Back where I started.

Yesterday afternoon I took care of a number of administrative things, and made my lady dinner. We then went to get Rosana her new 2002 Corolla. It is nice and red.

This morning I went to the Dump Marsh in southern Dade. There were a good amount of birds there, including SAVANNAH SPARROW, BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD, MOTTLED DUCK, RED-SHOULDERED HAWK, and a dark morph SHORT-TAILED HAWK. I ran into a birder here named Rafael, who was heading up the Hialeah Christmas Bird Count, which he invited me to join him on. Rafael pointed me to where he had seen a GRASSHOPPER SPARROW, but I was unable to tease it out. On my way back to the car, I watched a PEREGRINE FALCON hunting from the electric lines.


I then checked out the nearby Cutler Wetland, but didn't see too much happening. The light is often difficult here, allowing me only to barely see some shorebirds (DUNLIN, DOWITCHER sp.), as well as NORTHERN HARRIER and GLOSSY IBIS.


When I got back to Rosana's house, her roommate Danny and his dog Willow were wating on the front stoop. I had locked them out, as they were on a walk when I left this morning. Eeeeeehr.

West to East

Friday morning, Kim and I started the day at Bunche Beach in Lee County. We came across a good variety of shorebirds, including WILSON'S PLOVER, PIPING PLOVER, SEMIPALMATED PLOVER, WESTERN SANDPIPER, DOWITCHER sp., DUNLIN, SPOTTED SANDPIPER, and MARBLED GODWIT, as well as plenty of BLACK SKIMMER. The heat cranked up, so we moved onto some shade at Lakes Park and Six-Mile Cypress, where we picked up 5 warblers including PINE, PRAIRIE, YELLOW-RUMPED, NORTHERN PARULA, and BLACK-AND-WHITE. We finished our birding with a look at a pack of MONK PARAKEET at the marina. We were exhausted from this hot day, so we just hung out at Kim's house, engaging with a delicious homemade lasagna.


Saturday morning, Kim and I met up with Rosana at Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary for a stroll about. The ~3 mile boardwalk hike was pretty birdy, giving us great looks at a male PAINTED BUNTING, GREAT-CRESTED FLYCATCHER, BLUE-HEADED VIREO, HAIRY WOODPECKER, and MAGNOLIA WARBLER, among many others. I left with Rosana, heading east to South Miami.


I took a birding day off to be with my lady yesterday. In the last couple days we've mostly chatted and lazed, checked out Y Tu' Mama Tambien and The Wrestler, and last night made some delicious Risotto with Danny and Emily. Oh, and had blind taste testing of tap water that was filtered by their new Brita, versus unfiltered.


This morning I drove Rosana to work, and got right to business trying to see the RED-WHISKERED BULBUL. It was a success (sorry Eva), as I saw two of them on the electric lines of their infamous Kendall neighborhood. I then went to Matheson Hammocks to see what kind of late-ish neotropical migrants were around and was decently successful. A few mixed flocks provided me with PRAIRIE, PALM, BLACK-AND-WHITE, BLACK-THROATED GREEN, NORTHERN PARULA, and MAGNOLIA WARBLERS, as well as WHITE-EYED VIREO and the bird that escaped me a few times September 1st, the YELLOW-THROATED VIREO. I also got a flyby of 3 BLUE-AND-GOLD MACAW, which are not ABA countable.

Tuesday night I got to say goodbye to my Olympia folks in fine fashion. The whole house- Dave, Devin, Clara, Lexi, Babbi, and I went to a burrito shop that had this hidden lounge in the back, for a few drinks. Yesterday morning, Devin drove me to the shuttle bus in Longwood so I could get to the airport. In the airport, I heard someone call my name, so I looked back. Surprisingly, it was Will, my couchsurfing host from the Olympic peninsula! I new he was flying out on this day to head to Mexico, but I didn’t know what time (and I had mistakenly mentioned to him that my flight was the next day). It turned out that he was on my flight to Dallas, where we both had layovers. It also turned out that he had seat 24D and I had 24F. Crazy to think that even if we hadn’t met each other, two birders would have been sitting with one person in the middle of them. I politely asked the man in the middle to switch, which he was willing to do so Will and I could chat birds. For a little while, Will took a nap, and I finished up reading Under the Banner of Heaven, a book about Mormonism and its nuttiness. I noticed the guy next to me kind of reading along, and I glanced over to see he had a Ladder-Day Saints nametag on. He said nothing to me about the book, and I am glad for that.

