I was really excited when a business trip to
Seattle was scheduled in November 2016 giving me another opportunity to bird in the Pacific Northwest. My WA
statelist was 251 which was 3 over the old ABA reportable threshold, defined as
half of the state total. But with a
little on-line research, I found that the WA statelist now stands at 511 – a
whopping 15 higher than the total when the ABA threshold was calculated back in
2011. And dividing 511 by 2, the present
threshold would be 255.5. WA is a great
example of why I’ve revised my goal to be at least 15 over the old ABA
threshold in each state, or “Reportable Plus 15” as I call it. In fact, maybe Reportable Plus 15 may not be
enough to keep me over threshold for long in WA. In any case, I wanted to add at least 12 to
my WA statelist to get to 15 over the ABA threshold.
Now comes the planning. Although I had a pretty good WA list already,
I expected I would have realistic possibilities for new statebirds in most any
part of the state. I was thinking of
adding at least a couple vacation days to my trip which would allow me to get
to most any portion of WA except for the far eastern end. But now I needed to decide if I should I go
east into central WA for inland targets, stay in the Cascades for mountain
targets, or head to the coast especially for waterbirds and the like? I compiled a list of targets for all these
areas, and came up with pretty significant lists of possibilities in each
region. Then I set up a Needs Alert in
eBird and found that not only were most of my targets being seen, but several pretty
extreme rarities were being seen in Neah Bay, which is at the northwest tip of
the Olympic peninsula. The reliable Neah
Bay rarities included Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Dickcissel, Ruff, numerous Palm
Warblers, and as many as 6 Tropical Kingbirds.
With some more research I found that Neah Bay is quite notorious for
vagrants in October and early November.
So even if these rarities weren’t still around in 3 weeks when I got to
WA, others might take their place. Plus
there were several more regular targets being seen in the area as well,
especially on seawatches. The downside
was that Neah Bay was at least a 4-hour drive from Seattle, trading a lot of
potential birding time for driving time.
Next I turned my sights to the closer
Cascades. My interest was piqued by a
post on the listserve about some seemingly reliable Three-toed and Black-backed
Woodpeckers northeast of Cle Elum. And
several other mountain targets were being reported near Mount Ranier. But calls to the local forestry service and
Mount Ranier National Park indicated that the roads would at least be very
muddy if not snow-covered. Not the best
for a small rental sedan.
Then I researched the drier central part of
the state, and again came up with some possible targets. But these were more spreadout, and many
seemed to be less reliable.
The last key factor was that I had planned
to take a summer trip one year to eastern OR to work on my statelist there. On that trip I had also planned to add a day
or two in eastern WA to fill gaps in my WA list. My targets on that eastern WA trip included
several of my central WA targets of this November trip, as well as many of my
targets in the Cascades. And of course
few if any of my coastal targets would be possible in eastern WA.
I had made up my mind – I would head to the
coast on this trip, focusing not only on all those rarities in Neah Bay, but
also potential targets elsewhere on the coast, and others in route to and from
the coast not likely to be seen on a future eastern WA summer trip. As the trip neared, unfortunately the
Grosbeak, Dickcissel, and Ruff were no longer being reported in Neah Bay. But just as I expected, new rarities were
being found there, like Orchard Oriole, Clay-colored Sparrow, Gnatcatcher, and
a state-first Field Sparrow. But then
most of these were not being reported in the last couple days before my
trip. Unphased, I tried to remain
optimistic that a coastal itinerary including Neah Bay would be my best choice.
With a couple tweaks just a day before my
trip started, my planned itinerary was to start on the afternoon of Day 1
pursuing two stakeout shorebirds in the Seattle area, then bird the last couple
hours of the afternoon at Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park. On Day 2 I would spend the entire day in Neah
Bay trying to chase after all those landbird rarities and to do an extended
seawatch. Birding Day 3 would start in
southwest WA in Westport for a stakeout Bar-tailed Godwit and nearby Snowy
Plover, and then near Ridgefield NWR for Red-shouldered Hawk and Sandhill
Crane. Finally, I had a late morning
flight out of Seattle on Day 4, which would give me a couple early morning
hours near Seattle to fill any last remaining gaps in my list.
