Blogs and News from Monika Wieland's Orca Watcher of the San Juan Islands, Washington State.
Last updated on Mon, 21 May 2012
A Warbler, An Owl, and A Starling
Last week I got the chance to take another walk at Three Meadows Marsh, and it's amazing how much the bird life had changed in the few weeks since I was there last. This time, there wasn't a single duck, goose, or grebe in site on the lake. Most of the birds identified were heard rather than seen, with the highlight for me being my first yellow warblers (180) of the year. Other warblers heard were Wilson's, Townsend's, and common yellowthroat. There were cliff, barn, and violet-green swallows about, and both Pacific-slope and olive-sided flycatchers could be heard, as well. A resident of the area also pointed us in the direction of a Cassin's vireo nest in a madrone tree, and we were lucky enough to find it and see the bird on the nest! Unfortunately it was too high up to get a picture. I also got to check on the barred owls with Katie again last week, and when we first got there we couldn't believe our eyes that the nest hole was empty! The owlets seemed to way too young to have fledged already, but where were they? It took me a moment to spot this one sitting ON TOP of the nest hole: We did a little bit of research later, and found out that it's common for barred owl chicks to leave the nest and start crawling around a week or two before they actually start flying. These young owls are called "branchers" because they climb around on branches using their beaks and feet. I can't imagine how this guy was able to climb from the hole up to where he was sitting here, but I guess they can even climb up trees if they fall out of them. I hope the other two chicks weren't too far away, but we didn't see them! Another impressive bird sighting I had this week was actually of a starling. At the end of my street there's a starling who perches in the same tree and sings, and while I know starlings are mimics, this is the most incredible mimicry I've heard. One day he imitated an olive-sided flycatcher, red-tailed hawk, and greater yellowlegs one right after the other. On other days I've also heard his American robin and killdeer impressions. I didn't have the right lens on the camera to get a closer photo of him, but I thought he deserved to have his picture shown, because I'm impressed:
Lots of Spring Walks, Lots of Spring Sightings
Last week Wednesday I got to check on the owlets again with my friend Katie (check out her blog for some awesome owl pics!). It's amazing how much they grew in just one week! We watched them from a distance for about 10 minutes, and the cutest moment was when this little guy stretched, looking more like a slinky toy than a baby owl: On Friday, a walk at the Friday Harbor Labs turned up my first singing olive-sided flycatcher (174) and also a western tanager (175) and another barred owl. A non-avian highlight was this very cooperative butterfly: On Saturday, we spent the afternoon at another friend's house. I enjoyed exploring around her yard, where in an hour I saw/heard about 20 bird species. Here's the view from her back porch: One bird highlight were the pine siskins. They were loooovvvviiinng the thistle seed feeders: But my favorite birds to watch were by far the two pairs of rufous hummingbirds, that showed no fear of me sitting right below the feeders. That allowed for some great photographic opportunities. Here's a male, just landing and holding onto the perch: And here's a female hovering near the feeder, my favorite photo of the week: While watching her feeders, I also saw my first black-headed grosbeak (176) of the year. We then went for a walk, and along her driveway was some striped coralroot ( Corallorhiza striata ), the first time I've seen this particular species of flowering plant that gets its nutrients not through photosynthesis but off fungi in the soil: Nearby was the spotted coralroot ( Corallorhiza maculata ), the species I see more often: On the walk, I heard several Wilson's warblers (177), as well as more olive-sided and Pacific-slope flycatchers, a mourning dove, and a band-tailed pigeon, the latter two being more uncommon species here. Sunday a hike near Roche Harbor gave me a chance to stop by the marina and see the purple martins (178) that are taking advantage of the nest boxes there. Finally, during a walk after work today, I heard my first Swainson's thrush (179) of the year. Meanwhile, Dave 's been ticking away over in the UK, and despite my productive California trip in February sits only 7 species back in our year list competition!
