Deseret

Thursday night, Bill, Marin and I met up with Bilsky at City Creek Canyon in Salt Lake City to do some owling. We hiked about a mile each way, playing tapes, and puled out a WESTERN SCREECH OWL as well as a NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL. After, we went to see Laser U2 at the planetarium near their house- my lifer laser show. I had a deep epiphany that U2 is consistently semi-interesting.

Friday morning I went to the Salt Lake City Cemetery to see what kind of birds were present there. It was pretty birdy, including some of my western favorites like BLACK-BILLED MAGPIE, MOUNTAIN CHICKADEE, and a new great for me, TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE.

I later checked out the Salt Lake City Library, which was insanely incredible. At 4:30, Bilsky was out of work and ready to head down to the St. George Birding Festival in the southwest corner of the state. We stopped at the Provo airport, which had a dike going around a marsh. This was where he had seen a LONG-EARED OWL the week before, and when we got there, it was settled in the same spot. We got down to our camp site at Quail Creek State Park at a little after 10, and set up. It was freezing, and little sleep was had, but we got through the night, hearing GREAT-HORNED OWLS the whole time.

This morning we met up with Bilsky's friend Jim, and his nephew Pat, and headed to Lytle Ranch. This was a riparian, working ranch, tucked inside of a joshua tree forest. Within a few miles of driving in, we had located SAGE SPARROW, LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE, and numerous CACTUS WREN.

In the ranch, we got looks at a few southwestern specialties that I had never seen, including PHAINOPEPLA, GAMBEL'S QUAIL, and VERDIN. Although we tried, we dipped on CRISSAL THRASHER and BLACK-TAILED GNATCATCHER at this site.

By the time we left the ranch, it was afternoon, and we used the remaining daylight to locate some birds of interest. At Tonaquint park, we were treated to ABERT'S TOWHEE as well as a couple low flying FERRUGINOUS HAWK. We then stopped at a site that a male VERMILLION FLYCATCHER had been seen at, and found him very quickly. Two more stops , one for CRISSAL THRASHER and the other, at a wash, for SWAMP SPARROW were for naught. However, GREAT-TAILED GRACKLE, SORA, and LADDER-BACKED WOODPECKER were some good birds seen in the process.

We headed back to the campsite and looked for the recently seen YELLOW-BILLED LOON. We couldn't find it, and decided we didn't want to spend another night miserable. We went into Hurricane and rented a room at Travelodge, got some Mexican food to go, and are in for the night quite early. This was an awesome day of serious birding that included 54 species. I'm excited that I'll get a good night's sleep before doing it again tomorrow.

A long distance covered

Sunday, Clara, Devin, and I dropped off Stasha with her mom, then we went to their friend Craig's house to watch some football and play music. I consumed enough libations to play guitar while lying on the floor (but had the wherewithal to take this picture).

Monday morning, I headed to Windfall Lumber in Olympia with Devin to work for the day. We spent about 10 hours building wall supports for a project he's taken on from them. It was a lot of work, but in some ways, the easiest $200 I've made.

Clara, Devin and I tried to have conversation that night, but we were all exhausted, and scooted to bed by 10pm. The next morning I got all of my stuff together and headed east. I encountered an area on I-90 that i was concerned I would not be able to drive through due to the snow in the Blue Mountains. There was several feet on the ground, but luckily the interstate was well-plowed.

I arrived in Othello, WA at about 1pm, and visited Heather at her Columbia National Wildlife Refuge office downtown. She was able to get out of work then, so we had a quick lunch at her house, and then explored a part the refuge that she lives at. It was pretty cool climbing all the buttes and coolies, but it was not too birdy. That night, we had some Mexican food, and then went to he Brunswick Bar that had quite a bit of game posters and otherwise.

Yesterday morning I got on the road at about 7:30am, and with only three quick stops, I got to Salt Lake City at about 6:30pm. It was pretty grueling. Shortly after getting to Bill and Marin's house, Bilsky texted me that there was a WESTERN SCREECH OWL in his backyard. The three of us quickly got going, and as soon as we got there, heard one. Within a couple of minutes, we got a great show of the two WESTERN SCREECH OWLS that are likely setting up shop in a tree cavity in his yard.


