May 15th - Mount Walker, Jefferson County; Songs and Species

A little diversion

White-crowned Sparrows. . . it's always the White-crowned Sparrows. 

They have a song that was one of the first I learned: XC647617 White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys) :: xeno-canto

And it's a remarkably consistent song, but one I'm still learning a lot about. 

Variability in vocalization is an interesting thing. It's part of what makes it possible (or completely impossible, as we'll see later) to identify a species by song. If you have a species that sings a given song, and other species sing nothing at all similar to it. . . I'd dare say even the Merlin app on your phone can identify it! (I'll table the Merlin discussion for now as well, but it's all connected.) 

In other cases, songs from one species can overlap with others. Lately, a point of discussion on birding forums has been Chipping Sparrow and Dark-eyed Junco songs, which do seem to overlap, if only in quality. Juncos can give very sweet-relaxed songs, and all along the spectrum to more rapid, harsh trills. And to emphasize, it's very much a spectrum. The latter end of it overlaps with Chipping Sparrows a bit, although they can often be separated even then by the duration of the call. Often. Although for these species there's a secret identification trick that helps even more. Looking at the birds! 

The song linked above is the one that I heard outside my Port Townsend hotel room. Unmistakably, a White-crowned Sparrow, and more specifically, the Pugetensis subspecies. But here's what has blown my mind even more in the last few days. . . It is more specifically dialect 5! 

A funny thing happened as I attended my daughter's parade in Long Beach a few weeks back. I heard the normal Pugetensis songs. And then I heard something else. 

XC143211 White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys) :: xeno-canto

I was hearing both this and the song at top and was not at all ready to hear it as I did - clear, distinct, and repeated by multiple birds. I couldn't call it variation, as with the juncos above. This was distinctly different - piano key differences rather than trombone differences, in a way. I poked around on this one for a bit, but eventually gave up on it, until I sat to do this post. And now. Goodness. Here's what I landed on. 

From: 
Cultural Evolution of Puget Sound White-Crowned Sparrow Song Dialects (engdes.com)

Dialects. And not just a few, but thirteen?! I'm realizing that some of these are variations I may have heard from individual birds here and there over time, but just chalked it up to bad singing. "Missed your note, buddy." But they don't really do that! Not only do they hit the songs quite well, but individual birds, it seems, are able to sing multiple dialects, reducing the ones that they produce over time to match the birds around them. 

The rabbit-hole here is certainly going to go deeper as I listen to more sparrows out there, but there you go. Inside a given subspecies, there are distinct dialects, and multiple dialects that can be sung by given birds. Didn't know that. 

The other things singing outside the hotel door

American Goldfinches. Some gulls, likely the hybrid "mutts" that are prevalent in the area, and Purple Martins. The latter birds were a species I'd not had yet in the county. Loud enough to be heard easily, and not a surprise, as I had grabbed a room next door to Kah Tai Lagoon, where they'd been reported recently. This brought my year total to 156 species. I've been pretty happy with the progress towards a year list goal of 200 in Jefferson County. Each species brings me one step closer, but also changes the shape of future trips. Purple Martins are pretty localized, so getting this species certainly adds some flexibility to my days. 

My plans for the day involved another fairly localized species, and one with a little problem. 

Hermit Warblers. These lil guys are cute, plain and simple. Black, white, and yellow, and . . . warbler-sized. But their relationship with Townsends_Warblers is messy indeed. Last year, I'd been birding in the Southwest corner of the state and found pure Hermits in all four of the counties I visited. I also found Townsend's Warblers. In one case, I found a hybrid warbler in an area where the species have a bit of overlap. 

A Pure Hermit Warbler from last year
not the sharpest picture, but one that shows some of the major checks:
Clean white breast with no streaks or yellow wash
Yellow face without any smudging or masking
Black chin.

In Jefferson County, it's extremely overlappy. For the Hermits, found at mid-elevation, this means that their populations have been almost completely muddied by interbreeding Townsend's. The latter can be found at lower elevations and still continues as a distinct species in the county but confirmed records of pure Hermit Warblers have been extremely rare in recent years. 

From Birdweb.org - snips of the gorgeous range maps
produced by Kelly Cassidy - showing the breeding range
red, and also purple for Townsend's

I say confirmed, because there have been reports of Hermits, but almost universally, the people reporting pure Hermits (this year) have included notes such as, "ID'd by Merlin" or "ID'd by song". This, I've found, just can't be done. There's definitely recordings out there that could give one a sense of what the songs sound like - deep in pure Hermit country, or deep in pure Townsend's country. But Townsend's in particular don't seem too concerned about keeping a common accent. 

Unlike the white-crowned sparrows mentioned above, Townsend's don't do their songs in a piano-key manner - distinct and defined. There's a core song, but a range of variations in duration, pitch, speed, and timbre in the songs that brings them into conflict with both Hermit and Black-throated Gray Warblers. As one might imagine, hybrid birds follow nearly no rules. 

So, Mount Walker, the source of a few Hermit Warbler reports, was my destination for the day. 

But first

On the way to my hike, I thought it might be good to investigate a clearcut with bluebird sightings in recent years. Penny Creek Road heads up from the 101 near Quilcene, and I was able to get there right around morning chorus. 

Olive-sided Flycatcher (157 for the year) and Western Wood-Pewee (158) were two new birds I found as I strolled back and forth along the base of the clear-cut. Nothing about it (besides the fact that it was a clear-cut) seemed to tip it off as good bluebird habitat. A little on the steep side. . .a little overgrown. . . completely lacking in bluebird sounds. . .MacGillivray's and Orange-crowned Warblers called from the steep slopes as well. 

