January 30 - Nisqually Refuge

I got up with the alarm at 5:45 this morning, and went out to Nisqually Refuge for the weekly bird walk.   The skies were clear, but temperatures were just at freezing, and frost highlighted the day.

This eagle posed with its wings extended to receive the warming rays of the rising sun

The standard route took us through the heritage orchard, where the group had good views of the resident Red-breasted Sapsucker.

Birders getting "Sapsucker Neck"

Richard "Digiscoping" the sapsucker

I don’t know if frosty weather causes the grasses to put more sugars or proteins into their leaves, but the Golden-crowned Sparrow flock spent quite a while grazing on the roadside grasses.

Grazing Golden-crowned Sparrow

After leaving the orchard, the path leads around a service road, then out along the west side of the boardwalk loop toward the Twin Barns.  Here, we watched a Song Sparrow doing a great imitation of a Nuthatch!

This is just such an odd posture for a Song Sparrow

These conks growing on a willow trunk caught my eye.  This appears to be a species of Polypore Phellinus igniarius.

"Willow Bracket" Phellinus igniarius

The fungus causes a condition known as “white rot” which causes the wood to decay.  Woodpeckers know that these trees will have softer wood in which to burrow nesting holes, or might have subsequent infestations of ants or beetle larvae.

After a snack stop at the Barns, we ventured out onto the north dike, separating the estuary marsh from the remaining freshwater marsh and fields.  Here we have good views of the usual herons and waterfowl

Obligatory Great Blue Heron photo

This Green-winged Teal pair must be going to the Baths to get the mud off their bellies

Northern Pintail drake

Northern Pintail hen

At the base of the estuary boardwalk, we saw a Song Sparrow that was from one of the lighter-plumaged populations.

Shep eBirded it as M.m. montana/merrilli, but we will submit the observation to the Washington Bird Records Committee folks.  It is certainly from a different subspecies than the usual west coast birds, which are more chocolate-colored.

As we went out onto the estuary boardwalk, the fog rolled in

How do you see birds in this?

The fog lifted here and there to reveal birds and seals

But, then it would roll back in.

We did get good views of gulls, waterfowl, and shorebirds

"Olympic Gull" - Glaucous-winged X Western gull

Adult Ring-billed Gull

Eurasian Wigeon drake and an American Wigeon hen

Least Sandpiper - the world's smallest sandpiper

With the high tide, I heard a Refuge visitor say something along the lines of “look at the scum”, presuming that he was seeing a polluted body of water.

Diatoms, not "scum"

In fact, the floating brown ‘scum’ is an accumulation of diatoms, which are single-celled algae which have a cell wall of silica.  These algae blooms provide the primary food base for many of the ‘higher’ animals on the mud flats.

Participants on the walk tend to drop out or move ahead of the volunteer trip leaders, but we had about 8 of the two dozen continue to the Nisqually River overlook,

and back to the Visitors’ Center where we began.

On the way back, we saw a "White Collar" Robin . . .

As we were tallying the day’s sightings, we noticed a Red-eared Slider sunning itself along the pond bank.  These have to be tough critters to be out on a January day that barely made it into the 40s.

Red-eared Slider, Trachemys scripta, is a non-native exotic species

The End

 Nisqually eBird Checklist is Here