October 6th - Mission Accomplished

150 Year List in Kitsap

I figured I should open with a clear specific statement of what mission was accomplished. There are several missions going on at once! So, one of the basic, basic goals for this year has been to see 150 species in Jefferson County, and in Kitsap County. In that regard, I'm "done" with both (spoiler, sorry!). The meat of this post will be stepping through this day and the birds that were seen. But the title of the post implies that I'm at the end of this little project, which is hardly the case. 

So, I thought I'd come back to the goals for the year, and then thought. . . let's even step back to look at the bigger picture. 

My larger goals for birding in the state: 

See 175 bird species in all 39 counties in the state. (11 counties have hit this mark - King, Douglas, Chelan, Klickitat, Yakima, Snohomish, Pierce, Mason, Jefferson, Lewis, and Kittitas.)

For each county in the state, have at least one year where I've seen 150 species. (18 counties down - all 11 above, plus Island, Thurston, Cowlitz, Clark, Skamania, Wahkiakum, and now Kitsap).

Completed "Big Years", including a reveal of next year's plan,
and a decade or more of decisions to make. 

Try to honestly see as many birds as possible in the county "Big Years", ultimately reflected in an average for those years. 

The bottom half of the list, at any rate!
This'll make sure I'm trying to see 
as much of each county in the future 
as I possibly can

It's been interesting to combine these goals. For some of the tougher counties, 150 in a year is the result of careful planning, focus, and sometimes things like backpacking or boating. For others, 150 is almost trivial, and the final goal is there to push me to explore a place honestly. 

Last year, doing four counties at once was a great way to tackle the second goal, especially in the face of my finite life span! I realized I had to kind of get moving on these, or my expiration date would win the race. But to some extent, it hurt the other goals - I don't know that I did a full exploration of those counties, and none of the four have reached the magical 175 mark. So, dropping it to two counties this year (and by design in future years), I thought maybe I could reach that balance between deep exploring and efficiency. 

Jefferson County is sitting at 190 species for the year. I've birded the bejeezus out of it. I have been sitting down and looking at the birds that might be part of a ten-more-birds effort, and just keep scratching my head. I thought at the start of the year that I'd end up at 19x, where x > 5. I'll stand by that. But going gung ho there does not presently seem like it'll be enough. So the attention turned to Kitsap.

Birding Kitsap County a little less was partly intentional. It's smaller than Jefferson, of course. Add to that - some of the most productive birding spots are not accessible to the public. I could try to find as many species as *I* could for a year in Kitsap, but there's that weird gap between that number and the number of species *actually* seen by a handful of birders in Kitsap each year. Those kinds of numbers are ultimately under private ownership.

As the year wraps up, I still thought there would be some merit in letting the 175 goal guide the rest of the year. It's not out of reach, and if I fall a few species short, it's never a distant trip to chase those few birds in the future. 

Those goals in mind, I emailed George. 

A Morning on Peninsula no Peninsula

Some of the easier birds for me to target are going to be owls. The nights are getting longer, and owls don't really depart the area en masse, as scoters do every summer, or swallows ever winter. George had been hearing Great Horned and Barred in his yard during the week, so I made an early run. Leaving home at 4:15 and arriving at his place about two hours later. 

It being October, I stopped about half-way up his drive and tried calling for Northern Saw-whet Owl. On my way up, I stopped again, figuring I'd listen for a bit and look for signs of stirring up at the house. They came in the form of a flashlight and a hello shortly after! 

I'll admit, any time that owls are convinced enough with my calls, I'm flattered. I was equally flattered when George told me he'd just had Northern Saw-whet Owl! I am now going to confess that I have been working on my whistle for this species for 17 years. 

Back in '07, I joined a Soos Creek owl prowl in King County. Just a few years into birding, I was pretty excited to learn that I could find owls so close to home. The evening started with local experts telling us a bit about the habitat and the owls. I can't remember all of it but have no doubts that we had a chance to see owl pellets and/or feathers in the presentation room. Then we set out to find some owls. The group leaders had tapes of calls. They played them at thoughtful intervals/location/duration/etc, and then we'd stop and listen. Then off to the next stop. 

That night, I got to hear a Great Horned Owl, and we even got a good look at a Western Screech-Owl just a foot or two off of our path (to this day, my only visual of this species). As they occasionally tried for Northern Saw-whet Owls, I got the call note in my head. At one point walking between spots, I tried to softly whistle the note to myself.

One of the trip leaders quickly held his hand up. The group paused and looked at him in anticipation. He pointed through me to the trees behind me. 

And folks, there was probably a brief moment in there where I could have said "OH! My bad, that was just me." Maybe I was leaving a chance that he'd heard something else. Maybe I was just too sheepish to mea my culpa in that moment. At least 1% of it was seeing the nearly military hand signals, and wanting to see how this would play out. In any event, this is my first fully public apology to the participants on the February Soos Creek Owl prowl in '07. I honestly didn't know at the time that I had a knack for it!

