10/17 - Pre-field trip and "pelagic" birding

7:00 AM

I don't know why this seemed really late in the morning to be out looking for birds.  I've gotten so used to early starts, maybe, trying for bird songs, owls and game birds in the road.  Still, it was just getting light when MaryFrances Mathis pulled up to the parking lot at the Salmon Center at the Mary Theler wetlands.  After the pleasant good mornings, she paused, "Can I ask... what are we doing out here this early?"

MaryFrances and I scan for Meadowlarks at Theler

I don't know when it happened, but I became a morning person at some point in my life.  Even this post is getting typed at 5 AM and I already had my breakfast!  But not everyone is a morning person, so I had to create reasons.

"Um... Hey!  Look - Greater White-fronted Geese!"  I deflected the attention from the overeager member of the birding twosome to a pair of geese circling and honking overhead.  Under normal circumstances, these code 3 birds would be a pretty good find, but I've had them this year, and MaryFrances also had come for other targets.  She is one of a handful of birders who has tracked down 175 species in every county in the state.  Mason was one of her more difficult counties, and she was after one of the targets I was here for as well - Western Meadowlark.

Meadowlarks sing beautifully, and often sing early in the morning, although in mid-October, not much is singing at all!  We walked towards the boardwalk in search of any blackbirds to pick through, and I kept an ear out for pheasants along the way.  Pheasants have been a funny species this year.  There were some in the early winter... none that I had heard of through the spring and summer, then suddenly a bunch of them in October.  Pheasant release programs had to be responsible for a lot of them, but with these birds on nearly everyone's list, I was hoping to find one and not worry about how it got there quite as much.

Fall comes to Theler

We got talking about Pete.  Both MaryFrances and I had birded a good bit with Pete Fahey in the last few years before he passed last Christmas Eve.  Pete was a pretty damned good birder, and has a county record himself (Fresno, down in California).  I think he would have approved of this year.  Pete came to Washington from New Jersey via California, and he had a lot of East Coast in him.  East Coasters are trained, I think, to be a little more intrusive and inclusive than people out here. 

I wouldn't say that I've invited myself into people's homes, boats and golf carts per se. (Well, the Biser's might have been an exception) but what I've usually done is found ways to make people want to invite me in.  I don't know if it's charm or simple B.S., but it's made for a great year.  Pete did a lot of the same and ended up at our place for dinners and birthdays more than anyone I'd known for so short a time. 

MaryFrances and I picked up a Long-billed Dowitcher, made our way back to the car and decided it was time to meet up with Mark Oberle and get ready for a boat trip.

The Mason County Pelagic Society

Okay, it wasn't a huge group, but it was probably the first time a boat trip has been undertaken with this much focus.  Mark Oberle is the parent of a young man that I both taught and coached (back in my track coaching days!).  He has a place on Treasure Island (the name used by the people who live there, although your map may have it as Reach Island), and a 17 foot Boston Whaler that he had suggested might be put to use during my big year, and the timing had finally worked out!

Through the forest to Case Inlet from the Oberle's deck

I followed the directions to Mark's and briefly landed in the wrong driveway.  It is the kind of place where that leaves one feeling uncomfortable!  Despite any intrusive themes I've had going this year, I've kept clear of trespassing!  Well... intentional trespassing.  MaryFrances and I got ready to go - gloves, hats and rainproof gear went on, and I realized that it was kind of sort of my first pelagic trip.  I mean... this was not out to sea.  Not the SEA sea, but we were going to be in a boat cruising through salt water in search of birds not easily found from shore.  Most importantly, I wasn't prepared for any truly poor weather in my jeans.

Shoving off

We didn't need to be ready for more than a sprinkle, it turns out.  We helped Mark get the boat aimed down the boat ramp (not an easy feat!), and set out under cloudy skies.  With the tide out, we went under the bridge to Stretch Island (where there is a State Park - haven't been there yet!), then properly into Case Inlet.

As we went, most of the birds we encountered were Common Loons, Surf Scoters, and the occasional Red-necked or Western Grebe.  The first treat as we headed down Case Inlet was a Rhinoceros Auklet.  This was a tough bird during the year, although I had seen one while kayaking from Boston Harbor to Hartstene a few months back.  MaryFrances and I were both keen on finding a Common Murre, and she also needed Marbled Murrelet and Brandt's Cormorant.  There are some birds that are just hard to find in Mason, and this trip was a good shot at a lot of them.

We continued down the East side of Hartstene Island (Case Inlet), then rounded the corner where we could see into Thurston.  At one point, I'm pretty sure the call "Follow that cormorant!" went out, and we eventually got a cormorant to wheel around our boat.  The stocky dark bill showed that it was a Brandt's!  We had more Pigeon Guillemots, and went past a buoy with more Brandt's and Pelagic Cormorants before heading to the end of Dana Passage and up to Pickering Passage.

Pelagic and Brandt's Cormorants - Dana Passage (photo by Mark Oberle)

Rhinoceros Auklet (photo Mark Oberle)

Pickering Passage runs the entire shoreline of the mainland from the southern tip of Squaxin to the north end of Hartstene.  It was neat to see Squaxin and Hope Islands up close.  The shore in many places had steep embankments where Pigeon Guillemots surely nested, and beautiful madrone trees seemed to be all along many stretches of the shore.  In the end, we found several more Rhino Auklets, but nothing new for my own list.  The other big highlight of the trip was a Peregrine Falcon diving towards the wake of our boat as we passed the bridge from the mainland to Hartstene.

I... just loved this.  I love being on any boat.  Period.  But this allowed me to take the map of Mason and actually nail down the nautical parts.  It's much different than viewing the water from different isolated spots on the shore, not to mention how close you can get to the birds.  Simple as it seems, I think these were life looks at close up Rhinoceros Auklets.   We got the boat back onto the trailer and back to Mark's place where we sat and ate our lunches before heading back on the road around 2.