On the way down, I kept an eye out for Ruffed Grouse. At this point in the year, most of the females would be on nest, so I'd be less likely to hear the drumming (although I have even later in May). A morning drive on a mid-elevation road with a little gravel, however, at least presents the possibility of catching a grouse along the road. 

Mount Walker - up

So... many... switchbacks...

From the trailhead, I added one species, Hammond's Flycatcher (159) as I laced up my boots. I also had Black-throated Gray Warblers singing. These songs are *also* variable, but not as bad as those stinking Townsend's. The songs I heard were deep in the core BTG warbler songs. Others as I started up the path were not so clear and were just left unidentified. 

The trail is pretty steep! 2000 feet in 2 miles is a good thigh-burner, for sure. The benefit is that switchbacks bring you in view of warblers in the canopy below. This is part of why I try to do these hikes, rather than hitting other warblerry spots at lower elevation. Last year I constructed a drawing to emphasize this idea: 

And this plan did succeed in giving me good views of at least one warbler on the way up. I started looking as soon as the songs sounded at least a little Hermit-like and came across this bird. 

This was a fun first one to find. For a pure Hermit, the yellow on the face would be nice and clean. The chin would be black, the breast pure white with no striping. None of this is true - but it's still interesting how this bird feels like it had a lot of Hermits in the family tree. The goal of the day was to get as many of these pictures as possible during the day! Just to confirm the rumors that there are few if any Hermits left in the county. This was the only one I got on the way up, but ... warblers are warblers, yaknow? 

Red net-winged beetle on some salal

Canada Jays

As I got closer to the top, and Sooty Grouse were found almost constantly, booming from hidden spots along the trail. Nearing the top, I even got a flyover of Vaux's Swifts (160) above the canopy. The trail finally reaches the top, coming into the north vista loop. Beautiful!

Canada Jays came through, and I was also soon joined by three other hikers. They were all, it turns out, pretty serious local hikers, and immediately got talking about different peaks, different routes, different people... And ... I think this reaction is more about me than the three people, but there's like... a volume you need to use to talk to someone and be heard. Some people (including this here writer) sometimes slip a bit higher than they really need to. And one of the people in the group was one of these (us) loud-talkers. 

It's silly to go up a popular peak and expect any kind of solitude, and I really do make these trips, in part, to meet people from the counties I visit. But as I caught my breath, a warbler started chipping around the top. I'd pish, and it would get cut off by loud-talking, and I thought... I'll just wait a minute... or five... or ten... and birds just passed along. 

Courtesy of this site.
These folks had to 
have been at like... 70.
No big deal.

Easy to pass over this, but I have to ask. . . does this happen to you? Out just trying to enjoy a little birding, and find a bird, and people just seem oblivious to what you're trying to do. . . and you just..get... fr...

And I'm not saying I'm 100 percent on recognizing my emotional reactions, dusting off a chair, giving them a seat, and asking "can I help you?" But in the moment, I stepped through it, and did that with my emotions. Things I picked up from a nice book titled, "Meditation for the Fidgety Skeptic". Highly recommend it. Emotional reactions seem to pop up when we'd like/expect X, and Y comes along instead. Birding, as peaceful and meditative as it is, can put us into those situations. A driver coming up the road towards the Spruce Grouse you're looking at. . . someone with their dog off-leash. . . or loud-talkers! It's nice to at least have tools available for when the birding gods put us to the test!

One of the women passed by me and wished me a great bit of hiking, and I wished her the same. 

hoverfly (sp?) seen along the way

Hiking from the South to North viewpoints, I tried for Northern Pygmy-Owl, a species that I'd had along this route on a previous trip. I got one! The added benefit was the chattering of other birds in response. Surprisingly, Western Wood Pewee was part of the mix, along with Olive-sided Flycatcher, and some Townsend's/Hermit/Townsend's x Hermit Warblers. Some of these popped up on top of trees for nice views, including some that posed. All hybrids. 

Better face and chin on this one, but looootts of yellow on the breast! Hybrid.

I actually spent a long time at the top! Not the most strategic thing to do for the year, I figure, but I really did hope to get a good rogue's gallery of hybrid pictures. Other hikers passed through, and left, and I spent some of the time watching Turkey Vultures and varmints. 

I think this was a Townsend's Chipmunk

Mount Walker - down

One more lovable mutt

Eventually, I was ready to head down, and I found that I was feeling pretty refreshed after all of the time a the top - all casual walking and no elevation. I took the road down, rather than the trail. Four miles to handle the elevation loss sounded much more reasonable!

On the way down, I had more hybrids, more Sooty Grouse, and one more addition: Red Crossbills (161). A dozen of these little finches passed overhead in a pack, giving their jip jip calls. And, I'll be honest. There are years in which I've heard a lot of crossbills, and can separate them by types, but it's been a while. Types? Sure, let's add "types" into the mix! 

Mostly shady walk down, and 
not all that steep

There are different types of red crossbills that have slightly different phenotypes, different flight calls, and different trees that they prefer to use as food sources. From all I've read, these seem to be *able* to breed across types, but they isolate from each other in ways that may lead to multiple species down the road. Species. . . subspecies. . . dialects. . . types. . . it's just a lot. 

Turkey Vultures. Just to break from the theme,
these are NOT a hybrid between Turkeys and Vultures. . . 