With that itinerary I estimated that I
might be able to add 8 birds to my WA list.
Though it would be great to add 12 to reach my Reportable Plus 15 goal.
This post summarizes my Day 1 and Day 2
sightings. The next post will summarize
my birding on Days 3 and 4.
Day
1 – Morning – Surfbird Chase in Seattle
My first target bird was Surfbird reported
on the waterfront only 15 minutes from my meetings in downtown Seattle. These birds had been reported in October at Alki
Beach and two nearby locations in West Seattle, though not in the last couple
weeks. Although my meetings started at
8, which was roughly sunrise, I figured I could see these birds at first light,
and still have enough time to make it back for the meetings. I specifically targeted the Don Armeni Boat
Ramp where 36 Surfbirds along with 35 Black Turnstones had been reported 2
weeks ago - this was a very specific location and seemed to have the critical number
of “rockpipers” to suggest they would still be there 2 weeks later when my trip
began. I arrived at the park at about 7
AM, and although it was still dark, I counted on being able to see the birds at
the boat ramp under the lights of the park.
But to no avail. I also walked
the entire rocky waterfront along the park and didn’t see a single shorebird. Could the birds instead be at either of the
other nearby locations where they had been reported recently? Unfortunately I didn’t have time to check
these other spots, and I reluctantly left at 7:30 having missed my first
target. As I drove back into downtown
(in some pretty ugly traffic), I wasn’t too disappointed since I optimistically
assumed I would be able to find them in the early morning the day I was to fly
out on Day 4.
Day
1 – Afternoon – Seattle and Hurricane Ridge
My meetings were done right on schedule at
Noon, meaning I had time to both make a quick stop for a stakeout Red Knot
nearby, and still have time to spend a couple hours birding Hurricane
Ridge. The Knot had been reported
seemingly reliably for some time in Yukon Harbor, though with no specific
location given. Each time it was seen
with Killdeer, and most recently with some Dunlin. So although I was optimistic that the bird
would be in the harbor that day, I worried a bit about how long it might take
for me to find the bird. After all I was
on a tight schedule, made even tighter when my map app sent me on a very inefficient
route that cost me 15 to 20 minutes of extra travel time. But the good news was that the tide was
pretty high so the mudflats would be limited, hopefully concentrating the
shorebirds.
When I finally neared the harbor I noticed
a small creek entering the harbor to the south with a bit of a beach, so I
targeted this spot as my first stop. But
a quick scan revealed just a couple gulls.
I then scanned the rocky shoreline to the north and noticed another
larger creek coming into the harbor, with a nice exposed delta. I thought this spot looked like a great
location for Killdeer to forage, maybe to include a wayward Knot. A couple minutes later I pulled up to that
beach and instantly noticed a larger pale bird standing on the mud right next
to the road. Seconds later I got great
binocular views of the Red Knot (new WA statebird #1), along with 5
Killdeer. A nice “write-in” in
eBird. As shown in my statebird map
below, WA was my 18th coastal state where I’ve seen Red Knot, along
with sightings as a rare migrant in 3 inland states.
Next I was off to Hurricane Ridge in
Olympic National Park with the principal target being Sooty Grouse. This area also had occasional reports of a
few of my targets from the Cascades, the most likely being Clark’s
Nutcracker. So although I would have
just 2 hours of daylight, I was hopeful I would turn up something there. And then when I paid the surprising $25 fee
to drive up Hurricane Ridge, I sure hoped I would be successful in my searches.
The weather near the bottom was quite nice
– mid 50s, partly cloudy, and light breezes.
But the forecast was for late day showers, and as I climbed the ridge I
could see really dark clouds in the distance.
When I got to the top the skies were threatening, and I could see it was
snowing in the distance. Temps had
dropped into the low 40s. And most
importantly – it was really windy.