Yellow Island Wildflowers ~ 2012
Yesterday afternoon I got to make a trip to Yellow Island, the 11-acre wildflower mecca that sits in San Juan Channel. It's protected by The Nature Conservancy and open to the public year-round, though the peak visitation coincides with the spring wildflower blooms for which the island is famous. The caretaker of Yellow is my friend and fellow birder, Phil, who had a great idea of bringing several island bloggers to the island together, inviting each of us to blog about our visit in our own unique way. I'll link to Alex 's and Shann's posts here, so make sure to check back; this morning, I learned Phil used the visit as an opportunity to start his own blog, too! You can read his inaugural blog post here . Here are the four bloggers: My first visit to Yellow Island as part of a San Juan Nature Institute field trip in 2009 inspired me to learn more about local plants, and opened up a whole new world of investigation on San Juan Island. Last year I got to go again, and the flowers were in such abundance (the biggest bloom Phil has seen in 13 years!) it took two blog posts to capture the flowers here and here . After arriving on the island, we didn't have to walk too far until we were hip-deep in western buttercups ( Ranunculus occidentalis ) , great camas ( Camassia sp. ), and harsh paintbrush ( Castilleja hispida ). I walked straight to Hummingbird Hill, my favorite part of the island where the three flower species mentioned above grow in abundance in and among each other. It's a popular location with hummingbirds and bumblebees, and I was pretty happy there too! Here are a couple views looking out from the hill: With the exception of the above photos, I spent most of the visit with the macro lens on my camera to take flower close-ups. It was occasionally challenging in the wind, but I'm pretty pleased with some of my results. It turns out taking macro pictures of wildflowers is a great way to get a workout without even realizing it; today I'm sore from all the deep knee bends I must have done to take my 200+ flower photos! Harsh paintbrush ( Castilleja hispida) Meadow death-camas ( Zigadenus venenosus ) Chocolate lily ( Fritillaria biflora ) Some flower species jump right out at you and dominate the landscape, but it's amazing the diversity you can see if you take a closer look. One species that was fairly common but could easily be overlooked is the Pacific sanicle ( Sanicula crassicaulis ), a member of the parsley family. It comes in two color morphs - yellow and maroon. Speaking of color morphs, the camas came in two colors, too! The purplish-blue is the predominant variety, but I saw four plants that had white flowers. Some of my favorite flower species are pretty small, like the broad-leaved starflower ( Trientalis latifolia ): Another one I really like is the tiny small-flowered forget-me-not ( Myosotis stricta ). This whole head of flowers is smaller than a fingernail! Another little flower Phil took the time to point out was naked broomrape ( Orobanche uniflora ) growing in a patch of broad-leaved stonecrop ( Sedum spathulifolium ), one of the species it parasitizes. Broomrape doesn't have any leaves, since instead of generating its own energy through photosynthesis, it taps nutrients from other plants. Field chickweed ( Cerastium arvense ) is a flower I see a lot of on San Juan Island, and we saw some on Yellow, too. One plant I didn't recognize turned out to be another type of chickweed: common chickweed ( Stellaria media ): Remember the tent caterpillars I saw at Three Meadows Marsh a little over a week ago? They're on Yellow, too, and they're getting bigger: There were many members of the pea family in flower, both vetch and pea species. I'm not sure what kind of vetch ( Vicia sp. ) this is, but it was pretty: Phil taught me the difference between the native Sierra-Nevada pea ( Lathyrus nevadensis ), pictured below, and the non-native beach pea ( Lathyrus japonicus ). The best way to tell them apart is by the size of the stipules (pairs of leaf-like appendages at the base of a leaf stalk): beach peas have large stipules, and Sierra-Nevada peas have small ones. One of my favorite photos of the day is of the large-flowered blue-eyed Mary ( Collinsia grandiflora). I like both, but the second one is my favorite: And finally, one more flower picture (I probably could have made this Yellow Island visit two posts, too!). Cow parsnip ( Heracleum maximu ) stands out for its giant leaves, but its cluster of tiny flower is pretty impressive, too: As the wind picked up, we headed to Phil's cabin for some snacks and good conversation. One of the most interesting things that came up was this specimen Phil's neighbor (meaning on a neighboring island!) brought him some fresh seafood, and in his trap was this creature that he believed was a hybrid between a crab and a shrimp. It's certainly not like anything I've ever seen before, and a little searching online didn't turn up anything about it Help me out, readers - do you know anything about this creature?! EDIT: Thanks to blog reader Connie, who identified this as a galatheid crab ( Munida quadrispina ), also known as a squat lobster. According to my helpful book Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest , it's even known for being a nuisance in prawn traps. As always, it was an honor to get to visit Yellow Island - thank you Phil! It was especially nice to do so with some fellow bloggers. I look forward to reading all your posts!
