Birding in Bad Weather

We stood hunched with our backs to the wind and peered at a few water birds dipping in a shallow inlet at Sandy Point. It was miserably cold and wet, the wind blowing so hard we could barely stand up. There were two different kinds of birds that we had never seen before. We shouted descriptions of them over the wind to each other so we could remember the details until we could consult the field guides in our bags.

The Great Blue Heron we had just disturbed while crossing the sodden field flapped its wings nearby and croaked a complaint. At first we hadn’t recognized even this familiar bird because of its brown winter coat and because of the distorting sheets of rain.

Satisfied that we had picked out every identifying detail that we could of the water birds, we turned back toward Ally’s little red truck, facing the storm for the muddy trudge across the field. “This is ridiculous,” we agreed as we closed ourselves gratefully inside the truck and began dripping on the seats. “We’ll do our birding from here now.”

So Ally drove slowly along the narrow country roads, pulling over to let other vehicles pass, and we stared through the runnels of rain on the windows hoping to see something interesting. A flash of blue green rising from the side of the road made us both think “Mallard” at first but the rich cinnamon color of the duck’s breast and sides proved it to be an American Wigeon, a common bird in the Northwest but one we hadn’t seen before. Three new birds is not bad for us, maybe not bad for anyone under these conditions, we thought.

And soon after that we were waiting for our lunch at Boundary Bay Brewery & Bistro in Bellingham. Ally took out her notebook and sketched the water birds at Sandy Point as we remembered them and we easily found their names in our field guides: Buffleheads and Horned Grebes. Then lunch came, Yam Alechiladas for me, and Tofu Curry for Ally, both perfectly delicious. After the difficulty and discomfort of birding in the cold wind and rain, it was a luxury to be warm and dry.

Winter Surprise: Vermont Birds

Napkin sketch: White Breasted Nuthatch

The winter birds of Vermont are a very small and sparse subset.  We flew to Vermont to surprise our niece for her 30^th birthday; I packed a cocktail dress and my binoculars.  However, there are not many winged critters to see there this time of year.  Maggie explained that most of the Green Mountain regulars go south for the winter, and those migrating from the far reaches of the north bypass the ice fields of Vermont in favor of a place with warm breezes and plenty of bugs.

There were hearty Starlings in each small town "green", the traditional park that anchors the center of every hamlet.  For some reason Chelsea has TWO town greens, which completely throws off everyone's sense of direction in that town. 
Now and then I caught the flash of white that distinguishes the east coast Blue Jay from our west coast version, the Steller's Jay.
On our last afternoon I was blessed with a sighting of a White Breasted Nuthatch, a first for me.

Dave and I spent a long time at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science where there is a raptor rescue and rehabilitation center.  There was a Snowy Owl raised in captivity that wanted to talk; we were virtually the only humans visiting on this very cold Friday, and the Snowy was eager to tell us all she knew.  The Northern Harrier was bored, flying fitfully in its enclosure.  The Raven talked -- not to us, but to its companion -- in the deep, hollow tones of an ancient drum.

Priya, an intern at VINS, stopped to show us the Red Eastern Screech Owl perched on her glove.  It was as small as a newborn kitten, weighing no more than six ounces.  This one had been hit by a car and lost completely the use of one of its big, yellow eyes.  We three humans stood in front of the Snowy's enclosure while Priya talked to us about the birds.  The bitty red owl timed its monocular blink, taciturn compared to the gabby Snowy Owl, and much tinier in size.  In the wild, the Snowy will make a regular meal of a Screech because they keep similar hours. 

Eastern Screech Owl, red morph

The Snowy said to Dave, "I love your beard.  It is white like me."
The Snowy said to me, "I am your first Snowy.  Stay and talk a while."
The Snowy said to Priya, "Hi Priya!  Hi Priya!  Hi Priya!  You can put the little Screech Owl in my pen.  I will take care of it quicker than you can say 'Vermont Institute of Natural Science'!"