Winds were so strong I literally could not walk into the wind. Now I know why it is called Hurricane Ridge! Luckily I found a few trails that were on the
lee side of the ridge and started my searches.
Unfortunately I found few birds at all – just some Golden-crowned
Kinglets, a couple Varied Thrushes, and a few “Oregon” Juncos. At one point I looked down in the valley
still on the lee side of the ridge and spotted a migrant Bald Eagle passing by
below me. A nice and somewhat surprising
find. Then on the next scan I spotted a
large brown Falcon. My first thought was
that it was a Prairie Falcon, but that would be a rarity this far west. So I watched it intently trying to turn it
into something else. It was too small
(and too brown) to be a somewhat more likely Gyrfalcon. And it lacked the strong moustache stripe of
the Peregrine. Unfortunately since the
bird was flying below me I did not have the opportunity to see the tell-tale
dark armpit of a Prairie. I watched the
bird pass by for about 30 seconds before it flew out of sight behind another
ridge. And despite my efforts to try to
turn it into a more likely species, I concluded it was a Prairie Falcon (#2), rare
for this part of the state and one of my targets but only if I had made the
trip into central WA. That fills a gap
in my statebird map, though I still need this species in several western states
in its regular range.
Day
2 – Neah Bay
The forecast for Neah Bay was for rain in
the morning and showers in the afternoon – that would certainly make for
challenging birding conditions, but it was WA in November afterall. I left my hotel in Port Angeles at about 5
AM, and started the 90-minute trek to Neah Bay in some heavy rain and fog. And along with the very dark and twisting
road it made for quite the white-knuckle drive.
My plan was to arrive in Neah Bay pre-dawn to try for a Pygmy Owl that
had been reported about a week earlier.
Luckily by the time I rolled into the area the rain had stopped, and
with no wind I had good conditions to listen for the Owl. But despite several stops I couldn’t scare one
up. I quit owling about 30 minutes
before sunrise and decided to make a quick tour of this small town to get a
better handle on all the different locations where the rarities had been
reported. It was nice to finally see the
town after staring at the GoogleMaps images for so long.
I decided to start my daylight birding at
the far eastern edge of town on a road called Ba’adah Village Loop Road. The previous weekend a Clay-colored Sparrow
had been seen there several times in the brushy edges of a big excavation. So armed with these excellent directions, I
made this my first stop arriving about 15 minutes before sunrise. I walked up to the excavation and spotted a
couple sparrows feeding in the dirt, but they were just Golden-crowns. I followed them over to the base of a small
blackberry thicket but didn’t see any other sparrows. Then I noticed a bright orangey-yellow spot
in the brush. I put my binoculars on it
and got a partial view of a bright yellow bird – could it be a Prothonotary
Warbler? Then it popped into the open
not 20 feet from me – it was indeed a gorgeous male Prothonotary! (#3) I
knew that was quite a rarity, so while I watched the bird I called a WA birder
who had given me advice to alert him. It
turns out that this was only the 4th record for WA. He spread the word, putting it on the
listserve and calling a few other birders who were in the area. My statebird map shows pretty good coverage of
this species in its regular range in the southeast and south-central states,
and now WA as an extreme rarity.
After about 30 seconds I lost the warbler
in the tangles even though it was a pretty small area. I noticed a bird fly out of the brush to the
west, so I headed in that direction and found more good brushy habitat, but
didn’t re-find the warbler. I headed
back to the original spot and spotted a larger paler yellow bird fly overhead. Even though it was a quick view I knew it was
an Oriole. I watched it land in a tree
on the other side of the excavation and spotted the Orchard Oriole (#4) – not
nearly as rare as the Prothonotary but still a great rarity. WA was my second west coast state for this
species as a rarity.
At one point the bird landed very low in a
bush where I got this shot with my phone.
Needless to say not even a record shot, but indicative of how
cooperative the bird was.
And although 2 Orchard Orioles had been
reported in Neah Bay a week ago, they were from an area more than a half mile
away, and there were no reports since then.
So I felt like I had found a new bird.