The author makes a rare appearance in his blog - he is pretty hamn dappy because he is on a boat (photo Mark Oberle)

Hunter Farms

phew

Oh wow.  And it's not like I hadn't been to a pumpkin patch before, but... a weekend in October was a crazy time indeed to try to walk the grounds at Hunter Farms in search of a White-throated Sparrow.  I was happy enough to have gotten parking within a quarter mile of the lot, but it was pretty noisy as we began our search of the garden!

Pumpkin business in full swing!

The garden near the parking lot at Hunter Farms has been full of sparrows for a couple months now.  The Savannah's have slowly disappeared, and recently a White-throated Sparrow was found in with the Golden-crowned.  We went back and forth and in amongst the rows of spent tomatoes and cabbage, looking for the little guy.  Our first bird of interest was a Lincoln's, but the day was running long, and Mary Frances gave up on the bird eventually, deciding to head out to the Skokomish Valley in search of other birds.

As often happens in birding, as soon as she left, the White-throated Sparrow popped up (175 for the year!) for a brief glimpse.  These sparrows are a code 4, so they just aren't recorded annually, although they may very well be around the county more often than that implies.

I usually make sure to buy something on the way out the door, but... it was pretty crazy!  I passed on ice cream, and instead went running after American Coots at Lake Isabella.

&%$#@ Coots
 

Isabella Lake from the public fishing access

See... the thing is, it's been hard to find these little guys.  American Coot is a code 1 bird in the county.  Expected on most days on a field trip.  Think like... American Crow.  That easy.  But the code is of course a little questionable because there are actually few places to reliably find coots, and there are people who despite efforts can't seem to find them.  That said... Matt Bartels had found a dozen or so of them on Isabella Lake while scouting for the field trips planned on the weekend.

This turned interesting.  I started off looking for the way to get to the State Park, or onto Delight Park Road - I simply hadn't been to Isabella Lake State Park, only having looked at it from the north side of the lake.  I got off on the road to Matlock, and drove a little bit before realizing I had gotten off too early.  I grabbed Shelton Valley Road (which was gorgeous farmland - very birdable) and took it down to Cloquallum.  My map shows a road going to the backside of Isabella Lake from the north.  No road does this.  Just letting you know.

Several attempts and turns later, I made it back into Shelton and got onto Highway 3.  This was the fix.  If you take it right past 101 and take a right, you eventually hit the turn for Delight Park Road.  Driving past the state park brings you to the fishing access where the coots had been seen.

The view of the lake from the state park

I underestimated how far out these guys would be, and scanning in binoculars, or even with the scope at first did not bring me any luck.  A couple that was paddling in and around the lily pads to the west end of the lake may have been moving them to a different spot?  I don't know.  I just knew that I had been trying for these birds everywhere without success and that several birders had seen them here in the last few days.

Assuming they had moved, I went to the state park and walked to the water through the park.  Five minutes of walking brought me to a nice place to sink in the mud while peering through a tiny opening in the shoreline shrubbery.  At this point, I hung it up and went in to Shelton to meet up with Kevin Black.

Evenin' friends!

Kevin Black and I accidentally became friends when I was doing the 39 counties blog.  The year ended and he nearly cussed me out for ending the blog.  We have gone out and birded in several corners of the state, including the Okanogan, Yakima, King County where I got him over 100 species, Franklin where he got me over 100, and down in the Southeast corner of the state on a great trip with the aforementioned Pete Fahey.  He's just one of the good ones.  I don't think anyone that has met Kevin would argue with that assessment.

We sat down at Grove Street Brewing in downtown Shelton where the beer and service were great and the food was okay.  We laid out the plans for the next day and talked about some of the goals for Sunday.  Kevin's biggest goal was to get a Mountain Quail.  It would be a life bird for him, and would be a different kind of life bird from what he has been getting in the last few years.

Kevin is not alone in that he enjoys a good chase to see a bird that might not be seen again in his lifetime.  In any given year, several such birds come through the state, so he's been on his toes chasing after Dickcissels, Caracaras and even on this day was struggling because a Prairie Warbler had been seen up in Clallam County.  Mountain Quail is one that isn't going anywhere, but I really hoped he would be able to find one on the trip, so we decided to add in a side trip - just a mile or two across the Mason County line on Sunday to look for the little dudes.

We wrapped up and made our way back east to Mason Lake and the home of Wendy Maki.  Wendy and I became friends on Facebook shortly after she posted California Quail on eBird.  I contacted her to get more information, and after a few picture exchanges, we determined that the birds at her feeder were "only" Mountain Quail.  Not a bad yard bird at all.  Since then, we had talked about me stopping in to check out the birds at her home.  There's still one that I need (pheasant), and there are a few that she wanted help identifying. 

Kevin and I walked in on this:

Warm welcome

The Maki's have a big wall painted with chalkboard paint and they do it up when they have company.  This time it included some of their favorite birds, and the Western Meadowlark that she knew I was hunting for.  The Oregon Duck was missing from the picture, but their house was happy by the end of the evening, as the Ducks beat my Huskies.

We actually had a great evening looking through bird pictures together - enjoying the ones that had taken nest near the Maki home, and helping with some identifications.  We learned that they often have Great Horned Owls calling from their home, so I added the east end of Mason Lake to my list of places to look for them.

We got a call from Margaret Snell with some trip questions, and then found ourselves ready for bed.  I was pretty wiped after a long day, but am looking forward to getting back soon.

But what does soon mean?  I only have a couple more months left in the county this year, and I'll probably be taking on... well okay, I thiiiiiink I'm going to bird in Chelan County next year.