Yellow-spotted Millipede

Puget Blue? I think so

Um

Yeah, I got back to my car, and there were a lot of hours left in the day. But. . . to chase what? To look for what? I stopped at Quilbillies in Quilcene for a cider and a peek at my needs alerts on eBird. Nothing jumped out that would be a good bird to chase. Sightings of some good birds were from days earlier, or earlier in the day, but not since. I found myself feeling content with my day, especially given the 7 miles of walking I'd put in!

I did make the drive to Port Townsend, and tried looking at birds from Point Wilson, but I ran into interesting challenges. I'd really focused on viewing alcids and such through binoculars. These allowed me to see the size and shape of the birds better in flight - just because they'd stay in the field of view a little longer. And as soon as birds dropped to the water. . . I found myself struggling to pick out field marks. 

Most of my alcid viewing has been in winter months, when they can be found in greater abundance in Puget Sound. And here I was flat-footed as I was looking at birds moving into breeding plumage, at a distance. I looked back to my car, where the field guide sat in the back seat. But then I thought back to even a day before - Bonaparte's Gulls had been passing by Point no Point, some in breeding plumage, some not. I could walk there... and back... and still puzzle over the dark blobs in the distance, dipping up and down behind waves. 

And it's true, there could have been puffins out there, could have been kittiwakes, could have been a Black Scoter lingering around a little late. Or. . . could there be a storm-petrel? a shearwater? a jaeger?? I quickly realized that I was there with an unfortunate combination of missing pieces of information. And footsore as I was, I just decided to pack it up and head for home. 

Time to evacuate

June should be interesting. Not a surfeit of species to look for, but that does make it possible to make some focused efforts!

May 14th - Kitsap County - Off of my Beaten Paths

Don't let the title fool you. 
There were still hybrid gulls everywhere I went.

Goal oriented birding can often plan itself. You need bird X. Bird X was seen here and there. Guess you're going here and there! And eBird is this great site that will tell you where birds have been reported that you need for a given list. After a trip earlier in May, I looked at this data for my Kitsap County year list. 

My more usual planning M.O.

54 species. 

There's nothing I love more than pulling out a map, cracking open a notebook or a spreadsheet, and figuring out the best path for the task at hand. But that's ridiculous. So, I closed the map, put away the notebooks, and decided I'd just go to some new places. 

It's part of why I approach county birding the way that I do. I like to see all of the nooks and crannies of a county. Kitsap County, to be fair, has some of its nooks and crannies modestly out of view - seen only by private landowners, military personnel, or people with the right connections. But even so, there are perfectly accessible public spots that I'd simply not visited. And with 54 species out there waiting to be found, I didn't have to worry about not finding new birds for the year!

Manchester State Park

Pacific Wren - Manchester State Park

If I catch the ferry over from Fauntleroy to Southworth, this is the first state park I can reach. So, why haven't I visited it? 

The "problem" with Manchester State Park has always been that it's not on the way to anything. You get off of the ferry, head north, and find yourself in a dead-end corner of sorts. And it's "just" your standard Pacific Northwest mixed forest. Nothing out of the ordinary in the dense habitat, or in the pebbly shoreline. 

no picnic table for this poor little fella

I'm sure that some places like this actually attract very few rare birds, but I also wonder if there might be a reverse-Patagonia-picnic-table effect at work? Like. . . a place is not known for attracting rare birds, so nobody goes there? I'm sure places like that exist. I'm also sure that, barring a flamingo landing on my binoculars, wearing a name tag that says "flamingo", that I'm the right person to *miss* a rare bird, left to my own devices. 

From the ferry, I took Southworth Drive, the usual route to parts north and west in Kitsap. This took me past Yukon Harbor, which is sentimentally becoming one of my favorite spots. Close to the ferry terminal, with parking and views of a lot of water. I even got spoiled by a sprinkling of shorebirds on my first stop way back in January. Today, for the first time, instead of continuing west to Port Orchard, I turned onto Colchester Drive. 

American Goldfinch  - the super-special 
state bird of Washington State
(and Iowa... and New Jersey...)

On any May morning, even a late-morning, it's such a joy to just roll the window down in a rural area. Songs from Wilson's Warblers, White-crowned Sparrows, and Pacific-slope Flycatchers rolled in through my window. My ears are more useful than my eyes, generally speaking, and for most birds my ears bring in the most birdjoy. As I drove, I also picked up the harsh metallic call of a Brown-headed Cowbird. 

I admittedly celebrated, it was the 115th bird for my Kitsap County yearlist - another step towards the goal of 150 species. I tried to kind of ignore the fact that the bird I heard might very well be laying its eggs in the nest of some unsuspecting bird like a Yellow Warbler, letting the other birds bear the burden of feeding their aggressive chicks. Nest parasitism is something that others have described better than me, so I'll link you if this is not a familiar thing! 

These year-list totals will be dropped in parentheses as I go. The simple fact that I'm at 115, and there are over 50 species out there that others had seen in the last week. . . the math is getting exciting. And do recall (or go read for the first time) that I'd intentionally set a less ambitious goal in Kitsap County for the year. So, it's not that the goal itself is earth-shaking, but once Kitsap is "done", it frees me up to do stupider things to reach the goals in neighboring Jefferson County. 

I passed the little town of Manchester (including the Manchester Pub, which seems to have monthly-ish karaoke nights, and a menu that includes a robust selection of hot dogs), then arrived at my destination. 

I popped my Discover Pass up on my rearview and started with a spin around the camping area. It was such a lovely bit of shade here. Not the most important thing on this particular morning. I think the temperatures had just barely crested 60 degrees as I drove, but I could imagine this park being a welcome retreat for many a family come summer. More Pacific-slope Flycatchers called, and . . . I just remembered that they're not called that anymore! Western Flycatcher is now a species designation that includes those Pacific-slope Flycatchers, along with Cordilleran Flycatchers.