Ts, Hummingbird, and More Wildflowers
I've really been lucking out with the weather lately, as it's been drizzly and gray during the week and beautiful and sunny on the weekends. Today was no exception, and it turned out to be quite a pleasant Sunday. After making and enjoying brunch, I heard there were transient orcas in San Juan Channel just oustide Friday Harbor. We quickly made our way to the UW Labs, where we saw the T18s and T2Cs heading north at a good clip. T19B (left) and another transient orca in San Juan Channel Back at home, a little patience paid off when it came to photographing the hummingbirds at the feeder. Here's my favorite shot of the day, of a female rufous hummingbird: Then, after giving a talk about killer whale acoustics at The Whale Museum's marine naturalist training, it was down to American Camp to enjoy some more of the sunshine. The wildflowers are in full bloom down there, and here are some of my favorite pictures from the hike: Mt. Baker and a field of wildflowers The wildflower meadow at the American Camp redoubt, with buttercup, camas, and death-camas Chocolate lilies Idaho blue-eyed grass English daises I also saw/heard about 20 bird species, including this white-crowned sparrow singing his heart out:
Cady Mountain Hike
Today I got the opportunity to go on a hike led by the San Juan County Land Bank at their Cady Mountain Preserve. This Land Bank property is the site of some of the Garry oak habitat restoration work being done on the island. The goal is to one day have walking trails on the preserve open to the public, but as that is not yet the case this was an awesome opportunity to get to see this Land Bank property. About 15 of us met mid-afternoon for our 2+ mile hike that was mostly off-trail (only primitive work paths exist). The first thing I noticed as we headed up Cady Mountain was the wildflowers. The shooting stars were in full bloom, and in an abundance I haven't seen anywhere else. There were whole meadow patches just full of purple flowers: As I went over my photos, I realized I took way more pictures of the shooting star flowers than I realized, probably because they're one of my favorite wildflowers. Here's a closer look at them: We saw lots of other wildflower species during our hike, including chocolate lily, fawn lily, Calypso orchid, man root, small-flowered blue-eyed Mary, western buttercup, prairie star, spotted coralroot, common monkeyflower, small-flowered forget-me-not, field chickweed, and great camas. Whew! When I started that list, I didn't realize it would be so long, but we saw a lot of flowers! It was interesting to see some of the Garry oak habitat restoration first hand. Garry oak prairie is a habitat that has declined greatly throughout the region, in part because of things like fire suppression that have altered native habitats. Work is being done not only on San Juan Island but in many regional areas to remove the Douglas firs that have encroached on these prairies. On Cady Mountain, there are still many adult Garry oaks that have been buried by the surrounding firs. Here's one that's been "freed". The fence at the bottom of the picture is protecting oak saplings from browsing deer, which are experiencing a population spike on the island. We learned that there are several ways to deal with Douglas firs depending on their size. Small trees are removed entirely. Large trees can be "limbed" - many of their branches are removed to allow more sunlight in to the forest floor. Medium sized trees are "girdled", like this, to prevent nutrients and moisture from traveling through the live outer part of the tree to the rest of the tree: Amazingly, some trees are still alive years after being girdled. How do they do that?! I also learned that simply clear-cutting a fir forest area is not necessarily the best way to bring the native prairie habitat back. If you empty an area of trees, it's the weeds that will take over - blackberry, thistle, etc. If you partially clear an area, that allows the native undergrowth to re-establish itself. The bunch grasses and wildflowers will move back in, instead of having a weed explosion: Some of the oak trees are pretty unique and have been given names. (Speaking of trees with names, as an aside, I recently read the book The Wild Trees , by Richard Preston. If you are at all interested in trees, I highly recommend it. It doesn't read like most non-fiction books in the sense that it's a real page turner. It's focus is on the canopies of the world's tallest trees and the people who study them, particularly coast redwoods. The largest trees are always named, which is what reminded me to recommend this book just now!) This oak tree is called the Octopus Oak: This oak tree was one of the coolest things we saw on our hike: the Erratic Oak. It's a very old oak tree (no longer living) that has in its course of growth straddled a glacial erratic (a rock left behind by the glaciers that receded over 10,000 years ago). One of its largest branches was dated and the oak tree was over 300 years old. We also saw some very impressive, large, old Douglas firs. This one that was cut down wasn't particularly large or old, but check out the size of those annual growth rings!! Of course, it wasn't just about the trees and flowers. We saw lots of other interesting stuff, too, including quite a few morel mushrooms: I saw and heard (mostly heard) over 20 bird species on our hike, including my first house wren (173) of the year. I heard four different warbler species: orange-crowned, yellow-rumped, black-throated gray, and Townsend's. I also heard a pileated woodpecker. In terms of other animals, we saw a tree frog, but as for mammals, it was mostly either scat or bones. There were quite a few deer skeletons around. This skull is from a young male deer. You can tell the gender because of the pedicles on top of the skull, where the antlers attach: Mostly the hike was through the woods, but in a couple of places it opened up to some views. This vista was looking south over San Juan Valley towards Cattle Point: Towards the end of the hike we traversed some private property of people who are working with the Land Bank to restore the landscape of contiguous parcels. Some of these lands may at some point be donated to the Cady Mountain Preserve. Here we were gathered on one of these properties, talking about the work these private land owners had done to restore their 20 acres of former Garry oak prairie habitat through a grant they had received. Notice the bluebird box? This is the same property I visited a year ago to help build a bluebird aviary . The western bluebird is one of many species that would benefit from more oak prairie habitat. Overall, it was fun to see and explore the Cady Mountain Preserve. It never ceases to amaze me that there are always new places on this island to discover! After ten years of visiting and living here, I still see new sights every year!
It IS a Nest!