I spent some more time around the
excavation which was now quite birdy, finding a number of Golden-crowned
Sparrows and Juncos, and seeing the Oriole a couple more times. I then headed east around the loop road, especially
focused on the brushy areas hoping for more rarities. Plus a tropical Kingbird had been seen in the
area so I watched the open perches. I
ran into a number of smaller passerines like Chestnut-backed Chickadees,
Bushtits, Pacific Wrens, and both Kinglets, but no more rarities.
Soon I was back near the excavation and
again the area was hopping – loads of sparrows, a couple Spotted Towhees, and
some Sooty Fox Sparrows. Then I spotted
the Oriole again – or should I say another Oriole? This one looked brighter yellow below than the
first one. And then I spotted another
flash of yellow as a bird flew by me landing on top of the same bush where the
Oriole was perched - a Tropical Kingbird (#5).
WA was my 6th state for this species – 4 of which as a
rarity.
So in a little more than an hour I had
found one extreme rarity (the Prothonotary), found 1 (or maybe 2) other rarities
(the Orioles), and re-found another rarity (the Kingbird). Amazing!
I then walked a short distance to the north
where more brush lined a rock wall at the water’s edge. There were a number of birds calling in the
brush and I picked out a Yellowthroat (another eBird write-in) along with
several sparrows. I walked to the top of
the rocks, and spotted a couple warblers flitting about. Hoping to pick put a Palm Warbler, I tracked
them down and spotted one Audubon’s and one Myrtle Warbler. As I put one in my binoculars I noticed a
couple birds soaring low over the water in the background – they were Fulmars
(#6). WA was only my 6th
state for Fulmar.
I changed my focus to the water and it was
alive with Fulmars. I wasn’t planning to
do a seawatch here, instead planning to look from the jetty later in the day. But since there were so many birds in view, I
decided to give it a try. After heading
back to get my scope and umbrella (it was raining again), I was back looking
out over the ocean. A quick scan
revealed dozens if not a hundred Fulmars soaring back and forth. And there were several flocks of alcids,
mostly likely Common Murres, flying west in the distance. Then I started to focus on the Fulmars to see
if I could pick out anything else. I was
especially hoping for Pink-footed Shearwaters which had been reported several
times recently. I was able to pick out a
few Sooty Shearwaters mixed in which seemed to fly a little more buoyantly than
the Fulmars. And a couple of times I
picked out light phase Fulmars which really stood out against the dark sea and
dark sky.
And then I spotted a small pale bird
fluttering low over the water. It was a
Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel (#7), a rarity reported only a couple of times from
Neah Bay recently. I’ve only seen this
species once before – on my first trip to Alaska in 1987. I hate to think that was nearly 30 years
ago! It took me a while to realize it,
but that meant that the Storm-Petrel was new for my Lower 48 list - #726.
It was really raining now, but at least the
wind was at my back so I wasn’t looking into the rain. I continued scanning through the many Fulmars
and spotted a bird which was generally dark but with a pale body. This one had potential… It was paler brown above than the Fulmars,
and did indeed have a pale body, and lighter underwings, and again had the more
buoyant shearwater flight. It was a Pink-footed
Shearwater – another eBird rarity (#8).
I’ve only seen this species once before – while on a pelagic trip off
CA.
And then not a minute later I noticed 3
small pale shorebirds flying low over the water – Red Phalaropes (#9). Another species reported from only a few
recent Neah Bay seawatches. WA was my 12th
state for this species – a nice mix of coastal states, a few inland states
where it was a rarity, plus a breeder in AK.
That gave me 4 targets from the seawatch,
all within just 30 minutes. And although
all 4 had been seen during recent Neah Bay seawatches, only the Fulmar was
regular. Although I really wanted to
continue the seawatch, I thought it was best to keep with my original plan of
landbirding in the morning and doing a more extensive seawatch in the afternoon
from the jetty. After all, by far the
greatest numbers of seabirds had been reported from the jetty.
