Mason County March WOS Field Trip - The trip over

It felt like Lent

Tree Swallow - finally spring and finally back to Mason County!

After a month and a half of waiting, I finally got the chance to get back to Mason on Sunday.  It was a shortened trip, as March was full of busy weekends, and this particular one involved time at the food bank and a volleyball game before I left on Saturday.  This was a special trip, as I was joining an actual factual field trip! 

Mountain Quail from an
online search.  I didn't quite
get this look!  :D

Matt Bartels runs an annual field trip to Mason County for the Washington Ornithological Society, and this year it fell on the late date of March 29th.  Why March?  March is the month when Mountain Quail begin to vocalize quite a bit more, and they are a specialty species for Mason County;  Other neighboring counties (and a few in the southeast corner of the state) have sightings of these birds, but there are a lot of spots to make attempts at seeing them in Mason, and early spring is not a bad time at all to be birding along Hood Canal in Mason County.







Passing through

My normal route over to Mason takes me through Pierce and Kitsap Counties.  I actually ventured over to Pierce a month or so back and added a few more birds there to bump it up to 150 for my life list.  Kitsap has been sitting at 114, so I decided to pick away at it a little bit on Saturday.  After chatting with Brad Waggoner over in Kitsap about my needs list, it came out that the south end of Kitsap looked like it would be more productive, given my needs list.  

"Four hours or so in the great county of Kitsap to head to the birdless Mason County ;-)"  Brad's slander of the fair county was tongue-in-cheek, but there are a fair number of birds that are a little easier in Kitsap.  They do seem to have some of the same issues with some "simple" birds like American Coot, but there's a good bit more saltwater shoreline, and Point No Point seems to pull in vagrants now and then. 

Sadly, the side trips on the way over didn't add much.  A trip to Long Lake (and parking near a mailbox to look nearly directly over someone's house...) got me a Wood Duck for the County, but no American Coots.   A trip to Lider Road, in the Blackjack Creek watershed, gave me Brewer's Blackbird, but no American Kestrel.  Another stop at Gorst finally gave me a Northern Pintail, but the trip up the road West from there, following Gorst Creek, left me without an American Dipper.  Kitsap County was distinctly un-American for me on Saturday!   Some year, I'll hit Kitsap County properly, but around 5 PM, I decided to hang it up and continue to Mason.



Saturday evening - Belfair-ish

I came in along NE Old Belfair Highway, entering Mason County from a direction I hadn't previously this year, although I recognized the Bear Creek gas station and mini mart as I passed.  It was a pretty drive, and I had a couple chances to step out to look at Union Creek in hopes of a Dipper, or even a coot in some of the wider areas.  Pacific Wrens were the rule, however, and I finally came out in Belfair. 

Another way in - Old Belfair Highway NE

I checked in at the Belfair Hotel this time, since the field trip would be leaving from there the next day.  The gal at the desk started to tell me about their amenities, then laughed, "We.. don't have anything special.  We have an ice machine!"   She added the last bit excitedly as she remembered.  I didn't need anything special, and it was a clean comfortable room, so all was well. 

The brochure in the room had a few local eateries featured, and I decided I might head down the road to Allyn on Case Inlet to Lenny K's Boat House for some fish and chips.  I had considered a few of the places in Belfair, and was only disappointed when I found out that more than one of them has karaoke on Saturday nights.  Oh I will be back.






Allyn

Allyn sits on the north end of Case Inlet, a tiny finger of Puget Sound that nearly stretches out to meet Hood Canal (if it had ever actually done that, we would speak of Kitsap ISLAND rather than the Kitsap Peninsula, but it landed a few miles short).  I had driven through it once or twice during the year - once when it was dark, and once while in conversation with a copilot. 

Case Inlet from Allyn

I pulled in to Lenny K's parking lot, and took a quick walk down to the water - Shaggy-headed Red-breasted Mergansers, a few crows and gulls played on and near the shore, but nothing surprising.  I crossed the street to the wine shop just as the fellow was closing up.  He was kind enough to let me in, although I was too late to do any tasting.  The most interesting discovery was Mosquito Fleet Winery.  There was only one bottle left on the shelf, but their tasting room is on the very road I had taken into Belfair - another reason to come back!

"The Flyer"  - 90 minutes from Seattle to Tacoma. 
Original artist unknown - I pulled this from Geocaching.com

The Mosquito Fleet, incidentally, was the nickname for all of the little steamboats and other small boats that served Puget Sound before ferries became the norm.  Some of the later runs went from Allyn to Olympia with stops on some of the Islands (Squaxin and Harstene) along the way.  I still have hopes of doing part of this run by boat this year - stay tuned!

It was that good.

Lenny K's was a great choice for dinner - the fish and chips were great, the service was friendly, and there was live music playing (Marcus Dean on that particular evening).  There was a whole array of mugs hanging above the bar, and I nearly joined the mug club, but it sounds like most of the benefits come on Tuesday nights.   My plans aren't that ambitious for my year with Mason County!

I made it back to the hotel and off to bed with dreams of owls and another big day of birds.