I got an exciting message from my friend Katie earlier this week. The barred owl we saw in a tree cavity was actually on a nest! We found this owl in March of last year , and suspected it might be a nest, but by the end of April the owl was gone. This year , it was in the same spot again, but we thought it was probably just a roosting hole. Wrong! Katie saw three chicks in the hole earlier this week, and after work today I got to head out and try my luck. (Perhaps last year the nest just wasn't successful?) Things were certainly different. No longer was the mama owl barely peeking out over the edge of the hole. Something was making her much, much higher! I was lucky enough to get a quick glimpse at one of the chicks shortly thereafter - what a gawky little fuzz ball at this stage? (You can see his face in the bottom left - click for a larger view.) My field guide tells me that barred owl chicks fledge about 40-45 days after hatching, so I look forward to going back in a couple weeks and hopefully seeing some much bigger babies! This could be what we have to look forward to (photo by W.H. Majoros):
Three Meadows Marsh
This afternoon I had the chance to visit Three Meadows Marsh, a private wetland area near where a friend lives. On the way, while running an errand, the birding got off to an excellent start with a western kingbird (168) near the Friday Harbor airport. This is only the second time I've seen one on San Juan Island: On the walk from her house towards the marsh, the first bird we saw was this very busy hairy woodpecker. He didn't seem to mind us at all, too focused on the insects in this stump. Later on the walk we saw another pair of hairy woodpeckers, as well as heard a pileated woodpecker and a pair of northern flickers. The woods were full of bird songs, and I heard my first Cassin's vireos (169) and Pacific-slope flycatchers (170) of the season. There were also lots of singing towhees, song sparrows, robins, and wrens. The marsh itself was much bigger than I expected. Most of the winter ducks are gone, although there were a few bufflehead. There isn't a lot of wetland habitat on San Juan Island, so this marsh is one of the few places were some of the ducks we only see in winter might stay to breed - in particular I saw a few pairs of wigeon and ring-necked ducks, species that I generally don't see here in summer. There were also pairs of pied-billed grebes, Canada geese, mallards, wood ducks, and - most excitingly! - a male cinnamon teal. This summer duck is only occasionally seen here. I saw one last year on another small marsh but it didn't stay around for the summer. I wonder if this one had a mate nearby? There weren't a lot of swallows overhead, but I did see four different kinds: tree, violet-green, barn, and my first cliff swallows (171) of the year. Other birds identified while walking around the marsh included common yellowthroat, marsh wren, sora (another great find on the island), white-crowned sparrows, and golden-crowned sparrows. As we headed back into the woods I also heard a few black-throated gray warblers (172), bringing me up to 5 year birds for the day! In total, we saw 40 species on our two hour walk. Before a spring rain shower had us heading back inside, my friend showed me her garden, and pointed out these tent caterpillars. Last year there was a big population boom of western tent caterpillars in the region, and it looks like the same will happen again this year, much to the chagrin of those who don't want their trees defoliated! I've seen the "tents" these caterpillars leave behind in trees often, and I've also seen larger caterpillars, but this is the first time I've seen them at such an early stage:
Earth Day Whales and Birds
It's a beautiful spring weekend here on San Juan Island. Yesterday we participated in the Great Island Clean-Up, picking up trash off a local beach, and then attended a community fundraiser for new sports fields. This morning the plan was to watch playoff hockey, but an alert from a friend about resident whales on the westside changed things in a hurry. I just missed the whales at Land Bank, but while scanning for them I saw my first barn swallows (166) of the year. Someone told me the whales were slowly heading north so I went up to the San Juan County Park. Sure enough, just moments after I got there, J and K Pods started slowly passing by in several big resting groups. They were pretty far offshore, but that was all right. In the flat calm waters it was easy to see them and the sounds of their breathing carried clearly across to where I was sitting on the bank. It's always fun to start seeing the whales again in the spring - I refresh my ID skills, and see how the whales have grown and changed over the winter. I didn't get tons of IDs since they were a ways out, but I did see members from the K12s, K13s, K21 and K40, and from every family group in J-Pod. Here's J28 Polaris and her two-and-a-half year-old calf J46 Star. They were in a little bit closer to shore and foraging while most of the other whales were resting. I watched the whales lazily swim north for almost an hour and a half, and while sitting there was able to do some bird-watching too, seeing or hearing 19 species in that time. The most surprising was a sora (167), which has an unmistakable call, but I'm not sure where exactly it was hanging out as it was not it's preferred habitat! There were also two fishing bald eagles, some very chatty black oystercathers, and several pelagic cormorants in breeding plumage with the white flank patch: It was a beautiful way to spend Earth Day morning!
San Juan Channel: Bird Survey and Branded Sea Lion
Yesterday afternoon we participated in a marine bird survey transect down San Juan Channel. In the fall, a class at the University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs has been conducting surveys down this transect for birds and marine mammals over the last several years, and my friend Phil is interested in establishing a year-round data set following the same transect. Seven volunteers gathered to do the first one yesterday on a drizzly but calm afternoon. While on the water I saw 13 bird species, the vast majority of them rhinoceros auklets. We did one survey going north to south, and one going south to north, and both times the other side of the boat saw WAY more birds than my side in terms of numbers. Still, we counted several hundred rhino auklets in each direction. Some other highlights included almost a hundred common murres, about 20 red-breasted mergansers, and a single long-tailed duck, the latest in the season I've seen one. In terms of marine mammals, we had only one harbor porpoise and one harbor seal within our survey zone, but there were other marine mammals out there. Lots of Steller sea lions were hauled out on Whale Rocks, and this California sea lion was hauled out on the Reid Rock buoy just outside of Friday Harbor: You can't tell in the above photo, but this sea lion is branded with the number 670, and this is the fourth spring in a row he's been hauling out on this same buoy! He was branded in Puget Sound in 2000 as a two or three year old, weighing 235 pounds. He has been seen multiple times on San Miguel Island, California (where he was a territorial male in 2008), as well as at Cascade Head, Oregon, and in the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia. That's a known range of over 1200 miles! Pretty amazing. As a 15 year old (or so) now, he probably weighs 800+ pounds. According to Wikipedia, the average lifespan is about 17 years in the wild. It will be interesting to see how many more years he keeps returning!