Up at George's place, I more quickly resolved things, and good laughs were had. I did some calling. I did some sitting and listening. At times, early on, I thought I was picking up distant Barred Owl calls, but didn't want to follow up on them with return calls. I am still wrapping my brain around call-and-response patterns with owls. Does this owl respond to the call of that owl? Does it quiet down after hearing that call? Do they need to hear it for a long time, or is less better? I want to know in part to have better chances at finding owls. I want to know also to keep calling to a minimum. 

The time ended with no clearly calling owls, and we packed up the car to try for one more. 

Japanese Anemone - a sentimental flower for me

Point no Point

I've been trying to figure out how to couch this. I think. . . I'd mostly just birded with George in places where we weren't walking more than a hundred feet or so. This morning, all morning, there was some serious walking going on. And George walks at a pace about 1.78 times faster than my comfortable walking pace. In short, he kicked my arse over every inch of the peninsula all morning. 

Rather than head to Hansville and walk the beach, he parked us at this upper back parking lot. I instantly recognized it as one of the places I've accidentally ended up over the course of the year. I called out to George to point this out, and he was already booking it down the path. "The tide waits for no man!" He called. 

My eyes went wide, and I honestly tried for a bit to keep up. At this point, I figured there was a tide to reckon with, and that lolligagging (or not racewalking) would make this a fruitless attempt to find the Barn Owl in "that hole". My lungs, my feet, my. . . sweat glands. . . they could all handle a brief dash. This took us down the reverse of this path I'd followed in April. Just. . .rather than a long slow stroll up and down the stairs and along the path, it was at 1.78*vmax. 

Nest cavity in the cliffs

George let me know there were 90 steps, and which part was steepest, and it was fun to think of how many times he must have been up and down those stairs. Give his life list in the county (the next one he finds is #300), it's clearly not the first time he's dashed up or down those stairs!

Down the stairs, down the beach, and we got to a spot where we could see the hole in question along the side of a cliff, just ahead of the rising tide. 

So. . . Barn Owls don't have to live in barns. I knew this but allowed my brain a minute to disconnect and reconnect a few neurons. Doing it in the presence of habitat and nests is a powerful thing. Again, no owls this morning, but it was neat to get to the spot, and to reimagine these owls!

Rick-rolled on the beach. . .

Up the beach, we looked for Red-throated Loons on the water, and Lapland Longspurs on the beach. Instead, we got Red-necked Grebes on the water, and American Pipits on the beach. I also had looks at some Heermann's Gulls aggressively pursuing Bonaparte's Gulls, doing a dance that had me thinking that the darker Heermann's Gulls were jaegers. Nope! They just do that too. 

Surf Scoters and Red-necked Grebes

Returning along the marsh, rather than the beach, we picked up some Virginia Rails and Marsh Wrens and tried to pull up some Lincoln's Sparrows to no avail. It was probably on the way *back* to the car, when George walked out of sight down the path, that George was much like the tide when he was out birding!

Chokecherries? Bitter Cherry? Food for the waxwings, anyway

Back to the Roost

At George's place, we could see that two other targets had returned - Greater White-fronted Geese (147 for the year) and Cackling Geese (148). A stroll around the property allowed us to get a good angle for pictures. 

From here, our search began for Lincoln's Sparrows. At some point, we got separated, and I got on a call note that I thought sounded good for Lincoln's. There a few aggressive-ish sparrow calls that are probably worth lumping together, musically: Dark-eyed Junco, Fox Sparrow, and Lincoln's Sparrow. Two facts about these calls: They are very similar to each other, but they *are* different. Actually, maybe as a third "fact", subjective as it is - no other common local sparrows make calls that are quite so similar to any of the birds in this group. 

Sharp-shinned Hawk

I followed this bird around for a bit and got a recording. I could hear one or two similar calls from the road behind me, but I really hoped to get a picture. These are gorgeous sparrows, but they're just so skulky - it's almost fair to say it's one of their field marks! Also, the calls are to me distinct, but I know that they're close enough for a lot of people that it'd be nice to have some visual details to add. 

I finally got to see the bird in flight, as it went from cover in one bush to cover in another. It was too lightly colored to be a Fox Sparrow, and it lacked the darker contrasting head found on a junco. Brief as it was, this bird told me what it wasn't in flight (in addition to the calls that had told me what three birds it might be). 148. 

I relocated George who was now making some efforts to find a Red-breasted Sapsucker, another common bird I'd been missing. 

"Find anything?"

"I think I had a Lincoln's Sparrow."

"You *think* you did?" George chuckled. 

"Yeah, there were . . . maybe 3 or 4 of them calling back there."

"The most I've *ever* had here was two or three. Maybe you've got better ears than me, but. . . "

And this was kind of the running conversation of the morning. :D

I'm sticking with this bird. It sounded enough like a Lincoln's Sparrow to get and hold my attention. It acted like a Lincoln's Sparrow, and when seen, brief as it was, it ruled out the only important confusion species. All of this in a spot where they'd been seen the day before, at a time of year when they are passing through a lot of areas. Still a BVD (better view desired) bird, but an easy count.