I got to Dallas, then to Ft. Myers FL at about 9:30pm with no complications. Kim picked me up there, and we headed to her house to have some delicious pizza.

This morning, we headed to Sanibel Island at about 8:30am. Right after leaving Kim's house, we checked out the local BURROWING OWL nesting sites. At Ding Darling NWR, we encountered a bunch of the birds I hadn't seen in a while, or in this year project. Some of these included WOOD STORK, REDDISH EGRET, ROSEATE SPOONBILL, RUDDY TURNSTONE, and PALM WARLBER. On our drive to Blind Pass, a beach on Sanibel, we got great looks at MAGNIFICENT FRIGATEBIRD. At the beaches, we scoped out several NORTHERN GANNET, as well as SANDWICH TERN. A great day of birding with 53 species seen on the day.

In the evening, Kim and Alison (from Audubon of Florida) gave a presentation on bats at a local elementary school. Alison brought detectors that made sounds when bats flew overhead, which we got to hear in action. After, Kim and I got some Indian food, and now we are chilling with some starfruit wine!

Ocean Shores

Last night we played some Bananagrams, and I was in bed by 10:30pm. It looked like it was going to be a rainy and windy day today, so I planned to check out the coast at Ocean Shores. Either I would get some birding in or see some intense waves.


It turned out to be birding. It didn't rain while I was there, but there were intense winds. On the way out to this coastline, about 70 miles away, I was entrapped for speeding in an area called Central Park that the limit went unnecessarily low. 68 in a 50, $93 ticket.


I went to check out the jetty on the south end of the peninsula, but it was cut off during high tide. I was trying to see if I could get looks at BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKE which had been reported off the coast. I did see a number of RED PHALAROPE flocks scanning the shore.


At Chance a la Mer State Park, I drove onto the beach for a vantage point. Gulls were being fed by a man while I was here. After not seeing to much action over the water, I IDed the gulls that were around my car, which included what turned out to be a number of THAYER'S GULL, as well as MEW GULL, CALIFORNIA GULL, and RING-BILLED GULL. While scanning, I came across a solo BRANT, and HEERMAN'S GULL cruising the shoreline. A television weatherman van parked right in front of me to do a live broadcast. The star apologized for blocking my view, but said they'd be done in a half-hour. I decided it was time to leave.

Rains

In the evening of last night, Devin, Dave and I chopped up a tree cookie that was about 2 feet by 4 feet. It cut up nicely, after some work. Afterward, we had some delicious dinner that Clara got going, of enchiladas.


Today I got a bunch of administrative things done during the crazy weather. I'm packed up for my trek out of here on Wednesday, so perhaps I can go explore the intense winds and severe rain on the coast tomorrow.

working hard, but hardly working.

Friday afternoon, Devin, Clara and I headed under the house to install insulation. The crawlspace is only about 1 1/2 feet high, so it's quite snug under there, and not the most fun thing in the world. An hour and a half was enough for the day.


In the evening, Devin and I went to his previous employer, Windfall Lumber, where he has bartered to get access to the building during off hours. We started working on cutting boards, made from Alder and Madrone. Friday night, we got the boards glued together, and sat them aside until they dried and we could work on them later.


Yesterday morning, Clara, Devin, their roommate Dave, and I went to Tacoma to pick up their friend Shannon, and headed to Tiger Mountain to get in some hiking. The weather was awesome, but the trails were confusing.


We did about 10-13 miles of hiking, without any major outlook or summit. I was a lot of fun, and a few birds were sited, including VARIED THRUSH, HAIRY WOODPECKER, and BEWICK'S WREN. We also noticed this ree that when uprooted, lifted a pretty large rock with it.


Last night we celebrated with some Vietnamese food and booze. We played some Apples to Apples in the living room, and did not make it to 11pm. This morning, Devin and I went back to Windfall Lumber to check on our cutting boards. I used the belt sander for a couple of hours getting them smoothed out a bit. Then we epoxied areas that needed it. It is kind of a slow drying type, so we'll have to head back tomorrow to finish them up.