It was now about 10:00, and I decided to
head toward the waterfront east of the Warmhouse restaurant where several
rarities had been reported the last couple weeks. I had just started birding this area, not
seeing much of anything in the way of passerines, and trying unsuccessfully to
find a Surfbird in with a flock of Black Turnstones. Just then 3 cars of birders pulled up, and
one birder asked if I was the one who had seen the Prothonotary. I gave them directions to the spot, and also
asked if they had found any rarities yet that morning. They had started at Hobuck Beach but had
struck out on the flock (!) of Palm Warblers that had been reported there
seemingly reliably – one less spot for me to head to I guess. Seconds later they were off to try for the
Prothonotary. Although I had already
birded that area, I thought it would be worthwhile to join them, not so much to
re-find the Prothonotary, but instead in hopes that all those eyes would find
more rarities.
Minutes later we were back at Ba’adah
Village Loop Road fanning out to look for the Warbler. Despite lots of eyes no one found the
Warbler. Though the Orchard Oriole
appeared at least a couple of times once again giving good looks. We were now birding the brush along the rocks
along the shore and one birder mentioned he had a flock of Surfbirds down below
at the waterline. A few seconds later
after clamoring up the rocks I was looking at a flock of 8 Surfbirds down below
(#10) – not a rarity but still not regular at Neah Bay (there had only been 1
sighting of this species there this Fall).
That meant I wouldn’t have to try for Surfbirds near Seattle the morning
I was to fly out – giving me flexibility to search for other targets that might
be around. I’ve now seen Surfbird in
each west coast state, along with ME as an amazing rarity a few years back.
Not having found any new rarities in the
area, I wished the birders the best in their Warbler chase, and decided to head
into town to bird some of the other spots where rarities had been
reported. First I headed to the vicinity
of the Butler Motel where Swamp Sparrows had been reported, but with no
luck. Then I walked the streets of
“downtown” Neah Bay looking for good brushy habitat where rarities might hide
out. In one vacant lot I found a large
flock of Zonotrichia sparrows - principally Golden-crowns with a few
White-crowns, but no Harris’s that had been reported in the area. Though I did find 1 if not 2 Tropical
Kingbirds. After striking out at a
couple more stops I headed down to the marshes of the Wa’atch River Valley in
another search for recently reported Swamp Sparrows. Although the habitat looked great, I couldn’t
get any to respond to taped calls (they are normally very tape responsive).
It was now lunchtime, and I had been
invited to the 70th birthday party for Nancy Butler, the owner of the Butler
Motel. Ordinarily I would have passed on
the invitation and continued birding, but I felt like it would be nice to be
part of Nancy’s celebration. After all,
it was the Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Dickcissel coming to her feeders that
initiated my interest in coming out to bird Neah Bay in the first place. While we were waiting for the party to begin,
a couple of the birders who were with me looking for the Prothonotary arrived
with smiles on their faces. They had
re-found the warbler, getting some great pictures. I guess that meant the heat was off for the
WA rare bird committee to accept my visual-only account of this rarity. Here is a phone shot of the camera display of
the picture taken by Brad Waggoner.
Nancy wanted to share her birthday
celebration with her birds, and had made a cake out of suet cakes for
them. This is a shot of her taking out
the cake, with her famous feeders nearby.
After a quick stop at the party, and a
tasty sandwich which was much better than the lunch of power bars I had planned
otherwise, I was off to the jetty for my long-awaited seawatch. Almost every seawatch from the jetty in the
last couple weeks had reported high numbers of Fulmars, with occasional
Pink-footed Shearwaters, Red Phalaropes and a couple Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels
and Buller’s Shearwaters. Of course I
had already seen all but the Buller’s in the morning at my impromptu
seawatch. So I had just the Buller’s
Shearwater as a possible long-shot target.
It would be a lifer! And of
course I could always find something else.