Crow Communication and Short Eared Owl

Hi, Honey! Are you chin-deep in snow? It's coming down steady here today and very few people are out. There is a sheet of ice under this new snow so people are smart to stay inside.
There could be Snowy Owls all over the place out there for all we can see.

The video clip I sent you of the “sledding crow” was part of an article I read in Atlantic magazine online. The author contacted an ornithologist to ask what we should think of it and the ornithologist said we shouldn't think anything, that we can't know what's in the bird's mind and we shouldn't ascribe human feelings to it. But it seems so obvious that the crow is just having fun, doesn’t it.

You know how I have always put out peanuts for the crows and jays. There is one crow who seems to be the patriarch of the clan. I think he’s the same one I told you about before extracting a moldy piece of bread from his cache in the mossy bank. He’s big and handsome and, less fearful than the others, he sometimes perches on the deck railing while I fill the peanut cup. As long as I ignore him he will stand there but if I look at him, he gets nervous and flies away.
Then last week as I walked out to the street where I’d parked, he called just over my head and then landed on the pavement a few feet away with two peanuts in his beak. He laid the peanuts down and looked at me expectantly. It was one of those odd moments when time seems to stop. What did he want? What should I do?
Then a neighbor dashed out of her house and hurried to her car, breaking the moment. Amid the activity, the crow reclaimed the peanuts and flew away. But I was sure he had tried to communicate with me, using the medium that in his experience has always been our point of connection, food. What else could it have meant?

So, how was your ocean trip? Did you see any new birds?
Love,
Mom

Short Eared Owl, Theler marsh/wetlands on Hood Canal

Hi Mom!
On long ocean walks, sometimes three times a day, I delighted in watching Snowy Plovers. They are small and elegant, and they forage in herds across the cold wet sand; they step, step, step, then peck, peck, peck – reminds me very much of a two-step country western dance – performed in the bitter cold of January.

We saw a Short Eared Owl at Theler Wetlands Reserve. Its face is like a monkey's, and its flight like a hawk's.

I think you are right about the crow communication.  It is interesting that inter-species interaction is important to the crows.
Our crows land on the telephone wire that spans the backyard and watch for me in the kitchen.  They know I will slide the window open and toss them a treat.  I try to give them something healthy, but sometimes I sneak them a cookie.  Cheddar cheese is their favorite.  It drives Tess (dog) bananas.

I hope we see a Snowy Owl when you come up in February.
Love, Ally

Snowy Plover on Copalis Beach, WA coast

A New Winter

Christmas ornament, 2011

(To Mom)
Hey!
All's well.
Super busy at work.
Nice and quiet at home.
Cash just loves her car. She named it Franco.
How are you?

(To Ally)
I'm fine, enjoying the image of Cashel driving around in her only slightly battered Volvo which the name Franco seems to fit. It’s a good picture.
Before I forget though, I want to tell you about some bird sightings.
Remember I took that class on identifying trees? We were tramping around in the Discovery Park forest for more than two hours and I didn't see a single live bird. Of course I wasn't looking for birds and was concentrating on the trees, but still it was strange. What I did see was two dead ones. An assistant to the teacher had brought along a collection of dead birds, all dried out and packed in plastic bags. She showed us a tiny warbler corpse cupped in the palm of her hand in conjunction with our examination of the small Alder cones where warblers find seeds and insects to eat. The teacher knocked one bunch of cones into his palm and an almost microscopic beetle staggered away from the bits of debris left there. The assistant let us use a magnifying glass to see it.
Later along the walk she brought out a desiccated Red-breasted Sap Sucker for us to look at near a spruce tree where Sap Suckers had drilled lines of holes about a quarter-inch in diameter. The holes were in the trunk up higher than our heads, but even so I was surprised not to have seen them before. They were in perfectly straight horizontal lines, six or eight in each set. (The leader said that Sap Suckers sometimes drill the holes in vertical lines, too.) From each hole there was a drizzle of sap. The birds would come back to eat the sap along with the insects trapped in it.
What specialized ability, do you suppose, makes it possible to eat sticky sap? Once I gave a crow a piece of my peanut butter sandwich and then watched him have a pretty hard time trying to eat even that level of stickiness.
I also have had a close encounter with a Sharp-shinned Hawk, but I don't have time to tell you about that now. Later.
Love,
Mom

That's so cool, Mom! What an interesting perspective on birding, seeing the bird quotient through the eyes of people who know trees.
I finally saw the Pileated Woodpecker on a forest hike this weekend. I was surprised by how big it is. It is strange looking, and its drilling of the trees is more hollow and sonorous than the drilling of the Northern Flicker and the Downy Woodpecker. The Pileated Woodpecker's sound is like that of a bassoon in an empty upstairs bedroom, or a fog horn very far away.