This morning I left the house at about 9am and drove up to the Bear River NWR in Brigham City. There had been reports lately of MCCOWN'S LONGSPUR and GRAY PARTRIDGE. I got the directions to each of them, and very quickly found a pack of about 16 GRAY PARTRIDGE. I found big groups of HORNED LARK that the longspur had been found in. I had no luck after almost an hour of scanning.

I then headed down to Antelope Island with the hopes of seeing a LONG-EARED OWL roost, and the CHUKAR I had dipped on the last time here. I search the Russian Olive trees off the road for a couple hours, seeing three porcupines (as I had seen last time) but no owls. I also had no luck with the CHUKAR. After a long day of searching, I headed back to Bill and Marin's where I am now watching an incredible film with Marin called "Saturday's Warrior."

4 Time Zones

Friday night I had some beers with Joe and John at the Jackson Square Tavern, then met up with Jerry, Alison, and Doug at Sweet Lemons. This is the first time I ever remember having Thai food that didn't fill me up (temporarily). We then met with a gaggle of folks at the Brewhouse in Weymouth for my final night in town. It was fun... too much fun as the next morning would show.

Alison drove me to the Harbor Express ferry in Hingham at about 9am, so I could get one more look at the harbor before leaving town. There had been lots of talk of a super-rare ARCTIC LOON seen this week, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to give it a try. It did hurt, because this was very early in a looong day. The boat went pretty fast (a 30 minute ride to Rowe's Wharf in Boston). I only got a look at about 4 duck species, and no loons or alcids.

I got to the airport at about 10:30, and then caught my flight to Chicago, stopped over in Denver, and then landed in Seattle at about 9pm local time, where Clara was with my car to drive me down to Olympia. So, all told, I had been traveling for 16 hours, stopping in all four continental U.S. time zones.


Yesterday I spent most of the day getting settled back in here. I cleaned out my car (which was easy, thanks to how Clara and Devin had taken care of it), and arranged things or my trip out of town early this week. I also went food shopping at the Grocery Outlet (GrossOut) and stopped by Capitol Lake to see how the duck scene was. In the afternoon, I played wiffleball with Clara and Devin's daughter Stasha. Last night, their friend Amy Jane came over with her daughter and we had an awesome vegan lasagna for dinner.

This morning, I got up at about 7 and headed to the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge near Tacoma. It was pretty birdy there compared to how I remembered it from 2 months ago. An incredible showing of BALD EAGLEs were present, as well as the most cooperatively close AMERICAN BITTERN. The wetlands were dominated by CACKLING and CANADA GEESE, and the woods with BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEES and GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS. I also got great looks at BEWICK'S and WINTER WREN. After an hour of walking in the calm, mild weather, the rain started. I didn't get a chance to get to the newly opened trail before I decided to turn back to the car.

Goodbye, New England

Monday, I went to work with Eric, and we got to play a pretty good game of basketball. We left there in the early afternoon, and I checked out the Sachuest NWR for the last time. I was looking to see if I could get a glance at the RAZORBILL that had been reported as flybys here, but alas, I did not see one.

Tuesday was my last day of work at the Ryan Center. I did some random work that included possibly the silliest task I'd ever been asked to do at work: My co-worker Greg and I cleaned grates for about 2 hours. Eric stayed at work that night for the woman's basketball game, but I went home and watched the results of the Massachusetts political bloodbath.

Wednesday morning, Eric drove me to the Providence train station. On the way, we stopped at Watchemoket Cove in East Providence, where the day before a birder had reported two BLACK-HEADED GULL amongst the hundreds of RING-BILLED GULL. I located the Ring-billeds pretty quickly, but they were far away and hard to ID. Eric and I drove to a different part of the cove, looking for other areas that might offer a different part of the cove, and kind of failed. When we came back to the original spot, the gulls were much closer. This time, there was one BLACK-HEADED GULL that was quite obvious in comparison to the others, and was coming into
his spring plumage.
After riding into Boston, I met up with Erin and Meg at their house to drop my stuff off. I then headed down the Emerald Necklace in Jamaica Plain. My first stop was Jamaica Pond, which at times can attract tons of gulls, and sometimes a rarity within. There were only about 15 birds on the ice, which included LAUGHING GULL and RING-BILLED GULL. I continued a couple miles down through he Arnold Arboretum, but had no incredible sightings.