When I got in place on top of the rocks a
quick scan revealed a number of Fulmars passing by, though not as many as
during my morning seawatch. I settled in
and started my scans, spotting a couple Pink-footed Shearwaters including one
that was pretty close in giving much better views than the one I had in the
morning. And I starting picking out a
number of single Red Phalaropes, some of which landed to feed in the floating
seaweed, close enough for me to try unsuccessfully to turn them into Red-necked
Phalaropes. An occasional Kittiwake
passed by as well – not a rarity but at least unusual for the location. Over the next 90 minutes I estimated I easily watched 20-30
Fulmars each minute – several were light phase which some day may be a
different species. Since many may have
been flying back and forth, I made a conservative estimate of only 5 new birds
per minute, or 450 Fulmars. I also
tallied 2 Pink-footed, 12 Red Phalaropes, and 6 Kittiwakes. I also had a few Murres and several single Marbled
Murrelets. But no Buller’s Shearwaters,
though I tried to make each light-phased Fulmar into one. Overall numbers on a per minute basis were
lower than what I had seen in the morning – in hindsight I should have stayed
at the morning seawatch longer. I took this representative phone-scoped shot of a Fulmar passing by in the distance.
Just as I was leaving the jetty a couple birders were arriving
to start their seawatch. I compared
notes with them – they had not seen the Prothonotary despite a pretty extensive
search. I asked if they had had any Palm
Warblers, the last of the recently reported rarities that I had not yet found,
and in fact they had. They had found one
in a mixed flock in town, along with the Harris’s Sparrow. I got the location from them and was on my
way.
Ten minutes later I had parked the car and was walking along the
town streets looking for the foraging flock.
Within a couple blocks of their reported location I started to hear some
chip notes of Yellow-rumps and soon located the flock. I counted at least 5 Yellow-rumps of both
races, mostly in a tree with bunches of white flowers that were attracting a
number of insects. There were also a
large number of Golden-crowns and few White-crowns in the shrubs and on the
ground. This had to be the correct
flock, but where was the Palm Warbler? Just
then another warbler popped into the open – with the tell-tale wagging tail it
was the target Palm Warbler of the western race (#11). WA joins CA as my second state where I’ve
seen this species as a rarity.
And not a minute later I noticed a flash of yellow in the
flowering tree. It was another Orchard
Oriole; very likely a different bird than the one I had in the morning a mile
and a half away on the east side of town.
While I was getting good views of the Oriole I heard some commotion from
the sparrows, and many of them flew up into the tree next to me. With a quick glimpse I thought one looked
different, and sure enough it was the continuing Harris’s Sparrow. I didn’t need that one for my WA statelist,
but it was nice to re-find the stakeout rarity.
What a great flock of birds! But
it wasn’t over – as I walked back to my car I spotted 2 different Tropical
Kingbirds.
Next I headed to the Neah Bay harbor to try to find a Clark’s
Grebe that had been reported a couple times recently. I found at least 200 Western’s, but couldn’t
find one of their paler cousins. And behind me I spotted yet another Tropical Kingbird, getting this phone-scoped photo.
Another
stop on the waterfront yielded a nice diverse group of divers, and then I found
a flock of Wigeon that included this male Eurasian Wigeon.
It was now pretty late in the day, and I decided to head down
the Wa’atch Valley as my last stop to see what I might find. Although not a rarity, it was fun to watch a
flock of about 200 Cackling Geese, with 9 Snow Geese at the edge of the flock. Plus a Rough-legged Hawk perched on a
telephone wire was a nice addition to the day list. But again I came up empty trying to attract
Swamp Sparrows.
I spent the last few minutes of the day watching the feeders
right outside my room at the Butler Motel.
Steller’s Jays and Golden-crowned Sparrows dominated the seed feeders,
and an Anna’s Hummingbird posed very cooperatively at the hummingbird
feeder. I got this passable photo
holding my phone up to my binocs (the 511th species I've photographed).
What a great way to end an amazing day. I ended up with 83 species, 9 of which were
new for my WA statelist. And 8 were eBird
rarities requiring details. Of course
the highlight was finding the Prothonotary Warbler. What a day!
I now had 11 new birds for my WA statelist, already way over my
expected 8 new birds with more than a full day of birding yet ahead of me. Plus I only needed 1 more to get to
Reportable Plus 15. It was turning out
to be a great trip.