April San Juan Sightings
It's been a busy month at work, but on weekends and on nice springtime afternoons I've still made sure to get out and enjoy spring here on San Juan Island. Here are a few photos and sightings from the last two weeks..... Last spring my friend Katie and I found a barred owl roosting in a tree near her house. We thought it might be a nesting site and checked it out earlier in the year this year. No luck, but by early April an owl was again spending its days in the same tree hole. Like last year, only part of its face was visible, but it was still cool to see: Spring migrants have seemingly been slower to arrive here in the rest of the state, but one afternoon out turned up both my first savannah sparrow (161) of the year, and my first sighting of western bluebirds (162). The western bluebird reintroduction project has completed its five years of relocations, but they are still monitoring the local bluebird population. When I saw this male and female, 8 pairs had been known to have returned to the island. There have been some clear nights with impressive stars this month, and one evening I got home just in time to see this impressive moonrise across the bay. The local farmer's market has started up for the summer again, and on the first Saturday it was open I came home with a fresh baked chocolate croissant which I enjoyed while sitting on the front porch in the sun. While I was eating it, I heard a noise nearby, and saw I wasn't the only one eating a late morning snack. This mink was busily foraging, and came up with an eel-like fish. It dropped it, and was here scoping me out before going to retrieve it: Sevearl birding excursions around the island have turned up first-of-the-year sightings for me in San Juan County, though they're birds I added to the year list early with the trip to California. Orange-crowned warblers, osprey, turkey vultures, wood ducks, and common yellowthroat are some of the species that have arrived. As a result, my county year list has surpassed 100 species this month. With my parents up visiting this weekend, I did lots of birding with my dad, and added a few outright year birds as well. The brown-headed cowbirds (163) have arrived, which is not an exciting sighting since they negatively impact so many other bird species. While doing a COASST survey at Fourth of July Beach, I saw my first three northern rough-winged swallows (164) of the season. Then, while stopping to see the alpacas at the alpaca farm, I was surprised to see a chipping sparrow (165) sitting on a fence wire. Also at Fourth of July Beach there was a small flock of shorebirds made up of about 10 black-bellied plovers and 20 dunlin, both of which are always a pleasure to see. Both of them are also starting the transition to summer breeding plumage, and probably won't be around much longer. Here's part of the flock: Across the way looking over the Strait of Juan de Fuca were some impressive clouds, which as I know from my black and white landscape photography week (see last post) can make for some impressive shots. Here's one: Finally, a hike at British Camp turned up lots of singing orange-crowned warblers, a few remaining surf scoters, and this very wet dark-eyed junco that had seemingly just taken a bath: Next up, hopefully some more time outside, and some more regular blog posts again!
San Juan Island In Black and White
My dad and I have been continuing our respective 365 Projects for the year, where we're taking a picture every day. Some weeks we come up with themes, which are great not only to come up with subject matter but are proving to be an inspiration to approach photography in whole new ways. Some of our themes, like "leading lines" and "forgotten" have kept me finding new photographic opportunities long after the week has passed. This week, the theme is "black and white landscapes". I've never really done much black and white photography before, but I've enjoyed trying something new. It's amazing how different a scene has to be to look good in black and white, compared to what looks good for a color landscape. Here are my results of this week thus far (one more day still to go!):
Early Spring Birding
It's strange weather in US this spring: the eastern two-thirds of the country are experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures and, as a result, very early spring migrations. Not so here on the west coast, where winter is hanging on with lots of wind, rain, and even a few sea level snow flurries. The weather over the last few weeks hasn't been too great for getting out a lot. Last weekend I did go out for a walk at the Lime Kiln quarry, where the highlight was seeing my first Hutton's vireo (158) of the year. It was in with a very winter-like mixed flock of chestnut-backed chikadees, ruby- and golden-crowned kinglets, and dark-eyed juncos. There were a couple awesome sightings right off our front porch recently, too. We've seen a river otter a couple of times, and one afternoon it was actively fishing between the two docks. While I was watching, it hopped right up on the dock at the base of our stairs to eat a fish, and didn't seem to mind me being there with the camera at all! The fishing must be good right here, because we've continued to see all three (common, red-breasted, and hooded) merganser species too. This female common merganser caught a dock shrimp right off the houseboat on this rainy afternoon. I love how you can see the serrated teeth: This weekend the weather has finally started to feel spring-like, so I got out for a few hours of birding both days. On Saturday, the highlight was my first San Juan swallows of the year; there were about a dozen tree swallows over Sportsman Lake. I also heard my first county marsh wren of the year there, but I saw both those species in California back in February, so they weren't year birds. While there aren't a lot in the way of spring migrants here just yet, the winter birds are noticeably starting to decline in abundance. The flocks of ducks are much smaller, and I saw only two trumpeter swans yesterday. Saturday I spent most of the time inland because it was pretty windy out, but with a calmer day today I headed to the south end of the island. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon down at Cattle Point. For the first 10 minutes or so the only bird species I saw were a couple of glaucous-winged gulls and a flock of house finches, but after a little over an hour there I had upped that total to more than 25 species. There were still a few surf scoters and horned grebes in Cattle Pass, and I was thrilled to also see my first-ever eared grebe in San Juan County. I also saw a small flock of harlequin ducks and 8 black oystercatchers. An eagle flew over Goose Island, stirring up all the gulls, and then went and perched in this tree. Here it is calling to its mate who was circling high overhead: Another good find was this mourning dove, an uncommon species on San Juan Island. Usually I just see and hear Eurasian collared-doves at this location. As I was walking back towards my car, I heard the unmistakable sound of a rufous hummingbird (year bird 159) doing an aerial display. I hung out long enough to watch it do several big parabolic dives. I only saw a male, but presumably there was a female nearby watching too! Then, while I was looking up immature scoter plummages in my field guide while sitting in the car, a single violet-green swallow (160) flew over! Not bad! I also went for a walk over by South Beach, where it wasn't very birdy, but I did see about five western meadowlarks. It's a weird transitional time right now. There aren't very many birds around numbers-wise, but you can see small numbers of both winter and spring species. Hopefully this nicer weather will continue and some of our other migrants will start showing up soon! Finally, I had to pull over to photograph this very nice looking red fox, still sporting his/her plush winter coat:
The Plot Thickens Surrounding the Death of L112
Christopher Dunagan of the Kitsap Sun interviewed Ken Balcomb after his comment in the San Juan Journal, "Clearly the animal was blown up," referring to the three-year old member of L-Pod, L112. Ken elaborated on his comments, stating he believes she may have died due to a bomb dropped from an aircraft. This is starting to look like a more likely theory than after effects of the sonar exercises, in part because Joe Gaydos of the SeaDoc Society, who conducted the cranial necropsy, said L112 did not swim far after receiving blunt force trauma to the head before she died. Read the full article here .
The Sonar Issue Intensifies
Last month I posted a blog about L112 Sooke , a young Southern Resident killer whale that washed up on a beach on the Washington coast. Initial findings led many to wonder if maybe she was killed by Navy sonar activity in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Since, then the Navy sonar issue has intensified and is getting more and more media attention. An MRI was done on the head of L112, and while results from that test have not been revealed, a cranial necropsy was also conducted at the Friday Harbor Labs. (If you are interested in that kind of thing - it's not for the squeamish - video clips from the cranial necropsy can be seen here .) The scientists involved in the necropsy found trauma in the tissues of the head and evidence of hemorrhaging, though no official cause of death will be released until all tests are completed. Ken Balcomb, director of the Center for Whale Research, had some strong words about the issue in this San Juan Journal article . "It didn't die of disease or starvation. Clearly the the animal was blown up," said Balcomb, who was present for a beaked whale stranding that was also related to military activities. As it is sounding more and more likely Sooke died of trauma related to sonar use, the question is looming: how many of her other family members have met similar fates? While it is not uncommon for members of K and L Pods, who were in the area during the sonar incident, to spend long lengths of time out of the Salish Sea this time of year, none of them have been seen again since Sooke was found. Until they are seen again, we won't know if Sooke was the only casualty. Candace Whiting ponders the same question in this Seattle PI blog . Meanwhile, the Everett Naval Station has been conducting sonar exercises from their dock in Puget Sound, which has also been creating a stir. On multiple occasions the sound has been heard in the air or reverberating through the hulls of ships. While the Navy claims this is a standard procedure, it is being heavily criticized for coinciding with the arrival of the gray whales and occurring right in some of their prime feeding grounds in Puget Sound. With all of these issues in the news, it's somewhat appropriate that there also happens to be a public comment period as the Navy seeks to reauthorize their training ranges in Oregon, Washington, and California. The draft Northwest Training and Testing Environmental Impact Statement can be read here . The proposed actions they hope to undertake are summarized here . For some additional information on how sonar kills whales, as well as some suggested comments, check out the succinct summary posted by Candace Whiting on her blog . I really hope many of you will take some time to learn a little more about this issue and submit your comments before the April 27th deadline. You can submit your comments online here . As is beginning to come to light with Sooke, this is a very real issue that could have some very serious impacts on our local marine mammals, including the endangered Southern Resident killer whales. Military exercises are a necessary event, but they can be done in areas and at time where their impact on cetaceans is limited. They don't need to happen in the Salish Sea, a habitat for so many marine mammal species. Please take a moment to make your voice heard!
