Access Granted - 8/24

For me, one of the most tantalizing pieces of exploring is looking at places that seem inaccessible, but just might not be.  I was able to make my way to two such places in a day.  Neither was without effort, and one of them left me with some mosquito bites that are just now subsiding, but the effect on my soul was amazing.

Kayaking:  Olympia to Hartstene Island

I mean... I've been kayaking before.  Or was it canoeing?  At the south end of Lake Washington, where the Cedar River empties into the lake, there's a boat rental place where I've taken the kids out, usually pretty close to shore.  Kayaking in the open sound, however, was a new thing for me, and I really hadn't been in a kayak for at least a couple of years.

I needed to get to the south end of Hartstene Island, though!  Alcids are tough in Mason County, and I was still missing Rhinoceros Auklet and Common Murre.  In addition to those two, I had dreams of a lot of other fall migrants:  Red-necked Phalarope, Parasitic Jaeger, and Common Tern among them.  All of these are easier out on open waters, but Hartstene has few viewpoints, and other Islands (Hope and Squaxin) are not reachable by car.  So I had to find a way to get out there.

Boston Harbor Marina in Olympia took my calls and left me thinking that I could make the trip to Hope Island, so I made my way down Monday morning, and got myself a rental.  On this particular day, they were expecting higher winds in the afternoon, so my 9:30 departure meant that I had to cut Hope Island out of my plans.

I was of course a little worried about losing a camera or my phone in the water.  My phone did come along, but was kept in a little plastic bag where it ended up getting steamed by the drops of water in the bag, heated in the bright sun that day.  I was only able to get a few pictures, but the trip still brought some good birds.

The very first one was a new bird for the year.  I had made it not only across the channel from Thurston into Mason County, but almost to the shore of Hartstene, when I saw a Rhinoceros Auklet take flight, wheel around and land.  This was number 167 for the year, and a tough code 3 bird, but not surprising, as they had been seen at Nisqually and near Olympia during the same week.  I paddled in that general area for some time with no signs of any birds at all, then decided it was time to start paddling back around 11:00.

On the return paddle, I hadn't gone far when I realized a dozen or so alcids had landed in front of me.  Pigeon Guillemots!  I'd had them numerous times during the year, but this was a nice opportunity to see them 10-20 feet from the boat, as they were not all that shy.  The final alcid of the day, before I slipped back into Thurston County, was a Marbled Murrelet, a bird I have only had up near Hoodsport this year.

Dark blue line in the water to show the new places visited in the county on the kayak trip

Fancy meeting you here

After getting back to the docks, a little sweaty, and a little pink from the sunny day, I made my way back to the car.  My legs hurt!  Of all things, the paddling itself didn't make my shoulders tired, but something about the leverage, or the subtle but continuous work of balancing left my legs aching a little.  They also had a nice burn above the knees where I had not applied sunscreen.  A little discomfort, but a small price for a fun trip and a new bird.


From Boston Harbor, I made my way down to I-5, then to US 101, which took me into Mason.  My first stop was Kennedy Creek Estuary.  I had hopes of shorebirds and gulls here, possibly ducks, but the water was quite a ways out at 1 PM, so the shorebirds were out.  I did have two little bars with a few dozen gulls on them, and set to work sorting through them.  I found one that was clearly a Caspian Tern with a ridiculously orange/red bill and all of the other right field marks.  Another tern next to it seemed smaller... lighter bill... and I started to think it was a candidate for an Elegant Tern. 

The bird was a challenge for my current optical situation, and I figured I'd better get someone skilled up from Olympia or thereabouts to take a gander.  As I walked up the path back to my car, who should appear, but Terry Sisson!  Terry and I birded together back in May, and he was at the estuary with a similar list of birds on his mind - interesting terns, or gulls, or maybe even a pelican! 

A closer look, and we figured it was a juvenile Caspian Tern, especially when they took flight and showed that they were indeed very similar in size and all other markings.  We talked about the county and birds a bit more, and I made my way up to Shelton.

I was in the neighborhood

Gulls on Little Skookum Inlet

I drove up to Shelton and checked in at the Shelton Inn, sending an email off to David Ness before I arrived.  David lives down on Skookum Inlet, and had reported some interesting birds over the past year on ebird, including the first Northern Mockingbird and Ancient Murrelet for the county!  I had... creatively found (stalked) him on the internet, and found a way to contact him earlier in the month, and he had told me to let him know if I'd be in the area.