Back to the birds

George and I tried for Red-breasted Sapsucker. This one was again, heard-only, but distinct enough for it to be George-approved. 150 for the year! Then we returned to the driveway and adjacent fields, trying for Lincoln's Sparrows. No visuals were had. I heard some distant Lincoln's calls, but nothing close-in that repeatedly sounded good. A Fox Sparrow had my interest for a call or two, but quickly showed itself, as they do. 

From here, it was off to Foulweather Bluff. There was one quick stop at the end of Twin Spits Road - a spot I've been to a few times, with nothing too interesting showing up. And then George stopped at this wooded, unmarked turnoff and told me to boot up. 

I trusted him but was pretty suspicious putting on my mudders and stepping into a typical PNW forest. He zipped off down the trail, pausing once when we heard the massive "THOK THOK THOK" of a Pileated Woodpecker. The occasional side trail drifted off to our left. Up the trail in front of me, but still in sight, he caught my eye to make sure I saw him taking it, then went out of sight. I kept up as fast as I could without breaking into a jog, took the trail, and found that it led to a little opening to a peekaboo view of a marsh. 

Scopes came out, and we looked at every log and all the shoreline for a Spotted Sandpiper. None showed up, but I did find a Cooper's Hawk (151), swooping in acrobatically at something, and then perching on a log. "There's your 150!" George smiled, as he packed up the scope and walked off to the next stop on the trail. 

Cooper's Hawk on a distant perch

I like long walks on the beach

I had not a clue that this path came out here. This was, for all intents and purposes, Narnia for me. All these sightings from "Nature Conservancy, Foulweather Bluff," made no sense to me until I got to see this spot. The forest opened up to a long beach, which we walked towards a little marsh. 

The comma was added to this sign recently.
Your clamming dog remains unwelcome here

Along the way, we stopped to talk about the mountains visible in the Olympics on the horizon. I also came across a tiny little transparent bloop on the sand that seemed to have the texture of a jellyfish. "Do we have jellyfish in the water here?" Regardless of the answer to my question about that little bloop, I quickly got my answer. 

This is a Lion's Mane jellyfish. It's the biggest jellyfish I have seen. Then ten feet later, it fell into second place. 

Also a Lion's Mane - the color changes with age

Apparently, in the fall, these little suckers wash up on local shores. Most of them don't, of course, and some of them can grow up to 7 feet in diameter with tentacles over 100 feet long. This information. . .I'm still wrestling with this information. I'm looking at the room I'm in as I type this, and I'm trying to handle the fact that this thing would take up most of the room. Give me time to process this. 

George disappearing from view faster than a Lincoln's Sparrow

I loved this little spot - it became very clear why all of the shorebird sightings had rolled in from here during the fall. Too late now! But if I miss 175 this year for my Kitsap life list, it seems like a well-timed visit to this little marsh could rectify that. 

Back on the trail, we got back to the cars, and George's lead was growing. I was having a laugh about my slowness as I exited the trail. "Found your second wind?" George asked. "No. . . " I laughed. I was frantically trying to get my feet out of my shoes, and he started up the road (!!!). I finally got into my other shoes, and saw him pull off the road ahead, waiting until I was on the road before continuing. 

Driftwood Key

Off to a spot I've hit twice this year - hoping especially for a Spotted Sandpiper. As we moved to looking for other birds, George called out, "Lincoln's Sparrow!"

I'd gone up to the scope spot with my scope. . . not my binoculars, and not my camera. But this bird, this *Lincoln's Sparrow* mind you, cooperated. I eventually got the scope on it, perched on a post. And it just kind of sat there and posed for us. "Now you can count your Lincoln's Sparrow."

At some point it really sunk in that this particular sparrow had some kind of exhibitionist streak. Upon discussion, I jogged back to the car to get my camera, came back and snapped some pictures. 37 of them focused on the objects behind the bird, and finally one clear one. 

Lincoln's Sparrow - seen only

"That was the most cooperative Lincoln's Sparrow. . . "

George started this, and I thought "in history," to finish the sentence. But George has birded a bit more than me. I was prepared for ". . . that I've seen in a long time," but. . . 

". . .in history."

Agreed.

The rest

George and I did try Point Julia, finding nothing really new, but enjoying some more Common Loons in both breeding and alternate plumage. He encouraged me to try Port Gamble for Spotted Sandpiper and Red-throated Loon. I had some lunch at the Port Gamble Cafe and grabbed a mug. 

From the overlook into Hood Canal, I did find one of my targets, a lightly colored Red-throated Loon - its slight bill turned slightly upwards in view of a few Common Loons. 152!

And I took a nap in my car. I'd been up so early and had been booking it around at every stop. I was just weary at this point, and possibly picking up the hints of a cold. I did dip into Jefferson. There were no breadcrumbs to follow for new birds, so it was kind of a lazy look through some of the farmland roads (Beaver Valley, Center Road, West Valley Road). I had plans to stay with a friend I haven't seen in decades. . . but the hints of a cold, my exhaustion, and the thin prospects led me to simply head back home.