My Cup Runneth Over
I woke up at the Port Townsend Inn. I had 191 birds in my pocket for the year, after picking up a Snow Goose on the way into town. Now I was looking for just a few specific birds before wrapping up my trip. But first, I was looking for breakfast.
The Cup is a cafe on the south end of town that I've passed many-a-time on the way in and out of Port Townsend. How interesting it's been, getting to see a fair number of different diners, bars, and cafes over the course of the year - each of them had a slightly different vibe, slightly different clientele. You see it in the cars parked out front, in the chatter inside, in the signs and decor on the doors and bathroom walls.
It's not unlike birding, in a way. You land in any habitat type, and you see and hear different species - the birds that are best suited to a place. The birds that can interact with each other in some kind of balance. The birds that can find what they need.
One of my favorite ways to experience a habitat, to let it hit me with the sense-of-place that I cherish so much, is through the morning chorus. You head to a place in dark twilight and listen to robins, joined by sparrows, joined by warblers and grosbeaks. There have been times where the habitat is just amazing, and *many* birds can find a home in a small space. In those places, (such as
Eagle Creek Road in Chelan - one of many such places), the morning chorus can be simply overwhelming.
The Cup overwhelmed me with its morning chorus.
I walked past a big truck with a Trump sticker on the way in, seated myself, and spotted the likely owners in the far corner - five men at a table fueling up on eggs and coffee for an honest day's work.
Two other older couples were seated at different parts of the restaurant, deeply engaged in conversations and hardly seeing me walk in. The waitress spun past my table, bringing me water and a menu.
A young mother walked in with her two children. From her dress and her melanin, I gathered that she was a Native American woman. She sat fairly close and it was easy to pick up bits and pieces of conversation from their table over the course of the morning. The waitress swung by and poured water into cups, nearly to full. "You know, you can fill a glass above the top, and it makes a little cap on top. You can do that with drops of water on a penny." I smiled as she dove into surface tension with her kids - at a level perfectly suited to their ages.
A young couple entered - both of them fairly stunning. One of the young men at the table of four lifted his head and. . . I mean, his eye went a little wide for a second. :D But he caught himself and returned his attention back to his friends and to his cup of coffee.
The waitress continued to whirl effortlessly around the cafe, filling coffee cups, taking orders (including mine for a Denver omelet. I swear I could measure the progress of my life in Denver omelets and BLTs).
A couple older gentlemen sat at a table, pulling several more together. They ordered and warned the waitress, "There are more coming!" One more man joined them just minutes later, and the conversation turned to encouragement. A little farther away, I could still hear talk of legal troubles, of upcoming hardships.
"... and the water keeps it from getting really hot or really cold..."
a burst of laughter from the far end of the cafe
another man to the table, and another,
"it's going to be okay. No, it's going to be okay"
more whirling around the restaurant, the waitress filling cups
a man enters and sits two tables away, settling in with his guitar and starts strumming it
a black man about my age enters and starts scribbling notes in a small journal
and I start to tear up.
Apologies, I usually post something like "Primitive Blog, no warning signs," in advance of these kind of unexpected moments. I could not tell you exactly what hit me at the time. I've had different ideas at different times. Certainly, in the week before the election, I had some anxiety. *Many* people had some anxiety in advance of the election. Not like a constant state of anxiety, but it was there under the surface now and then. Explaining moments like that may actually be sinful, or may run one afoul of local ordinances, but it didn't stop me from being curious.
I think presently (nearly two months later), as I type this, I don't mind the morning chorus explanation. There were a lot of "species" singing their songs here, in a place where they were able to interact in balance and find what they needed to get by. If biodiversity leads to stability in ecosystems, surely the people in this cafe were a spiritual anthro-geo-econo-political sign that things were going to be okay. No... they're going to be okay.
The Denver omelet was pretty good too.
Birds!