Coast Starlight: Northbound
Time always flies when you're having fun, and our California trip was no exception. On the morning of Friday, February 24th it was already time to check out of our hotel, but before we left we took another walk along the bluffs and the beach. There were lots of surfers out, and lots of birds too! I saw a northern mockingbird (151), which I thought might be a "big miss" on the trip. On the rocky part of the beach was a single northern tattler (152), and perched on a wire near a residential neighborhood was a Say's phoebe (153). Right after our walk, the fog moved in really quickly, and the temperature dropped accordingly. Goodbye, warm California weather! It felt like it was happening to make it easier to leave. Because of the chill, we decided not to walk on the beach near the butterfly grove again, instead exploring part of the town of Pismo Beach which we hadn't done yet. The highlight was walking out the Pismo Beach Pier. In addition to getting a different perspective by looking almost straight down on the surfers, there was a lot of wildlife activity just beyond them. Bird-wise, there were brown pelicans, common murres, lots of gulls, and a couple of loons - one of which was close enough to differentiate as a red-throated loon (154). There were also some great mammals to be seen - sea otters, a pair of sea lions, and best of all - a small pod of dolphins!! I first spotted their dorsal fins just beyond the surfers, and they seemed to be surfing themselves. Then two of them jumped in synchrony, completely clearing the water! It was awesome. The volunteer in the information booth on the pier said he'd seen gray whales and porpoises from the pier before but not dolphins. I'm guessing they were probably bottlenose dolphins, but it was hard to tell through the fog. After lunch, we headed inland to drop off the rental car and wait at the train station for our ride back north. Away from the coast, the sun was still shining, and it was warm enough to sit outside on a bench in a T-shirt and read for an hour before the train came. You can be sure I soaked up every ounce of California sunshine I could! Here was the view from my bench: In that hour I also saw/heard an impressive 15 species of birds. Most entertaining were the three kestrels - one female and two males seemingly competing for her. One of them definitely had the upper hand - I actually saw him mating with her twice, but the other male was making quite a racket trying to get in there, too. There was also a very vocal pair of red-shouldered hawks that flew by twice. Spring was most definitely in the air! Our train came, and I enjoyed the last couple of hours of daylight as we started our trek north. As the sun was setting over the hills to our west, this was the scene from the train just before it got dark: That was the last we'd see of the warmth on our trip! When we awoke, it was near Klamath Falls, Oregon, where the temperatures were below freezing, the breeze was blowing, and we saw occasional snow showers. It was still pretty, though. After pulling out of the Klamath Falls train station we passed right along Upper Klamath Lake, where there were eagles, ravens, and lots of scaup, bufflehead, and common mergansers. I also saw a couple of black-billed magpies (155), which I figured would be my last species for the trip. We then headed up into the Siskiyou Mountains where more snowy scenes awaited us. We descended back into the Willamette Valley and just before pulling into Portland, I added one more year bird - a wood duck (156) near Gladstone! We spent the night at my parents' house, and before heading back north to Washington the next day, I also got to see the evening grosbeaks (157) that had returned to their feeders while we were on the trip. Amazingly, from when we left Friday Harbor until we returned, I added an impressive 49 year birds to my total for 2012, including 3 life birds. That was way beyond my expectations! While driving north through Washington we experienced every type of weather - sun, rain, snow, hail, and back again - and when we got on the ferry the sun came out again to welcome us home, even though the temperature was now about 45 degrees colder than in California!
