January 31 - Samish Flats

This morning, I drove to Mount Vernon, as Marty had work at the USDA office on College Way, and left for the afternoon to go birding on the Samish Flats.

There have been sporadic reports of a Snowy Owl and a Gyrfalcon in the area, so I would look at each raptor on the utility poles, but saw only Red-tailed and Rough-legged Hawks, Peregrines and Kestrels.  And Eagles!  There are a lot of Bald Eagles in the area.

I stopped to scan a few of the Trumpeter Swan flocks, attempting to find some Tundra Swans mixed in, but didn’t find any.

I drove past the “East 90” eBird site on Bayview-Edison Road, and saw there were a couple of photographers out in the WDFW area.

So, I stopped and scoped the fields from the road and saw a Short-eared Owl perched about 50 yards beyond one of the ‘shutterbugs’.

Yes, that's an Owl!

So, I walked out, passing a flock of White-crowned Sparrows and a few Marsh Wrens.  I spent about an hour there, watching not one but two owls coursing across the fields.

There were a couple of Peregrines, as well as the ubiquitous Bald Eagles.

Trees full of Bald Eagles

Finally, I drove over through Edison, a charming little berg along the south side of Samish Bay,

then over to the mouth of the Samish River.  I hadn’t been here for thirty years, and the place was a little more time-worn than I’d remembered.

Samish River mouth

There were a few ‘fixer-uppers’ below the bridge,

A boat is a hole in the water, that you just pour money through . . .

a few heron and swans,

and – of course – views of the ubiquitous Bald Eagles.

"Ubiquitous" means they are everywhere!

I left the flats when I figured that I wouldn’t find any more bird species, but I was wrong:

Jungle Fowl

Then, I headed back to Mount Vernon, arriving at 4 p.m., and waited until Marty was finished with her work at 4:30, then we checked into the Hampton Inn in Burlington, and went to supper at the Sakura restaurant across the parking lot from the motel.  Not a bad supper…

Trumpeter Swan Field eBird Checklist is Here

East 90 eBird Checklist is Here

Samish River mouth eBird Checklist is Here

January 15 - Hawks Prairie Settling Ponds

This afternoon, I drove out to the Hawks Prairie Settling Ponds.

Mount Rainier with its head in the clouds

At this 40 acre site, operated by the LOTT (Lacey-Olympia-Tumwater-Thurston County) Clean Water Alliance on Hogum Bay Road in Lacey, Class A Reclaimed Water circulates through a series of five constructed wetland ponds.

Gadwalls and a Ring-necked Duck

Water from the ponds then flows to rectangular groundwater recharge basins.  From there, the water infiltrates through the soils to replenish groundwater.  The site is open to the public and features walking trails, viewing benches, wildlife, native plantings, and kiosks with information about reclaimed water.

The north side of the site used to be an open field, with grasses and some Scotch Broom, and bordered by second-growth Douglas fir woods.  Then, a year ago, there began construction and development of the properties to the north of the LOTT facility.

Construction in January 2018

Now, the north ponds butt up against a road and stark walls of warehouses.

January 2019

The many acres of industrial buildings will likely provide an increased tax base for the City of Lacey, but is part of the on-going loss of open space and wildlife habitat in south Puget Sound.

These forty acres at the settling ponds are a bit louder now with the current construction, and increased semi-trailer traffic, but still provide an oasis for wildlife and the public.  Because the water comes into the facility with quite a bit of nutrient load, there is good growth of aquatic plants.  This time of year, the American Wigeon and Gadwalls feed extensively on the duckweed growing at the ponds’ surfaces.

It's called "Duckweed" for a reason . . . .

The LOTT folks have planted the site with “native plants”.  The original prairie soils at the site may not be the most appropriate for Sitka Spruce, which tend to thrive along the alluvial and wetland soils of riparian sites.

Sitka Spruce needles and cones

Growing on less than optimal sites result in the trees becoming stressed during the dry season and such.  And, the stressed trees are consequently more susceptible to being impacted by diseases and insects.

These are NOT cones . . .

These “cones” are actually the galls of the Cooley spruce gall adelgid, Adelges cooleyi.  These “woolly aphids” are a small family (Adelgidae) of true bugs (Hemiptera) closely related to the aphids. Overwintering females on spruce lay eggs near developing buds. Nymphs hatch as bud caps split. Nymphs feed at the base of developing buds in spring producing cone-like galls on the tips of blue spruce branches. Galls open in mid-summer. Emerging adelgids either continue to live on spruce or fly to Douglas-fir to lay eggs. On Douglas-fir they may continue to live or produce a generation that flies back to spruce to produce the gall-forming stage. On Douglas-fir, feeding on needles by nymphs produces yellow spots and curled needles but no galls.

