Labor Day Birding - 9/7

Across the Narrows:  A familiar sight

I know.  I'm almost two weeks late on this post.  I... grumblegrumblegrumble...

Okay, I didn't find any new birds!  Gah! 

It was interesting to hit the wall here, although I should clarify two things: 1) I didn't leave the house until 10.  2) I had an awesome food day in Mason.

A walk at Theler

This was the plan!  We were actually going to head over as a family for our first trip together to the county this year.  Monday morningn came, and a fever came with it.  My son, Declan hit 101, and we decided the best use of the day would be for me to make this one of my two birding days for the month.  There were some recent sightings of a Parasitic Jaeger at the mouth of the Skoke, so I was pretty excited.

Wow, Theler... looking good today!

Feel free to tell me what kind of dragonfly this is in the comment section :D

My first stop was Theler, (Theeeeler? Theller?  Thayler?  I've given up now on this one perhaps).  It had continued to be a good shorebird spot, and I suspected it might be good for ducks, so I hit the trail some time around 11 with eyes and ears open.  In the fall, it seemed that Theler was getting as full as ever with Cedar Waxwings, American Goldfinch, Purple Finch and White-crowned Sparrows.  Savannah Sparrows were hanging about, often out in the mud rather than tucked in the grass.

I did something I hadn't done this year, doing the whole walk along the boardwalk that heads from the education center directly out towards Hood Canal.  I got nothing new from here, but there seemed to be a lot of great little nooks and crannies for ducks to visit.  I found a half-dozen mallards in one, but not the ducks I was looking for.  These aren't the ducks you're looking for.  Sorry.. Star Wars... ANYWAY!

From the bridge

Heading back to the education center, I found a silent Swainson's Thrush mixed in with the waxwings before heading off to the shorebird habitat.  There is a bridge along the walk that holds shorebirds on both sides.  Today, I had arrived with the tide rising into the wetlands, and I ended up with some ducks that essentially took an hour or two of my day!  With Northern Shoveler, Cinnamon Teal, and Blue-winged Teal all on the wish list, any bird with a blue bill was an interesting bird for me.  I had a pair of pintails, and a trio of other ducks that ducked behind some reeds on the far end of the slough, and I just never got a good look at them.  Green-winged Teal and Northern Pintail were likely enough that I didn't worry too much about it.

Northern Pintail, and a camera, and me and my phone

I still don't have the use of my camera, so all of this became challenging.  At some point early in the summer, I put the battery charger for the camera... well, I'm not sure where I put it.  Still looking, but in the interim, the cell phone and the occasional digiscoping has gotten me through.  The picture here is a picture of a picture of a pintail on another photographer's camera.  As a bonus, there is a picture of me taking the picture ovelaid on the picture.  Whoa.

I did my due diligence and continued walking the trail, passing some more shorebirds (Western and Least Sandpipers, and even some Semipalmated Plovers, but not large numbers of anything with the tide peaking.  An osprey made several appearances, and I had two flyovers of American Pipits. 

Butterfly - same deal as the dragonfly

Another interesting sighting was Cara Borre!  She, her partner and a friend were birding the wetlands before heading off to Hartstene Island, where they hoped to pick up some alcids. We checked in on plans - she wanted to know where I'd had Rhinoceros Auklet; I wanted to know where she'd had the Parasitic Jaeger.  It had become quite a tight little race for the Mason County year list, and it turns out that Cara added another bird (Sharp-shinned Hawk) to make it 168 to my 169 for the year!

We parted ways, and I meandered back.  The interesting stop on the way back was a former freshwater marsh that now was subject to the tides.  It means no more rails in this little pocket, but there were a few shorebirds pushed in by the high tide.




Union

Common Loons

With the rest of my day, I drove the length of Hood Canal, making stops nearly everywhere I could along the way.  There were a lot of stops that blurred together, as they contained no birds or no new ones.  The overall surprises, bird-wise were the higher number of Common Loons, and the return of cormorants to the canal - both Double-crested and Pelagic were seen during the day.

One of my stops was at the Hood Canal Marina, where I walked through the Union City Market - a relatively new shop at the Marina - not even three months in!  It's a nice boutique shop, and the owners apparently also do a little bit of catering in addition to the hand crafted foods mixed into their shelves and coolers.  I popped onto their facebook page, and am now regretting not having gotten chowder while I was there! 

Sea lion - Hood Canal Marina

I did get a chance to say hello to a visitor that had been at the marina for weeks - a sea lion!  As I snapped pictures,  I casually asked people fueling up their boats at the marina how much they would charge for a trip down to the mouth of the Skokomish and back.  The it-never-hurts-to-ask plan has been giving me interesting results all year, and this time I actually happened to be asking someone that I had asked before, but by email.