This is a Western Flycatcher. Because it said so. And probably also 
because of the eye ring, yellow-ish wash to the belly, and
um. . . the tail? But really, because it said so.

These birds look nearly identical, although better birders than I could get into some of the subtleties about their differences. Their songs, however, made it easy to identify them as completely 100% different species, and they even had the courtesy of staying out of each other's way through 99% of their habitat. 

Except. . . for places where they don't. And in those areas, some of those very same better birders could watch a flycatcher sing a Pacific-slope Flycatcher song, and then on a whim start singing a Cordilleran Flycatcher song. Add to that, scientists started peeling back those chromosomal surface domains, and realized that they're genetically similar enough to be considered a single species. I'd heard both songs in the state and had counted them as different species at the time, so this "lump" had removed a species from my life list. 

Vetsch! A native legume 
with sweet-smelling blooms
(caption courtesy Dr Seuss)

I've been able to emotionally deal with this loss. But cognitively, it'll be a bit before I can retrain my brain to call them Western Flycatchers! It's going to get rough in the years to come, as the plan is to change the names of any birds named after people. It just got hard for people to reconcile the honor of having a bird carrying someone's name with the (pardon my coarse language - it's exceedingly rare in these blogs) asshole-ish things that some of those people did. Fair enough!

Black-throated Gray Warblers called from the trees as well. Not a new bird for the year, but an interesting one for the songs they give. At times, they overlap a little bit with Townsend's Warbler songs, but the ones I heard this morning were squarely in the BTG playlist. At times when these songsters kind of overlap, I always get peeks at them before deciding on an ID.

"Whit! Whit!"

Swainson's Thrushes (116) called from the canopy. These guys are still just starting to arrive. In a matter of weeks, they'd be filling the forest with their beautiful upward spiraling song. I parked at the upper lot, got out and started a longer walk around the park. 

Tanager. Behind that tree.

The trails from the lot climbed as they took me towards the water. This brought me to a large open field where I picked up one more new bird, Western Tanager (117). This is one bird where the visual enjoyment is higher! Bright red and yellow, with black and white highlights. But all of these beautiful colors stayed hidden in some treetop behind another treetop. Still, the repeated calls "Prikadik! Prikadik!" were distinctive enough. 

I cut back through some trails. Admittedly, I lost my bearings a little, but I trusted in the size of the park, the major paved roads that cut through it, and the presence of a few dozen people sprinkled through the park. Eventually, I made it to the water (Great Blue Heron, Horned Grebes, Surf Scoter, and Pigeon Guillemot), also finding a large brick structure that turned out to be an historic torpedo warehouse - part of protecting the naval shipyard in Bremerton. 

I made it full circle back to my car and set course for Gorst. 

Wicks Lake via Gorst

This gull is here to enforce this policy
He can be bribed, I've heard. . .

Driving the Port Orchard waterfront, I know I saw a lot of Caspian Terns (170-180 of them). I know I've got that in my lists on eBird as species 118. But I know I had them on an earlier trip. Bookkeeping-wise, it comes out in the wash, but it's interesting to note that. . . sometimes I see birds and don't make an eBird list. A disconnected phone makes it impossible to upload sightings in real time. Although on this particular morning, I was keeping religious paper lists for later reference, it's not always the case! I try to put up as many meaningful lists as possible, but I also try to be reasonably gentle with myself on this point. 

I drove right past Port Orchard, arriving at Gorst. I zipped behind the Subaru dealer, parked, and briefly viewed birds from the Sinclair Inlet viewing area. From my car afterwards, I punched Wicks Lake into my car's GPS. 

It told me to go East. ???

Kitsap County - Left. 1 = Gorst. 2 = my guesstimated location of Wicks Lake 3 = Wicks Lake location
Right - my present schema for Kitsap County, which disincludes the lake completely.
Clearly, I have not gotten to Bainbridge this year either, lol

Brown Creeper 

I think this diagram captures it. I'm actually starting to understand Kitsap County, but this big area between Highway 3 (running from Port Orchard to Belfair) and Highway 16 was not part of my understanding at the time. I tried to make sense of it, and here's the best I could come up with: There's a bunch of lakes way out west from Port Orchard. There's a bunch of Mountain Quail sightings out west from Port Orchard. There's a lake with Mountain Quail sightings. Therefore it's way out west from Port Orchard. 

I'd not really explored this area at all, anyway, and the particular habitat (clear cuts, second growth, scrubby undergrowth) meant that some of the birds I'd not seen for the year (or *ever* in Kitsap County, for that matter) were kind of clustered in here. 

Mountain Quail were the birds that likely drew people here; Good birders chasing good birds, and finding other good birds along the way. I had seen that it was on the south end of the county as well, so even if I didn't hear any elusive Mountain Quail (they prefer morning and evening for their vocalizing), I might be there before the day got too warm, a factor that causes most birds to get a little quiet. 

I found the parking area, and saw a short trail to the lake, lined first with clear cuts, then with forest as the trail descended towards the lake. Barely out of my car, I heard Purple Martins (119) giving their hollow churp churping calls above the trees. Before I'd finished slinging my binoculars and camera over my shoulders, Vaux's Swifts (120) caught my attention as well. 

In addition to my camera, I had my phone. My previous cell phone (a beloved flip phone that lasted 5 years, which is 187 years in human years) bought the farm recently, and I'd replaced it with. . .wait on it. . . another flip phone! The entire logic behind this goes well beyond the scope of this blog, but I'm not unhappy with this. Except. . . this upgraded version has an audio-only recorder. I thought "certainly I can get audio files pulled off of the phone and uploaded on other platforms!" Nope. 

