The wind is up this morning!
I went out to Eagles Pride Golf Course for the monthly
birding walk. This event is sponsored by
the Black Hills Audubon and welcomes birders every third Thursday of the month at 8
a.m. to walk the 3-mile route along the fairways and through the woods.
The golf course is on the Joint Base Lewis-McChord
property, but is open to the public, so no Military ID is yet required to golf,
or to join the birding group. Four of us
joined Denis DeSilvis on a blustery day.
High winds were forecast, but didn’t get too bad… from 9 to 10, we had sustained
winds of around 25 mph with gusts up to 40 mph. We did keep an ‘eagle eye’ on
the trees and falling branches as we worked through the woods.
It was a warm day . . . well, it was in the mid-50° range . . . but we were still surprised to
find a row of blooming bushes along the course boundary.
We puzzled over its identity, until Lauren
saw a nursery tag at the base of one of them, and found they were “Pink Dawn
Viburnum”, an ornamental which blooms from late fall through early spring. The nursery advertisements tout Viburnum ×
bodnantense (V. farreri × V. grandiflorum) as a good plant
for supplying hummingbird nectar, as well as producing red berries in the fall
which are eaten by frugivores. We didn’t
see any hummers today, due to the weather.
The wind kept the birds hunkered down in cover, although
we had a few highlights. One surprise
was the large number of crows – several hundred were flying past, from a roost
somewhere to the east in Fort Lewis. I
presume these are the same crows we saw yesterday passing over Nisqually Wildlife
Refuge, which is only a mile or so to the west.
 |
| Birding Eagles Pride Golf Course |
 |
| Watching for falling branches - and for birds . . . . |
We puzzled over its identity, until Lauren
saw a nursery tag at the base of one of them, and found they were “Pink Dawn
Viburnum”, an ornamental which blooms from late fall through early spring. The nursery advertisements tout Viburnum ×
bodnantense (V. farreri × V. grandiflorum) as a good plant
for supplying hummingbird nectar, as well as producing red berries in the fall
which are eaten by frugivores. We didn’t
see any hummers today, due to the weather. |
| Pink Dawn Viburnum - Viburnum × bodnantense |
The other highlight was when we flushed a Great Horned
Owl from its cover in a large Douglas Fir, and it powered off into the woods
before we could get our binoculars or cameras on it.
With few birds to be seen, my eye wandered to the Western
Thatch Ant mounds. This one was at the
edge of the fir timber near a green. We
saw at least one other that was nearly 4-feet tall! We also noted that several of the mounds had
holes burrowed into their sides by hungry Northern Flickers.
We finished the walk around 11:30, as the clouds broke
and we had a bit of sun.
For more information on the walks held every third Thursday
of the month, contact, or if you have questions, contact David Wienecke at
david.l.wienecke.naf@mail.mil or call his office phone 253-964-0341 |
| Western Thatch Ant mound |
 |
| Eagles Pride Golf Course Club House - White Oaks and Douglas Firs |
The JBLM Eagles Pride GC birders meet the third Thursday of each month at 8:00AM. Starting point is Bldg # 1514, Driving Range Tee, Eagles Pride Golf Course, I-5 Exit 116, Mounts Road Exit. Upcoming walks include the following:
• January 17
• February 21
• March 21
Anyone is welcome to join us!
We ended up with not too bad a morning of birding, seeing 21 species.
The Eagles Pride eBird Checklist is Here
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