Alderbrook Resort is just up the road from the Hood Canal Marina.  It's as posh as it gets on Hood Canal, and in addition to the dining and facilities, they operate boat rentals during the summer.  I had emailed them before the year even started about a trip to see birds, and they had actually already anticipated this idea!  Interestingly, their thoughts on the times it would be best to boat through Hood Canal looking for birds is the summer. 

I turned and looked at the nearly birdless water behind me, and then conjured up pictures of the canal in the winter when it is teeming with loons, grebes, cormorants, diving and dabbling ducks.  My head was also thinking of the Skokomish delta during migration, with the shorebird and other migrant possibilities.  I explained a little bit of this to the woman as she finished fueling the boat, but she just seemed stymied that the summer birding trips had not filled up.  I'm hoping I can get to Alderbrook this year, and into the canal on some kind of boat before the year is out!

More of Hood Canal - Loons and gulls in the water

Skokomish Delta/Hunter Farms

It might have been worth it if I had earned the right to wear it

From here, my next stop was the mouth of the Skokomish.  A Parasitic Jaeger had been seen harassing gulls at the mouth on two consecutive days during the previous week.  The start of school and other obligations kept me from running out after it, but I still had some hopes that it would be out there, or would have been replaced by some equally interesting bird. 

"Red or black licorice?"  Think about that question...

Nope.  There were scads of gulls on the point of land extending farthest into Hood Canal, but nothing more unusual than a Caspian Tern passed overhead.  A Horned Grebe seemed like an early returnee to the canal, and there was also a huge flock of Surf Scoters on the far side of the temporary islands. 

I packed it up and visited Hunter Farms.  This was a good food stop.  Their shelves were full of some of the fruits of their summer produce, and I was able to leave with a jar of salsa made in Grapeview, a jar of peach butter made at Hunter Farms, and a carton of Olympic Mountain licorice ice cream. 

Please don't judge if you haven't tried licorice ice cream.  Coffee ice cream is another example of something really bitter that is tamed by sugar and cream.  It's my favorite flavor by far, and it was nice to finally hit the shop when they were serving it and selling it out of the freezer case.  I got it to go with a big bag of ice, and crossed my fingers that it would stay frozen-ish through the end of the trip (it did!)

Hoodsport to Hamma Hamma

I had similar views throughout the end of the day - a zoom will show the gulls roosting out near the water.

The Hardware Distillery Company, Hoodsport

I continued making stops, adding an American Wigeon at Eagle Creek, and finding many flocks of gulls to pick through.  None of them produced a Heermann's Gull, but it was nice at the very least to have possibilities to pick through.  The biggest finds continued to be edible rather than countable.  In Hoodsport, I stopped in at the Hardware Distillery, and it turned out to be a great stop.  They offered a free tasting of their spirits, from gin and vodka to whiskey and aquavit, and even walked me through the area where the distilling happened.

The sciency stuff

Several of the spirits used fruit or other ingredients, and it seemed like they would be overpoweringly fruity, but it was all pretty clean stuff with subtle flavors from whatever he had added to that particular spirit.  The highlight was a gin (the "R Dry Gin") that was made from grain that had been placed in the smokers up the road at the Hamma Hamma oyster company.  The owner had a mason jar full of the grain, and let me smell it.  Oh lord.  The resulting gin had the most subtle notes of that smoke.  I did a little bit to support the local economy and continued up the road.

Chuck from the distillery, showing me the peach mead that be transformed into an acquavit

Hamma Hamma Oyster Company

With a little bit of the taste of oysters still in my mouth, I made it to the Oyster Saloon itself for the third time this year.  It was by far the busiest I've seen it - not surprising on the tail end of a three day weekend!  I had some raw oysters with that tasty mignonette they make and a beer, and chatted with people on both sides of the bar.  The big year came up;  It almost always seems to, as I inevitably feel the need to bend people's ears on birds or Mason County in general.  The time I spent there was enough time for another flock of gulls to float in, this one also empty of any jaegers or Heermann's Gulls.

Wait... does this count?  I need to find a California Quail!

Leaving Hamma Hamma, I did something I had not done all year, meandering farther up Highway 101 to the county line.  I had not properly stopped at the mouth of the Hamma Hamma before, but it seemed like great habitat, and Triton Cove, near the county line itself, while unbirdy today, at least had a few passable viewpoints into the cove. 

A look at the time... a last look at the water... and I thought it was time to start heading back.  I knew I would get to this point - a trip without new birds!  Hopefully fall and winter will be cooperative, as there are still a lot of birds left out there to find!

The mouth of the Hamma Hamma River