So, I'll tell you. Please imagine the most beautiful rolling songs of MacGillivray's Warblers (121), Peep! sounds from Hammond's Flycatchers (122) and a few different variations of song from Townsend's Warblers (123). Because imagining those sounds is all you're getting this time around. But for what it's worth, the unredacted version of this experience can be had in mid-May at Wicks Lake. All three of those birds were also new birds on my Kitsap life list, which was inching near 150. 

This was a fun little tromp through the woods! Apparently, getting Mountain Quail here requires not only better timing, but a longer walk along this trail. I'm sure I'll be back some year to hear them give their cool calls! The visit finished with one more new bird, a Sharp-shinned Hawk. It startled me at first to hear the high shrill calls, and then I saw the small accipiter flying from tree to tree. 124 for the year, and the 145th bird on my Kitsap life list. 

Potential spoilers, but this is a 99 percent accurate representation of my county 
totals as I type up this entry. Snipped from our favorite spreadsheet. 
Am I the only one that suffers through complete reentry every so often?

And this had been part of the plan. Someday I'd like to have seen 175 species in every county in the state. Most folks that chase this kind of goal approach it in a more efficient, logical way, visiting a lot of counties each year, picking up rare birds in easily accessible places if at all possible. There are a lot of sensible ways to go about it! I'm hoping to get them all to 175 but by picking them off one or two counties at a time in single years. Kitsap may only get to a little more than 150 this year, but I'd like to make many of those 150 birds new ones on my Kitsap life list. That list may be short of 175 at the end of the year, but I should be coming through Kitsap in future years when I could pick up some of those missing ones. 

And thank goodness, it's not going to be a Sharp-shinned Hawk I'm trying to find on one of those future trips. Those birds fall into the "everywhere and nowhere" category. You just have to bird a lot, keep an eye on treetops and feeders, and hope you come across them!

I encountered a single couple during the walk - great place to discover, and I hope to come back some day. 

A good bit of birding with George 

I'd sent an email to George, one of the more dedicated Kitsap County birders over the years, letting him know that I might try to drop in. Early May had seemed to be day after day of rare birds passing through "Red Tail Roost" where he lives with his wife - also an avid birder. I pulled into the driveway and found him at work in the yard. I clarified that I'd been prepared to do no more than a spin through the drive if he wasn't free, but he carved out nearly an hour to bird with me. 

Lorquin's Admiral on a lilac

The Roost sits on farmland on Peninsula no Peninsula. This is not the official name of the peninsula that holds Point no Point, but in the absence of a name, maybe it'll stick? A low point behind his place gets flooded seasonally and had picked up some good shorebirds over the years. At this time, the stars of the show were a pair of Pectoral Sandpipers. 

On the one hand, these are code 3 birds. Seen annually, so they're not extremely rare in that sense. But for reasons unbeknownst to me, they are rarely seen in the spring, and frequently seen in the fall. They're not the only birds that follow this kind of pattern. Western Kingbirds come to mind as birds that follow the opposite pattern - seen in the west half of our state in spring migration, but rarely in the fall. I don't actually know in *either* case how the birds complete the other half of their respective journeys. Maybe underground pneumatic tubes? Or more likely, paths that take them through a different part of the country. 

Regardless of the answers to these questions, I was fortunate to see the Pecs (125), looking so much like a pair of giant Least Sandpipers. I asked about Least Sandpipers as well - a very common shorebird that I'd actually never seen in the county. They'd been in that flooded field recently enough but were not there at that time. After a bit of exploring through spotting scopes, we packed up to do some birding at other spots. 

kingbird left and pipit right, if you squint

Just leaving his drive, we caught two species enjoying a little bit of mud - a Western Kingbird (126) and a pair of American Pipits (127). Good bit of luck on the Kingbird! They do come through in the spring but are on the tail end of that phenomenon by mid-May. From there, we made our way to another home down these private drives. George had heard a House Wren calling from this direction. Nothing came up for us, but the homeowner did pop out, giving neighbors a chance to meet, and to talk a little about birds. Cedar Waxwings (128) passed through the trees over the road - the first I'd seen for the year. 

Cedar Waxwing

Giving up on the wren, we made a quick run out to the West Kingston Wetlands. This spot, along Miller Bay Road, has been the site of my near-death four or five times already this year, but George has now, for better or worse, saved my life. I had always pulled my car as far as I could onto the shoulder, somehow finding a way to be neither completely in the ditch, nor at all in the road. But the traffic here still makes it so dicey - I'd just never stay for long. 

Apparently, one of the homeowners there is very supportive of birders and does allow them to pull into the upper portion of the driveway to scope the wetlands. And now I've seen which driveway, and where to park. I like this idea of not dying and enjoyed scoping the flooded fields with George. 

Our target bird was a Long-billed Dowitcher, *another* code 3 bird that had been hanging around in the area. As George looked for it in his scope, I scanned in binoculars and found another code 3 bird, Cinnamon Teal! (129), George turned his scope on the pair of Teals, and found another pair, Blue-winged! (130). This was becoming a crazy afternoon quite quickly, and then we did find the Long-billed Dowitcher (131), flanked by a pair of Solitary Sandpipers - yet another code 3 bird - but one that I'd seen already during the year. 

Falling action

This felt like a nice string of luck, and George needed to get back for dinner, so we got back onto the road (something that - driveway or no driveway is still dicey on this road) and returned to his place. The whole time, George shared stories of other birds, some that come through regularly, and others that had come through only rarely to the area. As I packed up my car to go, we got one more new species for the year at his place, a Western Wood-Pewee (132).

