December 8, 2019 - Black AF Scoter

It was raining lightly and 48º when I got up around 6:45 a.m.  I had been going over my birding records, and just realized that I hadn’t “twitched” a Black Scoter for the year (!).  Now that I’m attempting to “compete” with a few other birders across the country to remain in the eBird “Top Ten” for the number of species seen this year, I need to pick up a few species that I missed.

All right.  I don’t need to see these birds.  But, as long as I’m enjoying Birding as a fun hobby, it would be fun to see the species.  So, I decided this afternoon to drive north to Manchester State Park on the Kitsap Peninsula.  There is usually a moderately large flock of Scoters that winter in the Rich Passage between there and Bainbridge Island, and I should be able to pick out a few Black Scoters from among the numerous Surf Scoters.

I drove up to Hood Canal, making a quick stop at Twanoh State Park to scope the calm water along the park’s 3,200-foot shoreline.  Winter is always a good time to view Barrow’s Goldeneye here.  These birds can be told from the Common Goldeneye by the crescent-shaped, rather than round, patch at the base of the drake’s bill.  The female in mid-winter has a bright yellow bill rather than a mostly-dark one.

Twanoh Creek flows through the park, and gets hundreds or thousands of chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) returning to spawn annually.  The fall run peaks in the stream in mid-November, and at this time of year, there is little to be seen besides the spawned-out carcasses.

Each hen salmon will lay about 2,500-3,000 eggs, which hatch out the following March.  The young fry move toward the salt water within a month of hatching to begin feeding and growing for 3 or 4 years in the Pacific Ocean, when they return to begin the cycle again. 

The sign here cautions people to not walk in the stream and crush the live salmon eggs buried in the gravel. Leaving the park, I made a quick stop in Port Orchard to check out the water birds from Etta Turner Park, and finally arrived at Manchester State Park at 3 p.m. 

The M/V Kaleetan is one of the Washington State Ferries, and can carry up to 144 cars, seen here on the route from Bainbridge Island to Seattle and back.  Having only an hour of good light left, I walked out to the point and scoped the birds in Rich Passage until the “sunlight” faded from the sky.  

The area once called Middle Point, now Manchester State Park, was established in 1900 as a satellite to Fort Ward which is located on Bainbridge Island across Rich Passage. It was created to protect the Bremerton shipyards by operating a minefield in Rich Passage.

The U.S. Navy operated Middle Point until 1958, when it was decommissioned.  A number of gun emplacements were planned throughout Puget Sound to protect the fleets and shipping from our several enemies.  Spanish.  Imperial Russian.  Japanese.  Take your pick.  Gun Battery Mitchell remains, having never been fitted for the 3-inch rapid fire rifles at the center of its design.  In fact, the guns were never delivered.

Most of the Scoters were on the Fort Ward side . . . ‘way too far off for photos.  But after staring through the spotting scope at the little black specks on the other side of the Passage, I finally got views of a couple Black Scoter drakes, with little orange knobs at the base of their bills, and a female with a pale ‘cheek patch’.  You’ll have to take my word for it . . .

It was a crappy view, but was the 608^th species I’ve seen this year.

Skokomish Delta eBird Checklist is Here

Twanoh State Park eBird Checklist is Here

Etta Turner Park eBird Checklist is Here

Manchester State Park eBird Checklist is Here

 

 

December 10 - Woodard Bay Preserve

I drove out to Woodard Bay Preserve to see if I could find the Long-tailed Duck that Kyle Leader saw there last Friday.  The State acquired the property in 1987 and the Legislature designated it as a Natural Resources Conservation Area, administered by the Washington Dept. of Natural Resources, after the Weyerhaeuser Company closed its South Bay Log Dump facility.  I got there just as a light rain shower started, but it finished pretty quickly, and is just another reminder that in the Pacific Northwest: If you don’t recreate in the rain, you don’t recreate!

Woodard Bay in the rain . . .

I walked the ¾ mile walk down Witham Road, which is the trail along the paved, but abandoned, roadbed that goes out to the old WeyCo log dump.

The creosote-laden remnants of the piers and pilings provide habitat for important wildlife species like bats, seals, herons and cormorants.  However, these structures also obstruct important nearshore processes and contribute to the degradation of water quality. The DNR did a study, after which it removed 2100 tons of creosoted-material including the Woodard Bay railroad trestle, half of the Chapman Bay trestle, 600 anchor pilings from Henderson Inlet, and 12,000 cubic yards of fill from Woodard Bay.

Chapman Bay Trestle - There are thousands of bats here in the summer!

Half of the old trestle was left, as it is Washington State’s largest known bat colony, hosting over 3,000 Yuma and Little Brown Bats.  They also left a number of pilings where Harbor Seals haul out on the old log booms, making it one of the most important seal haul-outs in south Puget Sound.  There were about 4 dozen seals hauled out while I was there, and quite a few others in the water.

Log Boom with Harbor Seals and Double-crested Cormorants

There were also over 150 cormorants at the log booms, a few hundred ducks and grebes in the water, but I didn’t find the Long-tailed Duck.

Barrow's Goldeneye hen giving me the stink-eye

I returned along the Loop Trail, which was fairly quiet bird-wise, although there were lots of Pacific Wrens in the forest.

Licorice Ferns on Bigleaf Maple

 I ended up paying more attention to the mushrooms.

Witches' Butter

The Witches’ Butter (Tremella mesenterica or Dacrymyces palmatus?), is a Basidiomycete “jelly fungus”.  Back in my younger days, I used to add this, raw, to my salads for a bit of rubbery texture and for its color.  I’ve since read that you shouldn’t eat this raw, but I’d never heard of anyone having issues.  Of course: People are poisoned every year by eating wild mushrooms, often from eating a poisonous species that resembles an edible species. Although deaths are rare, there is no cure short of a liver transplant for severe poisoning!  Do not eat any mushroom unless you are absolutely certain of its identity! Do not trust my identification of Witch’s butter – be sure to cross reference my information with minimum two, preferably three other credible sources.

I was taken by these little white-and-black fungi growing from some decomposing wood.  This is an ascomycete: Xylaria hypoxylon, commonly called the Candlesnuff Fungus, appears throughout the year but is particularly noticeable during late autumn and winter. This ubiquitous little rotter is one of the pyromycetes or flask fungi and one of the last fungi to attack rotting wood.

Candlesnuff Fungus

Pat O’Reilley at First-Nature notes that “… while physically it seems to suggest a relevant physical comparison, the common name Candlesnuff Fungus is something of an enigma. It suggests something that once emitted light but no longer does so; however, in reality it is a bioluminescent fungus, and in a really dark place it can be seen to emit light continually as phosphorus accumulated within the mycelium reacts with oxygen and other chemicals in the fungus. Unfortunately the amount of light from this and most other bioluminescent fungi is very weak indeed, and to see it clearly you need either an image intensifier (such as those built in to night sights used by soldiers and spies) or to take a long-exposure photograph in a totally dark room."

I have no idea what these ‘shrooms are, but they looked photogenic

Random white mushrooms - Give me a holler if you know what they are

As I completed my walk, the sun came out and illuminated the Bay.  A fitting end to a late autumn excursion

Woodard Bay in the late afternoon sun

Woodard Bay Preserve eBird checklist here