The Douglas firs here provide perches for many birds, including Bald Eagles,

Adult Bald Eagle

who would enjoy lunching on waterfowl

Green-winged Teal drake

However, many of the firs around here have either died, or have dead tops, likely a result of the Laminated Root Rot caused by the fungal pathogen Phellinus weirii.  Laminated root rot is one of the most damaging root diseases amongst conifers in northwestern America.

Stress kills . . .

The conifers are not the only trees here impacted by bugs and disease.  The Pacific madrona is native along the coast from British Columbia to California.

Young madrona - the Canadians call them "Arbutus"

Many of the madronas here have a leaf blight, consisting of brown, desiccated leaves occurring mainly in the lower canopy.

Madrona Foliar Blight - the ugly brown spots

This foliar blight has been observed on Pacific Madrona throughout its range and generally occurs during periods of wet spring weather.  In May 2009 and 2011 severe outbreaks occurred in western Washington and Oregon.  A fungus was isolated from blighted foliage, leaf spots on emerging foliage, lesions on green shoots, and from the petiole and leaf blade of dead, attached leaves.  The fungus was identical to the type isolate of Phacidiopycnis washingtonensis, which has been reported to cause rots of stored apple and persimmon fruit and cankers and twig dieback of apple and crabapple trees, but had not been reported on other plant species.

Leaf miners write in their own language

The ‘ghost scrawl’ on some of these leaves is caused by the Serpentine madrona miner (Marmara arbutiella), which is a tiny species of moth.  Larvae of this leaf- and twig-mining moth blaze sinuous, serpentine mines across the surface of leaves. Although damage might be unsightly on individual leaves, they do not usually affect the long-term health of the tree. This moth affects madrona throughout its range.

But, all was not disease and infestation, and I enjoyed seeing the usual birds, including this Song Sparrow

Song Sparrow on Common Cattail head

and a flock of Bushtits

Female Bushtits have yellow eyes,

and the males have dark eyes

Hawks Prairie SP eBird Checklist is Here

December 26 - Shut Down - But Not Shut Out

Every Wednesday at 8 a.m., Refuge Volunteers lead a bird walk at Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.  I arrived at the Refuge a little before Eight, only to find the gate locked, and I thought that perhaps the notice that the NWR would remain open to the public was incorrect.

But, the gate is on a timer, set to open at “Sunrise”, which was 7:58 a.m. today at this latitude, and it swung open for us right on time. 

With Ol’ Orange-Hair throwing his tantrum and having shut down the 25% of the Government that was not yet funded, the staff at the Refuge were busy ‘mothballing’ the place, locking offices, securing equipment, and posting signage to inform the American Public who don’t deserve this Political Travesty.  What a bunch of ....

In all, 16 folks joined the walk this morning, all pretty happy to be birding, and we set off in a light rain to see what could be seen.

The rain kept a lot of the passerines under cover, which somewhat diminished our species list, but the rain let up a bit later in the morning.  Trying to see wet woodpeckers against wet tree trunks and limbs is always challenging

Wet Red-breasted Sapsucker

Wet Downy Woodpecker

But the waterfowl don’t mind a little rain.  We had a pair of Snow Geese fly in

 

All-white Adult Snow Goose - showing the dark "grin patch" on its pink bill

The immature Snow Goose has a lot of gray in its plumage

and a few dozen Canadas

Big Honkers

mixed in with the Cackling geese and dabbling ducks

Hen Northern Pintails 
Great Blue Herons seem likewise dismissive of precipitation

The wealth of wintering waterfowl, combined with the run of Winter Chum Salmon in the Nisqually River, draw a lot of Bald Eagles to the place.  We didn’t see quite as many as last week, but it’s still nice to stand in one spot and see over two dozen eagles!

Immature Bald Eagle

A 15.61-foot high tide at 8:52 a.m. was ebbing toward a +6.56-foot low water at 2:51 p.m., so the die-hards amongst us continued out on the Estuary Boardwalk during high water, but it was a mud flat when we came back.

The mid-high tide affords pretty good views of gulls and shorebirds,

This "Olympic Gull" is lunching on a piece of Starry Flounder

Western Sandpipers are fairly uncommon here in the Winter

But they often come in close to the boardwalk

The Least Sandpiper is the World's Smallest Shorebird - and has yellow legs

as areas to perch are limited at this water level.

Glaucous-winged Gull watching the River Run By . . .

On the way back to the Visitors’ Center, the skies opened yet again.  We ‘dipped’ on seeing the Great Horned Owl, as well as several other expected birds, like Fox Sparrows, etc., but the worst day birding is better than the best day working.  I hope to see you at the Refuge one of these Wednesdays.

Nisqually eBird Checklist is Here