Six code 3 species for the day - the birds that are tough to find but do get recorded annually - and that's just the new ones to the list. Solitary Sandpiper and Common Raven were seen during my day as well. (To be fair, Common Raven is one of the easiest "code 3" birds to find in Kitsap. I don't think I've had a trip through the county in which I have not seen them, and usually at multiple stops.) My life list was now at 150 for the county.  

I sat at Point no Point, the crown jewel of Peninsula no Peninsula, and ate my road trip flautas from the cooler. I scanned the water, but not with much interest. I get that way when I've seen *too* many birds. If there was an eighth deadly sin, I'm sure it might involve seeing too many good birds in a day, right? 

A Mourning Dove crossed the road as I headed back to the highway that would take me to Jefferson County for my next day of birding. 133 for the year, and 151 on my life list. 

Denouement

Short Farm - the subject of a good few trips in the last month - finally showed me the Blue-winged Teals that it had been holding for weeks now. 155, but now for the other county, Jefferson. 

I made a rare decision to check in at a hotel - the Port Townsend Inn, which had given me a room back on my first trip of the year. 

I slept hard, boots ready for the next day. 

Late April, Early May - A Couple of Quick Passes

April 30th - Short's Farm

I don't generally chase birds. It's not part of the schtick. Birding isn't a quick adrenaline fix for me - hopping into a car and speeding off to see some rarity. Or in the case of this county birding business, it's not about hopping into the car and speeding off to see a couple of code 4 birds. 

But. . . I mean. . . six??

Blue-winged Teal, Cinnamon Teal, Western Kingbird, Sandhill Crane, Solitary Sandpiper, and Green Heron. 

And maybe. . . maaaybe, I'd pass if all of these birds were spread to the four corners of a county, required an extra-long drive/hike etc etc. But all six birds were sitting at one easy location - Short's Family Farm in Jefferson County. So, on April 30th, I bent my no-chase policy and made a run over. 

It's hard to wrap my brain around this day. I've got over three thousand eBird lists. An extremely modest number relative to many avid birders, but still - far too many for me to sort through to check this statement: This might be the most birds I've ever entered on a single checklist. I've had bigger days, including some 100 species days in counties, but never something quite like this in one location. 64 species.

Going in with a year list of 137, I figured some of these rarities, migrants, and new arrivals would give me a little bump towards 200.   

Time has passed since this trip, so I thought I'd break form, and just list the 64 species, and talk about them this way instead of the normal chronology. There are lots of ways to tell a story, right? 

1. Cackling Goose (Code 3) 
2. Canada Goose. Center Road runs North/South. There's a little road that runs down from Center Road, passing over a little bridge, and across to the far side of the fields. I'm just going to call this "The Main Road" for ease. These geese were on the North side of the main road, together at first, but later splitting up, with the Cacklers heading off to the little pond on the west end of the Main Road. Most of the area is plain-old flooded fields, but this pond seems to be more of a permanent feature. 

   

   "Main Road Pond"

   
   
3. Wood Duck. The other entrance, South of the one mentioned above, with a little room to park near a gate, allows views of the South end of the fields, with an option to walk along the East border to the South end of the property. This is where I found a single of this species. 
4. Cinnamon Teal. (Code 4, bird 138 for the year) Main Road, east end, south of the road. A breeding plumage male. It was alongside some Mallards and Northern Pintails. I'm often on the lookout for blue bills as I look for teal, and the female pintails often cause me to double-take! Of note. . . I missed Blue-winged Teal, despite them being seen that very day. Oof, but. .  that's part of why we enjoy this whole thing. It requires persistence, planning, connections with people to find out about birds. . .They were down at "The Quarry Pond" - water viewed from a north-south road that intersects the main road. I'll call it the Quarry Road. 
   
   
   
5. Northern Shoveler. 40 or so of them. This is why they're tough in places like Skamania at this time of year. They're all at this farm. 
6. Gadwall. 3 of them. Not a bird that I take for granted in this county. All seen along the Main Road. 
7. American Wigeon. Still a good few hanging around. A Eurasian had also been seen, but I didn't notice one, and didn't look too hard for it. Part of the dirty habits of year listing. I stop paying attention to birds if they're already on the list. I need to remedy that, honestly. 
8. Mallards
9. Northern Pintails - both noted above. 
10. Green-winged Teals. Far north end. Scoped. Yes, I have an actual tripod now, so it's not just propping the scope up on my car window!
11. Ring-necked Duck. Most on the northwest Main Road pond mentioned above, along with some. . .
12. Hooded Mergansers.
13. Eurasian Collared-Dove. Strangely, no Mourning Doves (a species I found on a subsequent trip here in large numbers. At the barn at the intersection of Main Road and Quarry Road. This is now the Quarry Barn.
    