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It took me many years to stop staring at the slightly-lighter throat on
a Golden-crowned Sparrow, trying to turn it into something else |
Sorry! This is what you came for. I packed things up back at the hotel and made my way to 35th Street in Port Townsend in hopes of following up on a White-throated Sparrow sighting.
In winter, we get White-throated Sparrows. We don't get a lot of them, but it's always worth sifting through any pile of White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows in hopes of finding one. One had been found multiple times on this particular road, so I thought I'd give it a little chase and see what I could find. On the north side of 35th, near the terminus of the road, was the Puget Sound Eco-village - an intentional community of sorts. One of the houses in the village was right along the road and sported a few well-stocked feeders.
I sat for a bit, watching some Golden-crowned and Song Sparrows, along with Spotted Towhees. I pished now and then but soon realized that I hardly needed to - the birds rotated through the lawn, occasionally perching on feeders or on the hedgerows or fences. I had a belief that this was my sparrow pile, and that I just needed to be patient to catch the White-throated Sparrow coming through. Who would pass on a free lunch, right?
A car came down the road at a pretty good clip, parking at the very end of the road. A man quickly got out and started producing binoculars, camera - clearly a birder!
I started in his direction as he followed a path past the end of the road - a bit of trail that continued off along fence lines and under trees for miles, if one wanted to follow it so far. He instead made his way directly to the fence. I arrived and introduced myself, finding that he was another local Jefferson County birder - one whose name I recognized from many ebird reports and many good birds.
We chatted for a little bit and looked at some of the sparrows that perched on blackberry brambles tangled up with the fence. "Let me try this again," he pulled up his phone and played a mob tape. These are audio recordings of songbirds, usually ones responding to an owl or raptor of some kind. Lots of agitation and harsh calls that can be used to draw in other bird species when played. I've never been a big fan of these, simply because I like to bird by ear - lord, even if there aren't any birds singing, the quiet or the breeze are an improvement over listening to the chatter! And the tape itself was three or four minutes long (am I misremembering? was it six??). It was long. But hey, people have found some good birds with the tapes, so I stuck it out!
We watched as birds responded, including an Anna's Hummingbird that looked like it was trying to find the power button on the phone. No luck. "Let's try a different spot," my birding companion for the morning decided. Seemed sound to me!
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| Bewick's wren |
We walked about thirty feet away from the original spot, and I tried some pishing. He placed the phone in a new spot and started playing the tape again.
I continued to stick it out. I knew that this was not uncommon practice - just a practice I'd not been able to employ with my flip phone. We watched as many of the exact same birds popped up. It may have been the same Anna's Hummingbird circling it, looking for the same power button. No luck.
He pushed the button to get the mob tape to play again.
"Hey, um... I'm going to go look over here!" I gestured off to the other side of the small field. "I'll let you know if I find anything!" He agreed to do the same, and I fled the chatter as directly as I could. As I got some distance, I started to relax again, as I could now hear the birds of the morning over the chatter that was receding in the distance.
I had a *lovely* stroll of the neighborhood, including a walk past the Rosewind Common House, yet another community arrangement in this little three block radius. I added some more species for the morning, but no White-throated Sparrow. I made my way back towards my car, and tried a longer look at the feeders I'd been looking at before.
While I was looking, a gentleman on a walk towards the trail stopped and chatted with me for a bit. Gary was a neighborhood resident who was able to tell me all about the intentional communities, the various trail connections, and even about the upcoming Christmas Bird Count (as the person who had previously organized it!). It was a lovely talk, but I eventually figured I should give up on this particular chase and head off to find some other birds.
We said our goodbyes, and I got my car turned around. Windows down, I slowly crawled out of the neighborhood, listening for any interesting sparrow songs in the mix. Then my phone did one of the few things it does - it rang. I took the call, one about work, and at one point interrupted, "Hey Chris, I have to let you go. I have a White-throated Sparrow." The person knew me just well enough, and knew enough about these trips, to have a good laugh.