Stalemate

Wednesday morning I joined the folks who do the weekly bird walk at Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. We got a good show of raptors - RED-TAILED HAWK, NORTHERN HARRIER, PEREGRINE FALCON, and BALD EAGLE. All of these birds had interactions with each other, which were quite interesting to see. The first three of these species listed fought each other over a GREEN-WINGED TEAL that the RED-TAIL caught. One of the lighter RED-TAILS we were trying to turn into a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK, but as it came to pass, it was not.


In the evening of Wednesday, and all day yesterday, I've just been having some down time at Clara and Devin's house. There have been no areas that I feel I have a good chance to see new birds at, and no rarities have popped up in the immediate area. I guess my car needs a little break and so do I. I did stop at Capitol Lake yesterday and inventoried the ducks, but no new species have arrived.


Last night, Clara gave me this present which could come in quite handy.

Going back to Oly

Last night at Zoie's intentional community in Bellingham, I ended up getting to sleep in the healing room, which had apothecary medicines and instruments. For some reason there was a futon open in there, even though most of the household slept on the floor.

This morning I left at about 9am and drove to Montlake in Seattle. There is a botanical park managed by UW, with a decent amount of property, right behind the football stadium. There were a good number of ducks here, but a birder I had talked to there said that the NORTHERN SHRIKE I was looking for had not been seen in over a week.


After a hearty lunch at a vegan Thai place in the University District, I drove over to Redmond to see the infamous Marymoor Park. The part I was interested in of this enormous place was the Eastside Audubon Bird Loop. Coincidentally, this was right at the leash-free dogpark, which was ind of annoying. Before starting my hike, I checked the windmill for BARN OWLS, which nest and roost there, but had no luck. On the rainy hike, there was not too much bird activity, and after about one and a half hours, I headed back to the car. In a tree visible from the car was the perched bird I had been looking for, the NORTHERN SHRIKE. Within 30 seconds, he flew off and I could not relocate him again. Since I was lucky with the shrike, I tried the windmill another time, but had the same results.

I arrived in Olympia at about 4:30. It was nice to get a shower and unpack a bit after my few day journey northward.

Vancouver is...

...probably my favorite city thus far in my short life.


After I dropped Greg and Kim back at the house on Sunday, I spent the afternoon checking out Stanley Park, which is quite possibly the best city park I have ever been to. It's an island between Vancouver and North Vancouver, accessible by a major road and bridges connecting it. The ecosystem is impeccably intact for being in an urban interface, even though it did lose much of its older growth to an ice storm a couple years back.


From the many stops around Stanley Park, I was able to see a ton of ducks. There was a huge raft that included hundreds of SURF SCOTER, and lesser numbers of HARLEQUIN DUCK, WHITE-WINGED SCOTER, and BARROW'S GOLDENEYE. In a cove not far from this raft, I saw two male COMMON GOLDENEYE.

At the Lost Lagoon within Stanley Park, there were a number of people feeding the "wild" animals. Nuts, corn, and grapes were fed to willing BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE, CHESTNUT-BACKED CHICKADEE, SPOTTED TOWHEE, DARK-EYED JUNCO, COMMON RAVEN, FOX SPARROW, RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD, MALLARD, CANADA GOOSE, MUTE SWAN, black squirrels, and about 7 too-friendly raccoons.


In the evening, I walked Main St., and ended up having a Phillips Lager at The Reef. When I got back to the place, Greg, Evan, and I had some of Evan's beer from the Red Truck Brewing Co. that he works for. Then we had some of the red wine that he had made at home. We talked a lot about Evan's impending trip, coinciding with getting out of Vancouver before the Olympic hell starts. He's planning to check out breweries throughout the U.S. for several months, and then in the spring, do the Appalachian Trail from GA to ME. I may end up getting to see him in FL, since he'll be down there visiting family before his hike.

