WINTER BIRDS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

UPDATE: SIGN-UPS FOR THIS TRIP CLOSE ON NOVEMBER 15, 2011.  This coming January PIB and Minneapolis Audubon are teaming up on a trip to the Pacific Northwest.  For Minnesotans the weather will seem mild despite the rain.  The wintering birds will agree.  Most have come down  from the Arctic to enjoy the temperate weather of coastal Oregon and Washington State.  The trip will begin and end in Portland.  For a complete itinerary, dates and list of target birds click here.

Here are soe pictures taken by birder Bob Shade on one previous trip:

Male Barrow’s Goldeneye on Hood Canal.

Black Turnstone on the rocks at Seaside, Oregon.

Pair of Harlequin Ducks just off the ferry dock at Keystone Harbor on Whidbey Island, WA.  This photo by tour leader, Harry Fuller.

A Pacific Wren in brush at Fort Lewis, OR, near the mouth of the Columbia River.  And a Surfbird with its gray back on the same stretch of beach as the turnstones.

A bunch of Brant watching a bunch of birders near Hama Hama, WA.

Other birds we see on this trip include: Red-throated and Pacific Loons, Black Oystercatcher, Long-tailed Duck, Pigeon Guillemot and Rhino Auklet, Glaucous-winged and Western Gulls, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Anna’s Hummingbird.  We will also visit Ft. Clatsop where Lewis & Clark spent the winter 1804-5 and a Native American cultural center for the S’Kallam Tribe.

Here’s a link to blogs done during last year’s trip.

NORTHWEST WINTER BIRDS: A GALLERY

Our Colorado birders got 114 species on the Oregon/Washington State trip last week.  As we headed south from the Olympic Peninsula we got our final two species at the Wild Birds Unlimited Store along Hwy 101 southeast of Sequim.  Pine Siskin and Cassin’s Finch were among the crowd in the garden full of feeders there at WBU.

Look at the beak on this fella.  It would make a House or Purple Finch jealous.  It’s a serious seed-crunching implement.

Amonmg our 114 species: five alcids including a few fly-by Cassin’s Auklets and good look at Rhino Auklets. There were twenty-nine species of waterfowl from Trumpeter Swans to Eurasian Wigeon, three mergansers, two goldeneyes, Harlequin, Long-tailed Duck and both scaup in large numbers.

You got your Wood Duck, your Mandarin Duck, your Cinnamon Teal or even your Red-breasted Goose.  But this guy in full breeding regalia…Parisian courtiers could not conceive of such glamor.  Neither could I until I finally saw this duck up close a few years back.  This male and his mate paddled around the Keystone Ferry harbor, Whidbey Island, within thirty feet of us for half an hour.  An ecstatic half-hour for our birding group.

We did OK on raptors, with over sixty different Bald Eagle sightings. 

And we enjoyed some pretty good land-birding as well, from Pileated down to Pacific (nee Winter) Wren and both kinglets at close range.  And then there is the Northwest’s scenery where snow, fog, steep mountains, volcanoes and blue seas combine for a panorama not found in most of the world.

Not the overcast skies but no rain.  While the Coloradans’ friends and family struggled with blizzard and sub-freezing, we breezed around the Northwest under mild temps of 45-55 degrees and only a half day of rain in seven days afield. 

Finally there were several satisfying looks at Varied Thrush, including one in the garden at Wild Birds our last day.

The park is named for the Dr. Tolmie who gave his name to the Latin binomial for MacGillivray’s Warbler.

This group of VATH was in the shade beneath the Sitka spruce at Tolmie State Park near Olympia, WA.

Winter Wonderland For Water Birds

What would you say about a birding day that brought dozens of Harlequin Ducks and Rhino Auklets?  Plus a Cooper’s Hawk on an offshore piling, Red-breasted Mergansers by the score, Red-necked Grebe, Cassin’s Auklet, Long-tailed Duck, Black Oystercatcher, Greater Yellowlegs and even a co-operative Belted Kingfisher who posed for pictures at our luncheon restaurant?  Well, our Colorado birding group said, “Wow!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And our total for the trip: 112 species and a couple dozen lifers for many on the trip.  A nd this is the season.  There won;t be any Pacific Loons or Red-necked Grebes this far south in summer.

List of species from Northwest Birding Trip, January, 2010

PIB Northwest Birding Trip, January, 2010
Birds Seen–Updated Feb 15, 2010

Harlequin Duck pair at Hama Hama.

Photo by Jeannie Mitchell.

Snowy Goose
Ross’s Goose, Sauvie Island
Cackling Goose
Canada Goose
Brant
Trumpeter Swan, Sequim
Tundra Swan
Gadwall
Eurasian Wigeon, Sauvie Island
Am. Wigeon
Mallard
Shoveler
Pintail
GW Teal
[Common Teal, the European teal not yet seen as separate species by AOU]
Canvasback
Ring-necked Duck
Greater Scaup
Lesser Scaup
Harlequin Duck
Surf Scoter
White-winged Scoter, Hood Canal
Black Scoter, Cannon Beach, OR
Long-tailed Duck
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Barrow’s Goldeneye
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Red-throated Loon
Pacific Loon
Common Loon, Pied-billed Grebe
Horned Grebe
Red-necked Grebe
Eared Grebe
Western Grebe
Brandt’s Cormorant
Pelagic Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret, Sauvie Island
Bald Eagle
Harrier
Cooper’s Hawk
Red-tailed hawk
Rough-legged Hawk
Kestrel
Merlin,  Cannon Beach
Peregrine
Coot
Sandhill Crane, Sauvie Island
Black-bellied Plover
Killdeer
Black Oystercatcher
Greater Yellowlegs
Marbled Godwit, Sequim\
Sanberling
Western Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Dunlin
Mew Gull
Ring-billed Gull
California Gull
Herring Gull
Thayer’s Gull
Western Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
Common Murre
Pigeon Guillemot
Cassin’s Auklet, Marbled Murrelet
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-dove
Mourning Dove
Short-eared Owl, Sauvie Island
Anna’s Hummingbird,                Belted Kingfisher
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker                     Northern Shrike, Sauvie’s Island, seen by two of our group
Steller’s Jay
Western Scrub-Jay
American Crow
Northwestern Crow or AmericanXNorthwestern
Common Raven
Black-capped Chickadee
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Bushtit
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper, Sequim
Bewick’s Wren
Winter Wren
Marsh Wren, Nisqually NWR (seen by only part of our group on final day)
GC Kinglet

RC Kinglet, Hermit Thrush,  Am. Robin
Varied Thrush, seen by only a few of the group, Fort Stevens
Wrentit, heard by all, seen by only two of the group, Coffeeberry Lake, Ft. Stevens
Starling
Spotted Towhee
Fox Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow
DE Junco
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Brewer’s Blackbird
Purple Finch
House Finch
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Total species:  117 including Common Teal