Pileated Woodpecker on a Douglas Fir tree
Fragrance Lake trail in the North Cascades

(To Ally)
That would be a haunting thing to hear. The Pileated Woodpecker I saw was working its way around a telephone pole and not drilling at all. I will listen for that sound in the forest from now on.
Have you ever seen a Red-breasted Sap Sucker? It’s in the woodpecker family, too. The dead one I saw was about the size of a small robin and had pretty, colorful feathers of red, yellow, gray, white and black.

Young Sharp-shinned Hawk

My Hawk experience was startling. I was standing near the railing of our deck about to toss a handful of crumbs to the noisy House Sparrows in the large bush just below me, and then to fill the feeder cup with peanuts for the Jays who were also fluttering and calling in the tree nearby. Suddenly out of the sky a hawk dove toward the bush and just before striking whatever hapless Sparrow it had picked out there, it locked eyes with me and swerved away and out of sight. I realized then how completely quiet and still the birds had become. It was as if they weren’t there anymore. The Jays stood frozen to the bare tree branches and the Sparrows had made themselves invisible in the bush.

I had been so close and had seen the hawk so clearly that it was easy to identify it in my bird guide – a young Sharp-shinned Hawk.

Family Birds, And Those With Constant Comment



Gadwalls at the Montlake Fill

Dear Ally,

It’s reassuring to know you are determined not to leave me stranded in a clump of skunk cabbage or let me get swept up in a southern migration while we’re out birding. You are a good, sweet daughter and I’ll be careful not to lose you either. The greatest danger in our last outing, though, was being trampled by the hordes of Husky fans taking a shortcut across the Fill to the football game. What an odd opposition of intense human interests it was out there that day. Bird watchers in rumpled khaki and football fans all in purple spandex jostling for space on the trail. With so much activity, it’s a wonder we saw any birds at all.

But wasn’t it a pleasure to gaze at the Gadwall pair floating serenely among the lily pads.

Maybe it’s to their advantage to be so plainly colored and of such an average size and shape. They don’t draw a lot of attention that way.

My favorite sighting that day was the Green Heron, though it’s anything but pretty with that hunkering posture and lumpish body. From what you say, it must be like the embarrassing uncle of the Heron family.

(To Mom)

Ha! Uncle Heron would be the permanent bachelor type. But I bet he would give good gifts.

I saw the Kestrel on the running trails yesterday. This is about the same time last year I would see the Kestrel, which must mean it is feasting on the last of the crickets that are abundant in the fields there.

There is a stray orange cat I've been trying to coax into my arms. Right now it is surviving pretty well on the crickets and field mice, but those sources will become very scarce soon. "Cricket's Field" is where we found Wiley's cat, Cricket. I even brought Wiley with me one time, because I knew he would be able to convince the orange cat, but we couldn't find it that evening.

I made black bean burritos using the left-over potato wedges from the Sunlight Vegetarian Cafe. I added carrots, corn, and sautéed onion, then tossed fresh green pepper on top. Dave adds cheddar and Fritos to his.

(To Ally)

You always make leftovers sound so good. Pio was disappointed that I got up before he did the next morning and ate the remaining half of the sesame waffle for breakfast. That was the most substantial waffle I’ve ever encountered.

Have you seen the orange cat again? It’s so distressing to see any stray dog or cat. Poor thing.