This morning I got a very late start, and said goodbye to my incredible hosts. I stopped by the West Dike in Richmond again to try for the SHARP-TAILED SANDPIPER and EMPEROR GOOSE, but no luck. After crossing the border with much less grief than on my way up, I stopped at Birch Bay State Park, where the weather cleared to show this nice rainbow. At about 5:30pm, I got to the intentional community in Bellingham that I'm staying at tonight. My host Zoie showed me around, and I've just settled into the communal floorspace that will be my temporary residence.

Neighborhoods to the north

Not too much to report here over the last few days. I left Olympia Friday at about noon, missing all the good weather of the day, and tried to bird in the rain in Seattle. I gave up quickly. So I checked out a coffee shop in Pioneer Square, then met up with my cousin Max at her house in town. We had some Vietnamese food in the International District, then had some ice cream, then stayed at her boyfriend's house.


Saturday morning, we hung out at the house for awhile, then headed back to her's to get my car. I too off for north, getting money, gas, and my phone situation settled and crossed the border in Blair. The border patrol guy gave me some grief, and seemed to very much think my explanations painted me as the scum of the Earth. Regardless, he let me through, and I was in Vancouver at about 5pm.

Arriving in Vancouver, I realized that my couchsurfing host Evan lived in a pretty awesome neighborhood. When I got to the house, a disheveled character named Nick answered the door, and let me get settled in. He was a neighbor that was hung over. Eventually Evan and his girlfriend came home, and within a bit, headed to see Lights, the band. Within 10 minutes, Evan's roommates Kim and Greg got home, and we hung out for the rest of the night. These two are New Zealanders who have been travelling for quite some time, but are settling in Vancouver for a bit to work for a bit. It sounds like those commonwealth (Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) passports can let you do pretty much anything between those countries. Anyway, we hit a bar nearby and chatted the night away.


This morning at about 8:30, they came with me to check out a birdy area in Richmond. There had been reports of a SHARP-TAILED SANDPIPER and an EMPORER GOOSE here recently. We saw about 25 species, but neither of those two.

Lurking

People walking in the rain in downtown Seattle look like ghosts. I'm mildly disturbed.
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Installation

I got back to LeSage, my hosts in the Olympic peninsula's house on Lake Crescent, Tuesday night at about 6pm. The place was empty, unlike the night before. Will had said they were working until 6, and they might end up staying at the office. They did, so I had the huge house to myself.

The next morning I woke up and headed out at about 9. I drove the western part of the peninsula, which went through the Twilight-famous town of Forks, as well as Ruby Beach.


I decided to head down to Tokeland to give another try at seeing the BAR-TAILED GODWIT. It was high tide, and a group about double the size of MARBLED GODWIT I had seen before were on the docks. This time, it included WILLET and DOWITCHER. There were two birds that were lighter, that looked like they could have been good candidates for the rarity, but nothing else checked out. I spent well over an hour scanning these birds for the BAR-TAILED, but once again, could not find it.

Last night, Clara made a pizza, which Devin, their roommate Dave, and I enjoyed. I also tried another of Clara's homebrews.


This morning, Devin and I continued on the birdhouses. To finish the job, we just had to put roofs and hinges on the large ones, and change all of the smaller's hinge screws out for galvanized ones. We finished at about noon, and Devin headed out to try to get aluminum nails for us to hang them with (aluminum is lighter than steel, so when loggers come in send the trees to a sawmill, it won't break their blades).


At about 2, we met up with the grantwriter for this project, Kurt, at the landowner's house. He explained the larger restoration project that was taking place on the landowner's 80 acres that had been sold by Weyerhaeuser 10 or so years back. The land was mostly Alders now, but the Doug-Firs and Grand-Firs would soon take over when given the opportunity. It was mostly these trees, and some Big-leaf Maples that we posted the birdhouses to, while it was raining on us.

Tea on the dock at LeSage

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High and Low

Last night I got to my couchsurfing host Will's house in Olympic National Park at about 7:30. He and his 3 roommates who all work as environmental educators in the park, were having some people over for bridge night. They had lots of good food made, which they let me dig into.


Their house was a home that had been sold to the park service during the couple who owned it's divorce, and is right on Crescent Lake. Will, his friend Marisa, and I had some conversations regarding birds, which led into us going out last night looking for NORTHERN SAW-WHET and WESTERN SCREECH OWLS, but with no luck. When I asked will about SPOTTED OWLS, he said "you're not gonna see one." When we got back, Will's roommate KC offered me his room, since he and a couple of the other roommates always like to sleep outside (you can see one of them on the dock in the picture above).