I pulled down the side road where I'd heard the song, gave a pish, and found the bird in binoculars.
It perched and then ducked away. 192 for the year!
Folks, I could have pished this bird back up for photos, but my sense was that the birds on this block had likely gotten their fill of interruptions to their routine. I honestly think that people using playback, mob tapes, pishing, etc., are usually doing it with good methods and good intentions. But the joy of having the picture would have been reduced by . . . I don't know, a vague feeling of Having Been Intrusive. I'm not defending the feeling scientifically, but I was at a point where I needed to be actuarial with my joy for the morning.
Satisfied, I drove through the cool Port Townsend morning to a spot right next to the hotel where I'd stayed.
Kah Tai Lagoon
I had in all likelihood gotten pictures of an Eared Grebe here back in October. There was an Eared Grebe seen... nearly every day before my arrival, and nearly every day after - this for a period of weeks. The only confusion species would have been Horned Grebe - a species rarely seen at Kah Tai Lagoon, and not seen at all in the weeks before or after my visit.
Unfortunately, my usual plan, take a picture of the bird and figure out what it is later, had been foiled by this little diver, giving me no pictures to definitively show that it was an Eared Grebe. And... it would have been easy to count it, and to just put "continuing" on the ebird report, but I honestly didn't have any observation sitting in my possession that could have justified it. Outside of... obviously I saw this bird, and obviously it was the Eared Grebe.
But I wanted to honor the effort that an eBird reviewer had put in here. Poor Bill has needed to sort through observations from me all year long, from "That's just a Least Sandpiper" to "this photo has no scientific value", he has spoken truth to me all year long. In this case, he'd made an argument that the bird I'd photographed had field marks that made it clear that it was the previously photographed Eared Grebe. But he noted that, in this case, details in the bill were the single best way to show that this was an Eared, rather than Horned Grebe.
And I did my homework. Looking at pictures of both grebes until I got something that. . . wow, it may actually stick. You see, both of these birds have pretty simple, delicate bills, but Eared Grebes have a bill that is often described as "upturned". After looking at many images, I kiiiind of agree. The thing is, the lower bill is tapered differently than the upper bill. The difference in these tapers gives an upturned appearance to the bill... it's just easier to call it upturned than to get into *why* it gives off upturned vibes. I saw it, and I knew that I could see it in a bird - if it was only close enough for me to see the bill.
And I did. 193. Eared Grebe. One of the most satisfying birds of the year, because I learned something about identifying these very similar species. I *still* did not get pictures good enough to show the distinction, but I was able to see it in the scope well enough several times. One of the eleven running gags in these blogs I put together is "I don't know what birds look like," a statement that is partially true. I'd like to think that somewhere, somehow, this regular realization connects with some other birder who can't tell me immediately what color the legs are on a lazuli bunting. We birders know an awful lot about what birds look like. This includes me. But good lord there's a lot I don't know. And some of those things I don't know... a lot of birders *do* know. So, I'm working on it over time. This is one of those small victories where I feel like I know a little bit more.
"Tertials" is almost always code for "I don't really know what I'm talking about at all." I can't tell you where the tertial feathers are on a bird. If I say tertials in any context, please send help. I have no other meaningful use of the word.
The Best Apple I have Tasted
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| Belle de Boskoop |
I love apples. This goes pretty deep, predating any birding love that I've had, any significant traveling of the state. . . it's deep.
I grew up in Yakima and spent a summer or two working in an apple warehouse out in the western outskirts of town. Back then, grocery stores had three kinds of apples: Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith. They were different enough and were all fine. . . but one summer I had a life-changing experience when I tried a Gala.
I get it. Today, there may be many other varieties of apples that you'd choose over a Gala. I'm not here to argue for the best apple here. I'm just saying. . . in a world where I'd only tried three varieties of apples, and where I'd only heard of a small handful of other in passing (did I know the word "MacIntosh" back then?? Think about that question and all of its layers), Gala apples were world changing.
