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.