Snail City and Crab House

Finally back online, yay! One doesn't really realize how often e-mail gets checked or how much fun blogging is until you can't do it for eight days. I'm glad to be back in action, with lots of pictures to share in the next few days!

First of all, the intertidal creatures seen at Third Lagoon as mentioned in the last post. It was very bizarre, there were no snails to speak of along the beach, then as some seemingly imaginary line was crossed they speckled the rocks everywhere! I couldn't detect any difference in micro-habitat, but there must have been something that made this end of the beach a better place to hang out for a snail. Look at them all!

Here's a close up. Luckily they were all below the high tide line so it was still possible to walk along the beach without crushing them.

What would compel me to do something like lift this huge cement block that found itself in the middle of the beach? (Okay, I'll be honest, I recruited Keith to heave it up - that sucker was heavy!) Why, to look for critters underneath, of course!

We were rewarded with the sight of five little crabs that were taking shelter in the moist shade underneath. We made sure to carefully replace their house after snapping this picture of one:

Next up, some of the spring wildflowers blooming here on San Juan Island!

Third Lagoon and More

I'm still, ridiculously, without internet at home. Here's a post I wrote yesterday and am posting from the internet cafe. I hope I'll be back in regular action soon! Then I can catch up on all your comments and blogs as well as post more often.

The other day I said it seemed like we had been experiencing all four seasons in the span of a couple weeks. Here’s a photo that demonstrates the meeting of winter and spring: some blossoming purple dead nettle (Lamium purpureum) half-buried in the results of our torrential hail storm :

In my recent post about wildflowers at Cooper Mountain I misidentified purple dead nettle as self-heal (Prunella vulgaris), the same mistake I made last year! Whoop! I blame the deceivingly similar photos of them in my primary plant field guide. I did, however, succeed in identifying the mystery purple wildflower. I should have taken the four petals as a clue it was in the Brassica, or mustard, family – it’s oaks toothwort, also known as beautiful bittercress (Cardamine nuttallii).

The weather has remained windy every day, and cloudy every day except one. I took advantage of that afternoon to head down to Third Lagoon near the south end of the island. On the way there, I had to pull over to take a photo of this impressive cloud formation looming over Vancouver Island.

It was beautiful at Third Lagoon, where we were partially sheltered from the breeze.

There were some neat plants and intertidal creatures that I’ll feature in my next post, but the bird-watching was pretty good as well. Several small flocks of bufflehead still in the bay, and some green-winged teal in the lagoon being watched over by a belted kingfisher. Check out this photo of a foraging great blue heron with a feeding sub-adult bald eagle in the background. A black oystercatcher was nearby with a limpet in its beak, but I couldn’t quite line all three up in the same photo!

Here’s a closer look at the young bald eagle:

On Tuesday it was back to being overcast and chilly, but I still wanted to get out a bit to bird watch. I went to South Beach hoping to see a loon, grebe, or duck species I hadn’t yet picked up this year, but what I found was even better! As soon as I set foot on the beach three black-bellied plovers (135) flew by – a bird I have only seen once before, and that was 10 years ago in California! I followed them a way down the beach in hopes of getting a better look. I did, and much to my surprise right with them were also three sanderlings (136). Those two finds, as well as the northern shrike I saw later on my drive around the island, made for a more than decent hour of birding despite the weather!

First Trip of the Season

Our unpredictable weather has continued, as it feels like we've experienced all four seasons here in the Pacific Northwest in the last two weeks. The other day while I posted my brief update on the blog, we were in the middle of a torrential hail storm that ended up with the ground covered like it had snowed for several hours. Still, we got enough of a break in the weather yesterday (cloudy and breezy instead of rainy and windy!) to head out both on land and on the water.

Down at my COASST survey beach we didn't find any beached birds, but we did see and hear a purple finch (132). A little later, I got to work the first Western Prince trip of the season with ten adventurous passengers. Our first stop was along Spieden Island where large groups of the exotic Mouflon sheep were out grazing on the hillside. The big rams have striking dark coloration this time of year, and many of the ewes were being trailed by small lambs. On nearby Sentinel Island, dozens of harbor seals lounged on the low-lying rocks.

Spring is a great time for bird-watching in the San Juan Islands. One highlight was certainly the bald eagles, as we saw multiple pairs of them throughout the trip. We saw many other sea birds as well, such as pelagic cormorants, harlequin ducks, rhinoceros auklets (133), and pigeon guillemots (134).