You've likely eaten a Gala. It's likely. As a fairly long-established apple at this point, and one that has been at least fairly well-received, it shows up in enough contexts. You've probably eaten one.
It's even likely that you've passed them in the grocery store. It's possible, but less so, that you've leaned in on a neat stack of Gala apples and taken a deep whiff. Even less probable is that you've sat in a warehouse full of Gala apples on an August afternoon, in a world where you only knew three kinds of apples. These apples are fragrant - a simple fact that you can experience at the grocery store in small measure, and in a warehouse on a grander scale.
Galas were my favorite apples at that time, and are of course my favorite apple romantically. You can't deny the power of that first kiss.
Years later, other apples came along, some of them very good. Braeburns were challenging Galas for the top spot, when I had a Cox's Orange Pippin in season. Game over. It's a dessert apple that just blew my mind.
And I've tried other apples since. I try any new apple that comes along and have found some that I'm really quite fond of. Opals are pretty easy to find and have a pleasant pear-like taste that I don't mind at all.
I needed to provide this backstory to explain a trip to Chimacum Corner - a fine purveyor of produce and other assorted goods, sitting at The Intersection in Chimacum. I walked in and found *many* varieties of apples that I'd not tried. I got Karmijn de Sonnaville. I got Ludacrisp and Ashmead's Kernel. I got Florina, and I got my new favorite apple: Belle de Boskoop.
It's crisp, sweet, just tart enough, and flavorful. It's just everything you'd want in an apple. I'll say even now that I'm not arguing for the best apple. I might have been better off saying "It *was* crisp, sweet...", because so much depends on the tree, depends on when it was harvested, when it was shipped, sold, and eaten. But it brought me much joy to eat this apple. It brought me joy to eat all of them! I hope that in the years to come, I have more opportunities to find other varieties being grown in this beautiful state of ours. This was a lovely stop.
Kitsap, and one more attempt to find that silly dipper
American Dippers are silly birds. That's part of their marketing, basically. I mean, why would you, as a birder worth your salt, otherwise go to a loud, rushing river, where no other birds can even be heard? To see the plainest, most medium-sized bird ever to exist? It's not good branding. So American Dippers make up for it with their song (a crazy ramble that is audible above the aforementioned rushing river), and with their goofy up-and-down bob that they do while perched on rocks.
This was part of my interest in them. The other side-piece was the fact that they are regular enough in a fairly accessible location, and I'd gone all year without ever finding them. And in a county where there is a dipper spot. . . I come away with dippers. It's just how events proceed in any normal year. So, I had a responsibility, on my way back home, to stop and try for these birds at the confluence of Dickerson and Chico Creeks.
As luck would have it, I arrived on a day when an event was celebrating the return of salmon to spawn on Dickerson Creek. Naturalists were posted at intervals of approximately 20 meters all along the roughly 100-meter trail (or so it felt). It was fun to bend the ears of the naturalists as I strolled and scanned for the birds. Fun too to see the salmon doing their darndest to make it upstream. As part of the event, polarized glasses were available, allowing the viewer to remove the glare from the stream, and see the salmon more directly.
I did see lots of salmon, but no American Dippers. On the surface, knowing that a bird that *does* eat salmon eggs was absent seems like good news. For what it's worth, dippers maintain a diverse diet, even in seasons when salmon eggs are readily available! It's also worth noting that at least one source I found points out that fish egg mortality is almost a necessity, or the oceans would be full of fish pretty quickly!
The volunteers had polarized filters on-hand, allowing visitors to eliminate the glare of sunlight reflected from the turbulent creek. This made it possible to see the salmon in the water just a little more easily.
And hey. . . no American Dipper. So, Kitsap County would have to stall out at 155 for the year. What funny birds! I only had this relatively short stretch of the creeks to look for them; They'd been seen along this short stretch (off and on) throughout the year. But it looked like I'd just be dipping on dippers!
Home from there.