This morning I took Will's advice for targeting some birds I was interested in. Since most of the sub-alpine entrances to Olympic National Park are closed for the winter, he gave me directions to Hurricane Hill, and his employee ID to get in free. As soon as I got there, one of my target species found me. A pack of GRAY JAYS descended upon me and humaned me.


Out on the 1.5 mile, 700 ft. incline trail, I didn't come across the BLUE GROUSE that Will had said was pretty reliable for him out here. I did see male and female EVENING GROSBEAK in a patch of spruce trees.

I left Hurricane Ridge at about noon, and came down from 5700 ft. to sea level in less than an hour. I got to Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge for another try at seabirds. Out on the spit, I saw three species of loon, including the lifer YELLOW-BILLED LOON. I also noticed a intermediate plumed RED-BREASTED MERGANSER. A few minutes later, I saw another loonish bird that wasn't fitting, since it had a orange fading to black bill. As it came closer, it turned out to be a RED-NECKED GREBE.

The Olympics

Last night I went to "Northern" in Olympia, which is an all ages venue. Jeremy Jay, a dude on K Records, was playing. One of the groups was pretty good, called Good Neighbors, kind of like The Blow meets Ani DiFranco. Jay was not that exciting.


This morning I started feeling the effects of my cold. I went to the hot tub with Clara and Devin, and was out the door by 11am. I headed up 101, to the Olympic Peninsula, for a couple day adventure. There were a ton of state parks and recreation areas along the way with great vantage points of rivers that had salmon jumping. I also saw a seal eating one, and a river otter.


When I got to Port Townsend, I stopped at Old Fort Townsend State Park, looking for sea birds. When I got to the beach, it started pouring on me. A few birds in a Pacific Madrone, caught my attention, and there turned out to be four VARIED THRUSH, hopping around. I then headed to Fort Worden State Park, which as a cool spot. There's a hostel and a lighthouse here. I went to the dock which had a Marine Science Center on it. It started pouring on me again out here, but within five minutes, I found both a close-up, messy looking MARBLED MURRELET, and a sharp looking, but far out PIGEON GUILLEMOT!


In Olympia, there are AMERICAN CROWS and NORTHWESTERN CROWS, and some that are hybrids. I wasn't able to deduce a NORTHWESTERN CROW until today, since they are incredibly similar, but there are no AMERICAN CROWS on the peninsula.


I stopped at the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, but daylight savings had something to say about it. I had to leave as it got dark and they were closing at 5, and now I've just gotten to Port Angeles.

All Hallows

Friday night, Clara and Devin's neighbors came over and we played some games. We tried Fluxx, but that is way too confusing, so Apples To Apples it was.

Yesterday morning I went out to try to hit a few of the local hotspots. I went over to Millersylvania State Park. As soon as I got there, it started pouring out, so I waited a while in my car. After a bit I went for a short hike and found nothing too interesting, other than the observation that GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS are way more common on the west coast.


I then headed to Woodruff Bay, which were a nice series of trails leading to a penninsula in the Puget Sound. Among the many ducks visible were COMMON MERGANSER, BARROW'S GOLDENEYE, and SURF SCOTER.


Devin, Clara and I headed downtown Oly last night to check out the Halloweensanity, after visiting a friend of their's house to see trick-or-treaters. We only lasted a couple beers in the city, and ended up back home by way of the bus at about 11pm.


This morning I stopped at Capitol Lake, which had at least 3 times as many ducks as compared to my presious visits. This time the SCAUP were closer, and I was able to deduce a LESSER SCAUP out of them. After this, I checked out Preist Point Park, which was a pretty nice spot on the east side of the bay. Then I cruised up the west side of the bay on my way home, looking for waterfowl.


This afternoon, Devin and I continued birdhouse work. The right side of the smaller houses needed to be hinged by just putting a screw in each side. We also made screw and wire latches on the bottoms of these so that they could be fastened shut. The idea is to have houses that can be cleaned and maintained in the field without the use of any tools. The only things left to do are put the holes in them, and get roofs on the large ones.