I was awake at 5:30, so got up on a 39ยบ, calm, mostly cloudy morning. The wind is supposed to pick up today. I made coffees then headed out to Nisqually Refuge to join the “Wednesday Walk” birders for a day’s outing. After being on the road and out of my ‘home range’ for several weeks, it is well to be back in the Pacific Northwest.
Several Refuge Volunteers help lead the walk, which begins at 8 a.m. at the Visitors’ Center each week on the Wednesday. Here, volunteer Shep Thorp explains bird identification and behavior to one of the birding participants.
The “usual” track of the walk is through the orchard and out toward the estuary afterward. However, today we worked our way toward the estuary boardwalk, as there was a morning high tide. The flood pushes birds toward the dike and walkway, where we hope to get views of anything unusual, and better counts for the eBird report.
When the tide is out, this area is a mudflat, and the birds can be over ¼ mile away. As it is, we often need spotting scopes for even the “close” birds.
The north end of the boardwalk itself is closed during the waterfowl hunting season. Nisqually Refuge is owned by the federal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and doesn’t allow hunting. However, the adjacent “State marsh” is owned by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, which provides public hunting access. Since the Feds built the estuary boardwalk out to the property boundary, they close the distal 215 meters of the boardwalk for the safety of the Refuge visitors during the three-month hunting season.
The waterfowl take the opportunity to feed in the intertidal zone, away from the hunters.
Great Blue Herons are opportunistic foragers. When the tide is out, we can get good counts of this species feeding on fish and shore crabs in the mudflats. When the tide is in, they move to the fields and freshwater marsh to feed on frogs, salamanders, garter snakes, and field mice (voles).
We returned as the tide ebbed, and birded along the east side of the Twin Barns boardwalk loop, stopping to scope the Nisqually River overlook and checking out the Riparian overlook. Here, a Belted Kingfisher surveys the slough at the Riparian boardwalk for her lunch.
We ended up walking through the orchard in the afternoon. The trees here are venerable, and were part of the old Brown’s Farm before the property was acquired by the Federal Refuge in 1974. The current Refuge management has pretty well neglected this Heritage orchard, with the idea that the trees are not ‘native’. In fact, they have planted ‘native’ firs and spruces amongst the apples and pears, that will quicken the demise of the old fruit trees. It seems that a 100-year-old orchard might qualify under the provisions of the Antiquities Act, but . . . .
Often, bird activity here slows down after the morning ‘rush’, but today we saw several of our ‘target’ species, including great views of a Red-breasted Sapsucker.
The Nisqually Wednesday Bird Walk bunch is pretty friendly, welcoming, and informative. Those attending include novice birders, experts to provide help to the novices, as well as a number of folks with a wide array of natural history expertise and training; sometimes, it’s not just about the birds! And, it’s always about the people. Hope to see you out here one of these Wednesdays.
Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually NWR eBird Checklist is Here