Last night I met up with Dan, Meg, Erin, Steve, and Meg at a Malaysian restaurant in Chinatown. It was delicious, especially the desserts. After, we went to Jake Wirth's with Doug, Jerry, and Alison. It was a good Boston send-off.

This morning after waking up in Jamaica Plain, I took the bus to the Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge to try my hand at the bird sighting from 1/15: four WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL that had been seen in a stand of conifers. After spending about 30 minutes at the "Eagle Ave." mentioned, I was not able to relocate the birds. I did, however get to see many of the temperate winter birds that I may not see for some time, that included BROWN CREEPER, RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH, WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH, BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE, DARK-EYED JUNCO, WHITE-THROATED SPARROW, and TUFTED TITMOUSE. After birding, I got some super-cheap pizza at Pinocchio's in HARVARD Square, and then headed back to JP where I am now.

Southern New England coast

On Wednesday, I had my longest workday at the Ryan Center, clocking in at 5 1/2 hours. The notable task of the day was cleaning the court with a mop and wood shining fluid in preparation for the URI men's basketball game against St. Joe's. I went home before the game, and uncommittedly watched some of it. The Eric Lantz reported that one of the St. Joe's players slipped on the floor- that's home court advantage! Eric brought home a bag of popcorn, which has been a lot of work.


Thursday I went into work with The Eric Lantz, but it turned out they didn't have any work for me. So I took Eric's jeep up to Bourne to look in two areas that have recently been reliable for KING EIDER. I spent about 1.5 hour drive each way, and about 3 hours of scanning the railroad bridge at the Cape Cod Canal, and Scusset Beach for the eider. I waded through what had to have been about 500 COMMON EIDER looking for the semi-rarity, but had no luck.


In the morning on Friday, Eric and I headed off for a full day of birding. We got to the Middleboro Cumberland Farm fields at about noon, and had a very productive bout there. Great looks at a dark-morph ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK, as well as a variety of sparrows including a VESPER'S, and at least 50 HORNED LARK. We then drove up to Nile's Pond in Rockport to check out a huge flock of gulls sitting on the ice. Other birders had reported GLAUCOUS and ICELAND GULLS on the ice. It was quite far, but I was able to deduce an ICELAND GULL in the pack. That night, I met up with John and Matt for some black beans and rice. Then we checked out the Needy Visions, who played at The Milky Way.

Saturday morning, Dan and I went along the south shore looking at the nature. We looked around the marsh on the backside of Wollaston Beach, and the Squaw Rock in Squantum. While it wasn't overly birdy, Saturday was the best weather of my entire visit in MA. We then met up with John and got some Weymouth House of Pizza. John and I met up with Doug and Sherry, and hit up the Soul-Le-Lu-Jah at Zuzu in Cambridge.

Sunday morning, Sherry, Eric and I got some breakfast at McKay's in Quincy Center, and then stopped by BK's house to say hi and hang out with his daughter Diana. Eric and I then went to the north shore to bird. We stopped in Marblehead at Devereaux Beach to look for a KING EIDER, but no luck. I have a new Bogey.

Then we went to the Parker River NWR on Plum Island. SNOWY OWLS have regularly been seen here, as well as a good diversity of alcids. We went to an area that a snowy had been seen earlier in the day, but no luck. We then went to the Hellcat Observation area, where some birders had conglomerated. When we got up to them, a woman asked if I had seen the SNOWY OWL that had just flew down, and I told her I didn't. She said to wait, because it frequently was landing on an osprey platform. We waited awhile, but never encountered it.

Our last stop in the refuge before sundown was the One Ocean. Some COMMON GOLDENEYE flew over, but despite looks out into the choppy ocean for soem time, no other birds were visible. We took the long ride back to Newport, me falling asleep, and had a relaxing night of comedy on t.v. This morning I came with Eric to work, despite being another day off for me.

Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations

Sunday morning Eric and I got up around 5am, got ready, and headed to his (and now my) place of employment at the Ryan Center at the University of Rhode Island. This is the arena that hosts the school's basketball games and other events for students. Eric does the facilities/lighting/etc/maintainence/random/sound/miscellany for the center. I do even more miscellany. My work for the day was from 6-12:30, and included mopping the court, vacuuming, washing windows, and other general looking around to make sure things looked good for the men's basketball team's game again Temple that night. URI lost, in overtime.

After work, I headed back to the Sachuest Point NWR to see if any alcids were around. There were not, but a ton of ducks again. The lighting was very good, and allowed me my first authoritative look of the year at a GREATER SCAUP.

Eric and I had yesterday off, so he took me around to try to twitch some birds out. First on the list were a pair of TUNDRA SWAN in Coventry, RI that had been seen for over a week in a pond behind a restaurant. They were there, but a little far away for amazing inspection, however the field marks were clear. We then went to Apponaug Cove in Warwick, where over the past two weeks, both a GLAUCOUS and ICELAND GULL had been seen. We traveled around the cove, scanning a ton of gulls, but were not able to pull either of these species out.

This morning, Eric and I went to work at about 9am. Eric dropped me off, as he was not planning to start work until about noon. I engaged in miscellany again, including getting metaphorically lost, and left at about 12:30. I went to Trustom Pond NWR after work, and sat at the visitor's center feeder. Every day for the past 4 days, they have seen a RUSTY BLACKBIRD here. It took about a half-hour, but the male finally did made an appearance. I then went down the road to look for ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK in a reliable place for them near Moonstone Beach, but was unsuccessful.

At about 3pm, I drove to Ashaway, RI to try to look at a pair of swans that someone had claimed were a dead-ringer for TRUMPETER SWAN. I drove all around the location they posted seeing them from yesterday, but no swans were present. I then headed back to Eric's house in Newport, and am gearing for another small workday tomorrow.

Blackstone Valley

Thursday morning, I left Dan Kearney's house and headed to South Station. I met up with John and Matt for lunch there, and then walked the HarborWalk north for a couple miles, checking out the birds. I was hoping for a rare gull, but there were very few gull groupings. I did get to see RED-BREASTED MERGANSER, COMMON LOON, and RED-THROATED LOON along the wharfs.


I then took the commuter rail out to Newton, where my mom picked me up. Friday morning, I attempted to locate the SNOW BUNTING that were among the HORNED LARK flocks at the Worcester Airport. The HORNED LARKS were out and about, but no buntings. I was getting concerned at this point that they were becoming a bit of a nemesis bird.

Last night I had my final night in Worcester for awhile, so I had a few drinks with Dick and my mom, and talked the night away. This morning I tried to locate the SNOW BUNTING again. At the airport, there were two birders, seemingly waiting patiently for their target to arrive. There was a flock of 20-30 HORNED LARK in the parking lot, but they weren't too concerned about them. It seemed to me that among the larks were a number of juveniles. It turned out that they were not young'ins, but in fact the lifer SNOW BUNTING I had been looking for.


In the afternoon, Mom and Dick drove me half way to meet up with Eric, and then we headed to Newport, RI. Pretty soon after getting here, I borrowed Eric's Jeep and went to the Sachuest Point NWR about4 miles away from his house. It was mighty cold, but worth it. A good number of ducks, including SURF, WHITE-WINGED, and BLACK SCOTER, as well as RED-BREASTED MERGANSER and HARLEQUIN DUCK. I also got a fly-by of 2 GREAT CORMORANT, and a couple YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER which I thought would be souh at this time. I'm now back at the house, getting ready for my first day of official, above the table work since this big year started.

3A

I borrowed Dick's truck on Monday morning and headed to the Worcester reservoir and airport to look for recently seen SNOW BUNTING, but I had no luck. Dick drove me to the train station, which due to my misremembering the schedule, I almost missed. I went to Boston, then took the Greenbush line for the first time, to head to Weymouth. Kim picked me up there and we had some dinner at the Union Brewhouse. I then hit up trivia with Joe and John.