I’m reading a book about a stray European Starling that was saved by a soft-hearted person like you and like Wiley. The book is Arnie the Darling Starling, and it’s a true story. I read about it first in the very entertaining book, Enslaved by Ducks, that you gave me for my birthday. There I learned to my surprise that starlings can be taught to speak if they are adopted by humans when they are babies. In the book Arnie not only repeats English words but really seems to use them appropriately often enough to make you think he understands them, too.

(To Mom)

I've not seen the orange cat again, even though I've looked assiduously for it, which makes me think it was adopted. That is what Wiley thinks too.

Arnie the talking Starling is fascinating. Although, I hope Arnie's housemate doesn't regret teaching the critter to voice its comments... I wonder if Arnie asks tough questions, like kids do. "How can Santa fit down the chimney?" or "Why doesn't Uncle Stew love Aunt Marie anymore?" or "Should you really be eating that ice cream?".

(To Ally)

Oh, dear. I hadn’t thought of that. Our lives could become even more complicated if our pets could ask questions.

Gwyneth Paltrow And The Green Heron

September 9 dawned cool and brilliant, like Gwyneth Paltrow. Like Steve McQueen. I drove my little truck down to Seattle to meet Mom at The Fill. The Audubon tour guide was listed as “Fran Wood”, so I expected a lady birder. Not so at all. Fran is a man. We hapless birders battled legions of people-in-purple surging like spawning salmon toward Husky Stadium for a football game. I love how those birders who have chosen this walk on this day quietly pilgrimage to the meeting point – the East Parking Lot at the Union Bay Horticultural Center – and become a group. We’ve had our breakfast at our homes, packed our bins and bird books, laced our boots and donned hats: and there we are, together!
Fran, a tall white-bearded fellow in dark shades, took us through the litany of what he considers the best birding books for our area. He discerned which of the books had the best maps. Each book he pulled from a canvas bag in the recess of his car trunk. It was a big bag. Even we birders, who are very patient, began to wonder if Mr. Wood planned to set foot on the trails. Mrs. Wood waited in the driver’s seat of the car, one elegant hand on the wheel. When Fran completed his book talk, and returned each volume to the canvas bag, he patted the passenger window, like one would a horse, and Mrs. Wood drove the bag of books away.

We entered The Fill. A group of glossy Crows picking methodically at the field of dry grass watched us pass; the Crows think we are dumb. There are no bugs on the path – the bugs are in the grass field. The Crows are cool thugs; like gang members, they have numbers on their side.

Field notes from Ally's rainproof notebook.

Two Anna’s Hummingbirds flitted and whirred in the flowered bushes near the path. The Anna’s are tiny compared to the Crows. They are Fairy Warriors that feed on nectar.

As we continued on the path, Mom said quietly to me, “When we start out I always think we may not see a single bird!”
Our very first official bird outing was to the Skagit Bald Eagle Festival at which we viewed only the injured Raptors enrolled at the Ferndale Raptor Center. It was more like going to a zoo than birding! Too funny. We had delicious Mexican food for lunch that day. It was our beginning.

Fran Wood set up his scope so that we could see the flock of Goldfinches perched on the outer sunlit edges of a shrub.  They were the flashes on the fanned tips of flame. The Finches were not as gold, however – they are heading into winter plumage. Mom said they were rather handsome in their darker suits.

We watched a complacent group of Northern Shovelers forage peacefully in the lily pads at The Cove. Mr. Wood explained that Shovelers build their nests on top of lily pads. They jam the pads closer together, then gather nesting material and pile it onto their Shoveler-made island. I’m sure their shovel-shaped beaks are the perfect tool for this type of nest construction.
Mom and I think that would be a pretty damp type of nest, though. Not dry and high like the Osprey’s.

A pair of Gadwalls floated laconically with the lily pads – a first for me and Mom. The Gadwalls look drab from afar, but are beautiful up close (with binoculars). The male’s wing patterns are like the intricate black stitched patterns of zig-zag South African cloth. It is not known where the Gadwall’s name originated, but has been in recorded use since 1666.  In the bird books the Gadwall's appearance is described with ingenious variations of the adjective "drab".  It seems odd to me, that this most drab of all ducks has a name with no authenticated origination.  I've noticed in the world of birding that great interest and significance is given to the history of the naming of each avian type -- so why, then, is this the only bird no one knows where its name came from?  Seems suspicious, hiding behind its drabness.