So I settled in for a nap in my room, when there was a knock at the door.  Apparently David and his girlfriend were just a block or two away having lunch when he got the email, so he had run down to see if I wanted to join them!  I had already eaten, so I showered up as they finished, then got directions to his place, stopping to grab my fee for the evening - a six pack of IPA.

A picture from the tracks. Streaky effects a welcome accident.

Little Skookum Inlet, which I shall probably call Skookum Inlet the rest of the way out, from laziness or habit, is a narrow inlet that has seemed nearly inaccessible from all of my drives along it.  Mentioning it to Terry earlier, he agreed that it was a body of water that he had simply not explored.  This illusion of inaccessibility was about to change for me!

David grew up on the inlet, and built his current house down the road with the help of his family.  He picked up birding growing up, and especially in college - it turns out that Evergreen in Olympia has a pretty amazing class that is punctuated with a trip down to Oregon for bird banding and observations.  As a result, his knowledge of birds on the inlet, and where to find them is pretty deep.

Whackin' them bushes

We started by simply watching from David's yard, the water pretty high but slowly going out.  A family of Common Mergansers was feeding quite well on fish in the inlet, and we hypothesized about what might happen to them over the course of a year.  After seeing not much going on in the inlet, I was given the option of hiking or kayaking.  I do hope to kayak in the inlet some time, but... I'd already done a little bit!  So we packed up and drove back down the road.

There are two places where it is possible to enter Skookum Inlet Natural Area Preserve off of Lynch Road.  We entered walking alongside railroad tracks and finding a spot to bushwhack through the second growth to get to the salt marsh along the inlet.  We talked about owls (he has had Barn and Great Horned) and raptors (Peregrine Falcon, Northern Harrier and Red-tailed Hawks), as we climbed along the trail, which was sometimes logs, sometimes obscured, but always basically navigable.  The website for the area notes that it is not ADA accessible.  Quite the understatement!

David and Joelle - my "tour guides" on the Skookum Intlet Natural Preserve.

Walking along the salt marsh, it felt like I had gone off the trail at Theler - right off the boardwalk into the tall grass that covered numerous tiny channels.  Somehow I navigated all of the little log bridges that David found with ease, and only found myself sinking slightly once or twice.  The water was out enough that some areas recently covered by water were still matted down, but there was not enough mud to be of much interest to shorebirds. 

A demonstration of "the tide is going out".  Joelle figured they'd get stuck.

As we waited, laying down on the flattened grasses and looking up at the clouds, we watched this change.  A Least Sandpiper, then a second, poked around in the first exposed mud. We continued to poke around, and found a pair of Spotted Sandpipers, and eventually a small mixed flock of peeps came in - a dozen or so Least and Western Sandpipers.  Duck-wise, some Green-winged Teal added some interest and variety, although no new birds were added for the year.

Asters in bloom - probably visited by David's honeybees

At some point, our stomachs told us it was time to make our way back, and we found our way to something a little more trail like, although I came out of the trip with scrapes from branches, mosquito bites galore on my legs, and nettle burns to go with my sunburn from the kayak trip.  Still worth it.  Easily worth it.  We were also lucky enough to get to watch a drop-dead gorgeous Black-throated Gray warbler in the trees as we exited.  Summer isn't over yet!

It seemed like a level picture at the time, but this was a picture of bliss.

The evening was a joy.  We broke into the six-pack of IPA, and into some goat cheese.. and heirloom tomatoes from the garden... and grapes from the garden... and pears from the garden.. and talked about birds, Mason County, Taylor Shellfish, building permits, Simpson Lumber.  It was interesting as always to be able to stop and talk with people who live in the county, rather than just blowing through, making a couple of stops for birds, and leaving. 

Conversation went pretty late, and I fell asleep on the couch well fed, and pretty damned content from another good day in Mason County.

Okay, I blew this, hence the little x, but the dark blue thin line that goes into the green area on 

the inlet - that's where I went.

The big picture - different colors for different trips.  I still have places to visit!!