I stayed over Joe and Bonnie's, and dropped Joe of at Weymouth High for work on Tuesday morning. I borrowed his car for a day of birding the south shore. I stopped at Webb State Park, then the Hingham Shipyard, seeing some of the basic winter birds. At Nantasket Beach, I saw all three scoters, including my lifer BLACK SCOTER.


I then checked out Sandy Beach in Cohassett, and Scituate Harbor at the lighthouse. This was a very productive spot, getting me looks at LONG-TAILED DUCK and on the jetty, a juvenile PURPLE SANDPIPER. Then I trudged through the snow at the North River Audubon Sanctuary, and ran into a groundskeeper who told me about some good birds of the area. As we were talking, my first of the year WHITE-THROATED SPARROW showed up at the feeder. The groundskeeper told me about two SNOW BUNTING that had been seen at the nearby Daniel Webster Audubon Sanctuary feeders that morning. I went to check it out, but had no luck.


After a long day of birding, tallying a nice 39 species, I picked Joe up and we got a few beers. I then met up with Jerry and Alison for dinner, and spent the evening at The Shop chatting and moving some stuff around with Jerry as he was readying for a band coming in later this week.



This morning, after getting a pretty late start, Jerry needed to head to Harvard for work. I tagged along with him, and he dropped me off at Mt. Auburn Cemetery to bird. It was a pretty nice place for birders, but I could see it being more so during migration. One of the groundskeepers here saw me birding, and offered to show me a red morph EASTERN SCREECH-OWL that had been regularly out since Christmas. It was poking its head out when got there, which was nice to see. Jerry and I met up in the afternoon for some Asian fast food, and then we came to Dan Kearney's house for a game of soft basketball horse, which is where I am now.

New Year (but not of listing)

On Tuesday, Rosana and I headed to Jamaica Plain to see Dan, Meg, and Erin's new condo. It was quite nice, as was the veg chili. We had a chance to mess through Dan's record collection, as well as scare a guest away with non-soul music. In the morning, Rosana and I pondered Plum Island, but the temperature was insane. We got breafast at City Feed, and on the walk back to the car, Sam called us in to his WhiteHaus. It was a neat place to check out. We then went to some urban coastal look-outs instead of Plum at Newburyport. Castle Island in South Boston gave us looks at tens of BRANT, many COMMON EIDER, as well as some BUFFLEHEAD, AMERICAN GOLDENEYE, and RING-BILLED GULL. We then checked out Squaw Rock in Quincy and saw much the same. The temperature was devastating here, with wind-chills definitely going below zero.


Wednesday night, Rosana and I headed back to Worcester after some Indian food with Steve, Meg, Joe, and Bonnie. We slept late in preparation for a raucous New Year's Eve. In order to beat the snow, we left Worcester at about 2pm. We had a lot of fun at the Steve/Meg abode in Allston and/or Brighton, as well as at the Sillhouette.

The next morning, after crashing on the couch. Kearney, Steve, Meg, Ryan, Rosana, and I cleaned the house. We then attempted to get breakfast for several hours, with incredibly bad luck. We settled for D+D at almost 2pm. It hit spots, but not all of them. On the drive back to Worcester that afternoon, Rosana and I stopped at the Hanscom Air Field. There were good numbers of SONG SPARROW along the fenceline, as well as lifer AMERICAN TREE SPARROW. I was so preoccupied by these birds, that I failed to fully notice the British passerbys that suggested that our binocs, camera, and demeanor near a naval air base suggested that of terrorists. On the drive by them after birding, it was clear that they were phoning authorities about our presence. I have yet to hear from said authoritites.


On Saturday, Rosana and I were pretty lazy. We did get some packing done, and went for a walk at the Cider Mill up the street. It was still snowing steadily, and it was not very birdy. We did see a good number of AMERICAN CROW fly by, heard a NORTHERN CARDINAL, and at the end of the walk, saw a WINTER WREN. This was my first eastern WINTER WREN, so if the AOU changes its species designation this year, this will be a lifer

Saturday night we went out to see Fantastic Mr. Fox, and had some Thai food. Sunday morning we sadly got our things together to drive Rosana to the Providence airport in the afternoon.