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

January 14 - Around Town - not really birding

It was another frosty 30° morning with freezing fog.  By 11 a.m., it was obvious that it would be a while before the fog burned off from South Puget Sound.  So, I decided to walk the 2½ miles downtown to do some errands.  The neighborhood Black-tailed deer were out, wishing that all of the apples hadn’t already fallen from the trees.

Black-tail doe Odocoileus hemionus columbianus

The hazelnut catkins provided some color

The catkin is the male flower on this monoecious tree

I was somewhat surprised to find that some of the willows also were developing catkins; it seems a little early for Pussy Willows

Pussy Willow catkins

This wasn’t really a “birding” trip, but I keep track of the birds I see on almost all of my walks, and put them onto eBird Checklists.  On my way down the hill, I saw a number of birds, including a flock of Golden-crowned Sparrows

Golden-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia atricapilla.  Atricapilla means "black-haired" in Latin

As I crossed the Fourth Avenue Bridge,

Ignore the homeless camp below the bridge.  Most of us do...

I noted a Pacific red cedar hosting a half-dozen Great Blue Herons amongst its branches

The grey dots are herons

and a Common Goldeneye diving for his crab lunch

He doesn't seem to like having his picture taken . . .

Gulls are ubiquitous in this town, flying overhead, as well as perching on railings, piers, and rooftops

"Olympic" gull on Bayview Market's roof

The tide was high, and a lot of jellyfish were undulating through the top of the water column.  This moon jelly (Aurelia aurita) was accompanied by a school of three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus)

Hooded Mergansers are commonly seen along the Olympia nearshore

Hooded Merganser hen

I finished my errands and returned home by the same route, enjoying the sun that had burned through the fog for a couple of hours before settling back in later in the afternoon.

Not that bad-looking of a town

There was a drake Goldeneye in the same location where I’d seen him on my way down, and this time he appeared to be more successful

He was luncheoning on a green shore crab Hemigrapsus oregonensis

Some of the Great Blue Herons had dropped from the cedar tree as the tide ebbed

This one landed on the “Rainbow Bridge” which is a railroad bridge built across the estuary back in the day.

The line has since been abandoned, and a few years ago, some of the local artistes took their paintbrushes to the bridge to Perform Random Acts of Art

The paint is beginning to fade on the "Rainbow Bridge"

I walked back up the Garfield Nature Trail to the westside neighborhood, which is somewhat "eclectic."

If Santa Claus didn't come to your house this year, here's the reason

Perhaps, that is why we live here

This Cooper's Hawk made certain I arrived home safely