Green Heron

At The Cove we saw the Green Heron, a smaller heron with not near the neck of the Great Blue. This fellow hunched on the outmost branch of a sunken snag.  Later I looked back and saw the Green Heron in the water, glaring at little flits of movement below the lily pad surface.  Our bird book at the beach place says when the Green Heron takes off it first makes a "kyow!" sound, defecates, then launches.  It is intolerant of other birds, so feeds alone.  I can see why.

On the same sunken snag we spotted a Belted Kingfisher!  After the Green Heron left, of course. Later, walking along the Loop Trail near the Main Pond, Mom and I heard the Kingfisher. The call is familiar to me because of the Kingfisher I see nearly every day on the running trails in Bellingham. It’s call, in flight, is like the clatter sound of rapidly opened Venetian blinds. Clatter clatter clatter!

When you walk with a group of birders, the pairings change as we move. Some might stop to look, while others of the group walk quietly on. It reminds me of grocery shopping with Dave, where one of us might bolt ahead to get the cereal, while the other runs into an old neighbor, then we meet again in the frozen vegetable isle.
Near the end of our Sept. 9 walk at The Fill, I came to find myself walking with Fran Wood at the front of the line. We’d lost a portion of our original members, those that got hungry and slipped away to find lunch.
Struggling to think of something to say to Mr. Wood, I asked him about his name. “Short for Frances,” he said, with a resigned bit of smile deep in his beard.
“My name is Alexandria, but everyone calls me Al,” I said.
“Why did you drive down from Bellingham?” he asked.
“My mom and I are bird artists,” I said. “We meet at lots of different places to bird.”
“Well, where’s your mother!?” Fran Wood blustered, as if I’d misplaced her on the long drive down.
“She’s right here,” I assured him, showing him Mom right behind us.
“Oh good,” he said.

We were very hungry! That was a long walk.
Lunch was at the Sunlight Vegetarian Café near 65th and Ravena Ave. Actually, it was brunch. Learning to bird with brunch. They don’t serve lunch until 2:00 PM.
The coffee was excellent.
Mom had the Sesame Crunch Waffle, which was as substantial as a slab of tundra, but most delicious. It came with fresh fruit and a silver pitcher of Vermont maple syrup.
I had the Vegan Highlander, seasoned, sauteed organic tofu & tempeh, onions, green peppers & red pepper sauce, served on a bed of fresh spinach- with home fries & half of an organic 7-grain english muffin. It was fabulous.

I think we should all keep a close eye on those Gadwalls.

P.S. Mothers are valuable.  Don't lose them on long drives or birdwalks.

Ptarmigan on Cougar Divide

Sept. 3, 2011 In The North Cascade Mountain Range

Hi Mom,

Dave and I hiked the Cougar Divide trail on Saturday. I've never been anywhere like it.
We didn't see any other humans for the first five hours of the hike. The majority of the hike is along a ridge at 6,000 feet above sea level; there are 360 views, that sometimes make you sick at your stomach. No buildings, people, cars or planes in sight. It gives me hope for the world. There are still places of true wilderness out there!
We were hyper-aware for any signs of cougar or bear, so were startled when a creature thrashed just a few feet from us in the alpine meadow heather. It was a Rock Ptarmigan mom. Her young chick flapped away and hid in the wildflowers, but the hen stayed put. She stared at us, waiting, I think, to see which direction we would move. Or maybe she was trying to blend in with the heathers and grasses. Her browns and blacks were so gorgeous, the color of tree bark, chocolate and onyx. We stood completely still, so she finally "swam" -- moved low and slow on foot, not flight -- until she disappeared into the heather.

We also saw marmots and Mountain Chickadees, but thankfully no cougar or bear.

The sound of the honey bees working the swathes of mountain wildflowers was deafening at times.

The wildfires in Texas are terrible. I wonder how it is affecting migrating birds.
love, Alex