approached. The two groups briefly faced each other about 20 yards apart, and then the surface erupted with breaches, cartwheels, dorsal fin slaps, pec slaps, spyhops, and tail slaps. They continued their rambunctious behavior as they started traveling again south down San Juan Channel, and quite frankly, they were behaving more like residents than Ts!

The two groups merge! Newly arriving whales on the left face off with the whales we were with, who started lots of splashing behaviors

The dark shoreline of San Juan Island made a perfect back drop for those huge blows!

As the whales continued on towards Friday Harbor, we peeled off and went over to check out the wildlife on Spieden Island. Amazingly, there were about 50 Steller sea lions at Green Point - 35 hauled out and easily another 15 in the water.

Steller sea lions at Green Point

We also saw some good bird activity including pigeon guillemots, marbled murrelets, long-tailed ducks, pelagic and double-crested cormorants, harlequin ducks, and rhinoceros auklets.

Rhinoceros auklet in Spieden Channel

On the terrestrial side of things, the Mouflon sheep were out in full force on Spieden, and some females had some very young lambs in tow!

That all made for a pretty spectacular day, but late in the afternoon we got word that J-Pod was vocalizing on the Lime Kiln hydrophones. Where did they come from?! After listening to some great vocals we just had to head out there and take a look. From Lime Kiln we spotted about 8 whales several miles offshore milling back and forth. They were too far for photos, but any day you see both resident and transient killer whales is a pretty spectacular day!

J-Pod has been around a fair amount in the last few weeks, not spending a lot of time here but transiting through the islands on a somewhat regular basis. My fingers are crossed that they keep it up and it turns into a whale-filled spring. It has certainly started out on a great note!

What's up with bluebirds on San Juan Island?

Last night the San Juan Preservation Trust held a fireside chat about their western bluebird reintroduction project, which is entering its 11th year. Some people may wonder why this project is still going on and what it's future may hold. We learned answers to a lot of questions last night, and in case you weren't able to make it, I thought I would post a summary.

Pair of western bluebirds on San Juan Island

There are historical records of western bluebird populations all throughout the greater Puget Sound region, including the San Juan Islands, from the 1800s into the early 1900s. Throughout the 20th century, however, primarily due to human development leading to habitat loss, many of this historic populations were extirpated. A strong population still exists near Olympia, but the large urban area of greater Seattle lies between that region and other areas that could still support bluebirds, like San Juan Island. When you have patchy habitat like this, it's unlikely the birds will expand and re-find the San Juans on their own; what's their incentive to cross Seattle? That's why the bluebird reintroduction project began, the first such effort for a migratory passerine species in the United States.

Relocation of birds from elsewhere in Washington happened over the first five years of the program, and a decent population took hold, having breeding success. Pairs and families who were "soft released" here after being held in aviaries were successfully breeding and rearing young, who were all banded so they could be tracked.

Banding a western bluebird nestling

After five years of reintroductions, the program entered a two year monitoring phase to see if the population was healthy enough to maintain itself. Sadly, this coincided with two El Nino years that led to very wet springs, leading to a population crash of our newly established but still fragile population. Not only did these rainy springs take a toll on our bluebirds, but western bluebird and swallow populations throughout the state experienced big fatality events. It was terrible timing for the island's bluebirds, and emergency reintroductions were started again to help support the population. It was decided that five more years of supplementing the local population would occur, to see with better luck if they could gain a foothold. 2017 and 2018 are the last two years of this second round of reintroductions.

Male western bluebird with worm

So far, things are looking pretty good. A sister program in Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island is helping bluebirds take hold in the region, and birds are beginning to move back and forth between these two pioneer colonies. The local population was about 30 birds last year, with one pair attempting to nest on Lopez Island for the first time. This past winter, for the first time on records, a small group of bluebirds actually overwintered on San Juan Island, being seen regularly on the west side and south end of the island, even despite our numerous cold snaps. 

Community enthusiasm was initally high about this project, but it's hard to maintain that momentum when efforts take a decade or more of work. Volunteers are needed now more than ever, however, to keep the program going, not only during these last two years of reintroduction efforts but to keep monitoring going beyond that. First of all, you can help by reporting any bluebirds you see. They bird are just starting to return now and more should arrive in the coming weeks, and it's hard to keep eyes out there everywhere to determine where exactly they might settle down to nest. Be aware though that mountain bluebirds might also be out there; they'll stop here on their migration but won't nest locally. They're often seen at the sound end of the island in March and April and are a more brilliant blue with no brown on them:

Mountain bluebird at American Camp

There are plenty of other ways to get involved, too. As outlined at the meeting last night, the Preservation Trust is looking for three types of volunteers:

1. Searchers, to help regularly survey likely spots birds will return in early spring

2. Nest box monitors, to make regular checks on nesting birds and their fledglings once pairs of settled down

3. Aviary assemblers, available at the last minute to help erect temporary aviaries for birds being translocated to San Juan Island

If you see any bluebirds, or are interesting in helping out by volunteering in any of the above ways, please contact Kathleen Foley at kathleenf@sjpt.org. Please consider getting involved to help support the return of this beautiful little bird to the San Juans!