    
    
14. Virginia Rail
15. Sora (Code 3). Rails and Soras were so vocal throughout the day. A couple other birders were in this space, and one got some great photos of some Soras. At least 4 of these. 
16. American Coot. A single at the northwest Main Road Pond.
17. Killdeer. lol
18. Wilson's Snipe. Actually on the edges of the flooded fields by the Quarry Barn. I got to hear them winnowing, and even recorded it. . . on my now-defunct flip phone. It bit the silicon dust after this trip, sadly. I had been excited to upload the sounds, which I rarely get to hear. 
19. Solitary Sandpiper (Code 4, bird 139). Quarry Barn flooded fields. This little fella (maybe?) was tucked in along the fence line, and it took a good bit of time just watching it to get all of the field marks needed. Nice comparisons to Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, which, let's be honest, were also fortunately giving nice comparisons to each other! 
20. Lesser Yellowlegs (bird 140) 
21. Greater Yellowlegs
22. Dunlin. Gorgeous! North of the Main Road with some Least and Western Sandpipers, sporting black bellies in breeding plumage. 
23. Least Sandpipers (141). Over 100 of them in multiple flocks across the extent of the farm. 
24. Western Sandpipers (142) Along the Main Road. All visual, so "Seen-only", which is an expression you don't see much on checklists! I'd rather hear their strained call for comparisons to Least Sandpipers. My ears are much better than my eyes in this case!
25. Great Blue Heron - a few scattered around the fields
26. Bald Eagle. Somehow the only raptor that I found on a day with 64 species at a farm field. Crazy.
27. Belted Kingfisher - at the northwest Main Road Pond.
28. Red-breasted Sapsucker. This - not Flicker? - as the only woodpecker?
29. Western Flycatcher. (143) - from the South Entrance, calling from across Center Road
30. Western Kingbird. (Code 4, 144)  Apparently it had been seen from the Quarry Road before, but I found one on the west end of the Main Road.
    
    
    
31. Hutton's Vireo - Calling from the bit of woods at the end of the Main Road. Main Road Forest, I suppose.
32. Steller's Jay. Distant calls.
33. Common Raven. Flyover.
34. Black-capped Chickadee. South Entrance walk.
35. Tree Swallow. A few mixed in.
36. Violet-green Swallow. So many.
37. Northern Rough-winged Swallow. Heard and seen, but. . . folks, I have to share. On one of these trips, I found myself in the Silverdale Buffalo Wild Wings at the end of the day. Someone went to clean the table next to me, pulling out a spray bottle of cleaning solution. Squirt squirt squirt squirt squirt. My brain exploded as I realized that this is the sound that these Swallows are almost certainly imitating. I am going to admit, I just spent 15 minutes trying to find this sound online, and I just couldn't find it in that time. Dear Reader, I just spent 15 minutes negotiating... so many ASMR spray bottle videos. And for nothing. But look: just go to Silverdale, and the sound is there. Most spray bottles just give that spritzy sound, but others are 100 percent the sound of a Northern Rough-winged Swallow.
38. Barn Swallow (many)
39. Cliff Swallow (bird 145 for the year, giving nice views of the orange rump patch)
40. Bushtit. Heard on the south entrance walk.
41. Red-breasted Nuthatch. South entrance walk.
42. House Wren: Both at the South entrance walk and in the Main Road Forest. The latter was persistent and loud!
43. Marsh Wren. I can't remember not hearing them.
44. European Starling. Most notably at the South entrance walk
45. American Robin. Yep.
46. American Pipit: (146) Distantly seen on fields at the South entrance walk. Undistantly seen on the flooded fields by the Quarry Barn.
47. House Finch. Reliable in the brambles at the start of the Main Road.
48. Purple Finch. Singing in the Main Road Forest.
49. Pine Siskin: Main Road Forest
50. American Goldfinch: Main Road Forest (finchy place!)
51. Dark-eyed Junco: Brambles at the west end of Main Road, also on the South Entrance walk. 
52. White-crowned Sparrow. lol
53. Golden-crowned Sparrow. Brambles at the west end of Main Road. This was a very sparrowy spot, including Spotted Towhee, Song and Lincoln's Sparrows as well. 
54. Savannah Sparrow. Densest along Quarry Road. Out in the road pecking at the ground. 

    

    Savannah Sparrow - One that happened to come in close and sit still.
    90 percent of my photos are not this sharp, and I've rightfully been asked before
    "Did you take the photo from space?" :D
    Still surprised to see a 1-star rating for the photo on eBird
    
    "1 Star: Very poor quality. Very low resolution or very poor focus; bird may be very small or obscured in the frame or have extremely bad exposure. In general, should only be uploaded as record shots, if still identifiable"
    
    If you use eBird, take some time to read through the ratings descriptions! 
    Good opportunities to contribute to the citizen science end of things from your armchair. 

    
    
55. Song Sparrow.
56. Lincoln's Sparrow. Code 3.
57. Spotted Towhee.
58. Red-winged Blackbird. Many
59. Brown-headed Cowbird. (147) Quarry Barn flooded fields. Nice views on the ground. This area also had a ton of Yellow-rumped Warblers on the ground and in the trees. I don't have the data on how many of them it takes to make a ton, but. . . yep.
60. Brewer's Blackbird. Quarry Barn flooded fields.
61. Orange-crowned Warbler. South entrance walk and Main Road Forest - also Wilson's in these areas.
62. Common Yellowthroat. Main Road
63. Yellow-rumped Warbler. Including some Myrtle.
    
    
    
64.  Wilson's Warbler (148) 

May 4th - Mason??, Jefferson, Kitsap

My friend Kevin was free to bird in the morning, and we used it to hunt down some birds in Mason and Jefferson Counties. 

Nipplewort - one of about a dozen 
different native plants that 
distracted us over the course of 
the morning. 

Mason county had been the first subject of a single county blog for me. Kevin had joined me on one trip during that year, and in the ten or so years that followed, he added some birds in bits and spurts, putting his life list at 71. Jefferson was one of his lower county totals on the west side of the state, at 50. Jefferson, I figure, is a bit more of a drive from. . . well from nearly anywhere, unless you're actually ON the peninsula! And a lot of birders, once on the Olympic Peninsula, find it hard to resist the siren song of Clallam County (which almost always seems to have a few rare birds mucking around). 