We cruised through a few areas where the marine mammal feeding transient orcas have been spotted on occasion over the last few weeks, and while we didn’t have any luck locating them today, it’s always a beautiful ride to travel between the San Juan Islands and the Canadian Gulf Islands, and a few of our passengers who were helping us scan got glimpses of harbor porpoise.

Our last sighting before heading back to Friday Harbor was of a pair of impressive male Steller sea lions. They will only be around the San Juans for another month or so before they start heading back to their breeding rookeries farther to the north. These behemoths are up to twelve feet long, and certainly dwarfed the harbor seals we saw in the water nearby.

Overall, it was a great first day on the water! But I'm definitely still looking forward to a return to some nice sunny weather....

A Stormy Return to San Juan

April marks the official beginning of the whale-watch season, so I returned to San Juan Island a few days ago to spend most of the summer here. Unfortunately, the weather made it feel more like the thick of winter! We were greeted with rain on the night of our arrival, then gale force winds and a power outage on our first full day here.

The above photo was taken yesterday at Lime Kiln Point State Park, my favorite shore-based whale watch spot that overlooks the often calm Haro Strait. Not so yesterday, as it looked more like the open Pacific Ocean with all those white caps and swells!

Hopefully some nicer weather is in store this week. I'll be without internet until sometime mid next week (I'm posting from a cafe in town), so look for me to report back then.

Cooper Mountain Wildflowers

The weather has been chilly, wet, and occasionally windy all of this week so far, which makes last Saturday's day spent outside that much nicer considering how mild and sunny it was! In my last post, I focused on the animals seen at Cooper Mountain Nature Park and Ridgefield NWR. Here are photos of all the wildflowers that were in bloom at Cooper Mountain. Going through my photos reminded me that spring is still alive even though it feels more like February again outside!

Tall oregon-grape (Mahonia aquifolium)

An as-yet unidentified wildflower. These little purple, four-petaled flowers were everywhere, mostly in drooping clusters. Any ideas?

Common groundsel (Senecio vulgaris)

Blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia spp.)

Wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana)

Purple death nettle (Not self-heal as previously labeled)

Saxifrage species (Saxifraga spp.)

Poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum)

Miner's lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata)

Forget-me-not (Myosotis spp.)

Common storks-bill (Erodium cicutarium)

Fawn lily (Erythronium oregonum)

Saskatoon (Amalanchier alnifolia)

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:

Tree Swallows At Fernhill Wetlands

Yesterday was the warmest, most beautiful day yet this season; the temperatures were in the 70s and there was not a cloud in the sky. (Don't worry for those of you still dwelling in the grayness of early spring, we're back to overcast and drizzly today!) It was perfect weather for taking a walk around Fernhill Wetlands, where the tree swallows that just returned a week or two ago are now out in force and in the process of claiming nest boxes for the season.

It was magical to step out of the car in the parking lot and be immediately surrounded by dozens of swallows, all dipping and swirling with amazing grace and speed. I remember my dad asking me once when I was younger if I could be any bird for a day, what would I be? Yesterday I remembered why my answer was tree swallow! I can only imagine what it must be like to fly like that.

Of course it was nearly impossible to capture in-focus photos of the swallows in flight, but they were very protective of their nest boxes and once perched on one would stay put for a couple of photos. You can really see in the above photo how the dark green coloration covers the eye, unlike in violet-green swallows where the white goes above the eye. Despite some violet-greens having been reported at this location just a few days earlier and some close looking on my part, I saw only tree swallows yesterday.

After moving on from the swallows (which took a while, I'll admit), the rest of the birding at Fernhill was pretty good too. I saw or heard 27 species, including about 2000 cackling and Canada geese. Another highlight was getting a brief glimpse of a single Wilson's snipe (124). The other best photographic opportunity was this male Brewer's blackbird that was making all kinds of metallic noises while perched in this poplar:

Just a few days ago I was reminding myself to look for rusty blackbirds among flocks of Brewer's blackbirds. In general, rusty blackbirds are an eastern bird while Brewer's are what we see out here in the west, but occasionally an individual will cross over - indeed, there was a rusty seen up in Washington within the last week. It's pretty difficult to tell them apart, but the male in this photo is undoubtedly a Brewer's - note the purplish iridescent sheen on the head, while the wings have a green sheen. The rusty are, overall, less glossy, and sport an entirely bluish-green sheen, without the purple. As you can imagine, distinguishing one from another is no easy task.