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.