So, we met at Kennedy Creek and got started. Following my usual form, once I was birding with someone else, I kind of forgot that I had a camera, and just talked and birded, birded and talked. This naturally led to a moment when I realized that this forgetting had extended to actually leaving it at Kennedy Creek, somewhere on the ground, as we drove around to some other nearby stops. Long story short - there's not going to be many pics in this segment!

I'd looked over Kevin's lists earlier in the week, and ebirded the heck out of his needs lists, coming up with a few stops to knock out as many birds as possible. After birding the estuary and the road that runs south from it (and dead ends after a couple feet in Grays Harbor County), we headed to George Adams Fish Hatchery to get an American Dipper, ultimately running him up to 90 species for The Mason before we headed into Jefferson. 

In Jefferson, we made our first stop at Dosewallips State Park. I'd been here in April and picked up a lot of new year birds but was definitely expecting a few more. 

As the map shows, we spent our time on the canal side of the highway, rather than in the campground area. There were swallows (Northern Rough-winged, Barn, Violet-green, and Cliff) and warblers (Orange-crowned and Wilson's, as well as Common Yellowthroat) aplenty. 

Three birds added to my year list - Western Tanager (149), Warbling Vireo (150), and White-winged Scoter (151). The latter were a nice surprise! Not rare birds, but ones that I thought I might not see until the fall. 

A couple of photos courtesy of Kevin: 

"I am Northern Rough-winged Swallow
I am a motivational speaker
I am 35 years old
I live on a steady diet of government cheese, and I live...
on a plant...
down by the river!!

 

Rufous Hummingbird with extra sprinkles

From there, we hit Spencer Creek Road, a spot I have really come to enjoy, even when there aren't a lot of the birds I imagine could be there (still waiting for bluebirds and solitaires!). On a clear day, the views are stunning, both of the Cascades, and of Hood Canal. The new bird on this stop was MacGillivray's Warbler (152 for the year). This is one that surprises me at a code 3, as I think I have been able to find them in previous years just looking around in expected habitat. Regardless, it was nice to hear their fun songs on the hillsides above Hood Canal. 

Band-tailed Pigeon - Spencer Creek Road

And then it was off to Short Farm. Kevin had limited time for the morning, so we did a focused run along the Main Road. I looked for the Blue-winged Teal again on the Quarry Road Pond, while Kevin made a quick run up to the Main Road Forest to get the House Wren that has been hanging around there. I added Black-headed Grosbeak (153) but dipped on other birds. Kevin had started the day with 50 species in Jefferson and had finished with 96! I still wonder what we might have done with a full day, but it was still nice to get a good morning of birding in with him. 

I made a quick stop at Shine Tidelands (Yellow Warbler - 154), and then drove directly to Silverdale to hit the Clear Creek Trail network. 

I was pretty happy with the first little loop. Especially with how I didn't get lost. I went out. I came back. The stretch shown in blue on the map begins in some open habitat (including a marshy area, where I picked up Wood Ducks - bird 105 for my Kitsap year. The goal for Kitsap for the year is 150 birds, so this is a pretty good start!

American Goldfinches (106), Pine Siskins, and Purple Finches dominated the first part of the walk. Golden- and White-crowned Sparrows were next up before the trail ducked into deeper cover. 

I'll admit. . . it was pretty loud. The traffic noise from 303 (Waaga Way) was persistent and problematic. I tried to compare it, in my head, to traffic noise at Renton Park, near my home. But it was just worse. I tried to enjoy this walk, where there have been a lot of species seen and heard over the years. But for someone that really enjoys hearing birds every bit as much as seeing them, it wasn't my favorite birding walk. 

Trillium

Orange-crowned and Yellow-rumped Warblers were pretty common, and I also picked up my first Western Flycatchers (107) and Black-throated Gray (108) and Wilson's Warblers (109). I returned to Silverdale Way and started on a walk to the other side. 

I don't have an app on the ol' flip phone that officially tells me where I've been, but those lines are 100 percent accurate. Along the way, I caught more swallows, including my first Cliff Swallows for the year (110). Rufous Hummingbirds (111) were seen and heard at a few points along the way as well. The trail ducked into some covered bits, and I got very close (and brief) views of Black-headed Grosbeak (112), Yellow Warbler (113), and Warbling Vireo (114).

It hadn't really sunk in that the traffic noise was now from Highway 3. I got kind of a continuum of it. And at one point, in my head, the only thing I did was stop, and return in the direction I had come. But then things didn't look familiar, and then I was no longer on the trails. 

Indian Plum

And then I stopped a pedestrian on one of the streets, just to confirm that I was going in the exact right direction to get back to my car. Hooboy. Good thing I asked! I returned down trails that I also had not been on, eventually returning to areas that *did* look familiar. 

And to the car. Ten species to the positive! This despite a pretty noise-polluted environment. The habitat is great, and the birds are there! 

And despite all of this. . . I sit here on the 13th of May, staring at 42 species on my Year Needs Alerts on eBird, and 54 of them in Kitsap. To be fair, some of those birds just aren't options. Some in Jefferson came from a repositioning cruise (including numerous birds that'd be life birds for this pelagic-less guy), and many of the Kitsap ones are behind the various gates (permits, private property, personal connections) that regularly keep most birders from accessing them. But still, it's funny to see that these are basically numbers that could all but finish my year goals! 

But, it has to wait! The other Needs Alerts in my life will keep me in Renton most days. Needs like "You need to spend a little less on gas this month" and "You need to get her to late start at school". The latter is an anchor that lightens my heart every day, and that bird is leaving the nest soon.