Day Three: Birding and Hiking Around SLO
Day three in Pismo Beach again dawned with blue skies, sunshine, and temperatures reaching the mid to upper 70s. It was another day for birding and hiking, and our first stop in the morning was to the Oceano Campground where a summer tanager has been seen recently. No luck with the tanager, but I did see my first tree swallow (139) of the year, with about a half dozen more to follow later in the day. The other interesting sighting at the campground was an odd trio of geese: a snow goose, a cackling goose, and a greater white-fronted goose, all hanging out together. There were some domestic geese nearby, but I thought it was interesting these three “loners” were hanging out all together: Right across the street from the campground was the county park where we had a brief lunch on day one, and I wanted to go back and take a closer look at the bird life. That turned out to be a very good idea! One of the first birds I saw was an eared grebe (140), a species I tried and failed to get on the year list last year. It also turned out to be one of four grebe species on the same lake – there were also pied-billed grebes, two western grebes, and a single Clark's grebe (141). It was a nice opportunity to make a direct comparison between the western and Clark's – the most obvious distinction between them is whether the white on the face goes over or under the eye (click for larger view): I found another great species in the scrub on the far side of the lake – an adult and an immature black-crowned night-heron (142). I always love seeing this species, and with the birds seemingly having deserted their former roosting site along the Columbia River in Portland, a this species was not a “gimme” this year. Many of the birds from the previous visit were still there: hundreds of gulls (mostly western and California), mallards, Brewer's blackbirds, great-tailed grackles, and hundreds of coot. The coot were everywhere along the central coast, and it's easy to overlook a bird you see in great numbers. But when given a closer look, they're a pretty nice looking species too: Next up we headed south to Oso Flaco Lake, where there's a boardwalk hike that goes through the forest, across the lake, and into the sand dunes that stretch along the coast south of Pismo Beach. Another rare bird had been reported here – a black-and-white warbler – but apparently I used up my twitching luck on the caracara the day before because this one wasn't to be either. There were some other species, however, that haven't quite made it to Washington on their northbound spring migration just yet. I saw a few more tree swallows, lots of yellow-rumped warbles, and my first orange-crowned warbler (143) of the season. There was also a single female American goldfinch (144), a large flock of chestnut-backed chickadees, and another Nuttall's woodpecker hanging out in the deciduous woods at the beginning of the trail. Next, the boardwalk crossed the lake, where the most common species was the ruddy duck (about 75 of them), along with some northern shoveler, coot, gadwall, double-crested cormorants, and the only bufflehead we saw on the trip. We wound our way through the sand dunes next, and I can only imagine what it must look like when all the lupine bushes on this part of the beach are in bloom. It was pretty quiet bird-wise, but we heard something when we stopped to look at a western scrub-jay, and it turned out to be a California thrasher (145)! This was a species we both especially hoped to see after reading about it on an interpretive sign at the Elfin Forest the day before, and with it's sharply down-curved beak it was an impressive bird to look at. In addition to being my 35 th year bird of the trip (!!!) it was also a life bird for me. The trail went over one last dune before going down out of the beach grass and lupine bushes and onto the beach itself. We walked a little in the deep sand, but it was slow and difficult going, and that along with the strong winds had us turning back before too long and back-tracking our way back to the car. As we crossed back over the lake, I paused when I heard an unmistakable sound coming from the reeds. It was a yellow-headed blackbird (146)! I'm confident this was what I heard as nothing else sounds quite like it, but I found out later this is an unusual species to see here, and was likely only stopping over here while migrating further north. From Oso Flaco Lake, we drove inland and up into the rolling green hills to Lopez Lake Recreation Area. The area is popular with campers and fishers, and with all its hiking trails we hoped it would be good for birding, too. The first birds we saw there were also there for the fish – a hundred or more double-crested cormorants, dozens of western grebes, 18 pied-billed grebes (the most I've ever seen in one place), and a pair of osprey (147). There wasn't much in the way of walking trails along the lake, so we started following a trail up into the hills, the muscles in my legs complaining the whole way after the Bishop Peak hike of the day before. As the temperatures reached 80 or so, along with the lack of wind, it was pretty warm for this northwest gal, but in the shade of an oak grove in a valley between two hills it was the perfect temperature. While stopping to enjoy this break from the heat, we spotted the first of several acorn woodpeckers (148), and watched them as they worked acorns into holes in the trunk of the oak trees: Continuing up the hill, we heard a band-tailed pigeon (149) calling, and saw lots of turkey vultures circling the bluff above. They must like to glide on the thermals created around such peaks? There were also a lot of them around Bishop Peak the day before. We came to a lot of broken rock that fell across the trail, and it was cool to see the fossilized remnants of shells on a lot of the pieces – evidence of a very different variety of fauna that inhabited this region in a bygone era: The trail looked like it continued back into the hills and away from the view, so we stopped to take in the vista of Lopez Lake before heading back down to the car: We stopped in the oak grove again on the way back down to take another look at the acorn woodpeckers. While there, I heard a different call that sounded like an off-kilter chickadee. It took a moment to locate the source of the sound: an oak titmouse (150)! My second life bird of the day. Unfortunately they were too far away for pictures, but there were at least three of them up among the upper branches. It was cool to see both acorn woodpeckers and oak titmice in the oak grove, species that are known for associating with that particular tree. By this point, it was late afternoon, and we were warm and thirsty. We headed back to San Luis Obispo where we went to the tasting room at Tap It Brewing and enjoyed their IPA and APA (American Pale Ale) offerings along with a sneak preview of their summer seasonal ale. Then, it was back to the hotel in time to continue happy hour on the deck and take in another spectacular central coast sunset. Life is rough, eh?
Second Day: Elephant Seals, Birds, and Bishop Peak
We decided to drive north on the morning of our second full day in SLO county. We drove straight up to Piedras Blancas Light Station, in part to see the nearby elephant seal colony and in part to look for a crested caracara that had been reported there over the last couple of months. The last report came from the day before, but the birder who reported it said she had to try four times before she was successful, so I wasn't too hopeful. When we pulled up to the light station, there was hardly a bird in sight. I finally spotted something perched way in the distance, and though my brief hopes of it being the caracara were dashed, I was still thrilled to see it was a white-tailed kite (132). We slowly drove back towards the elephant seal colony, and I scanned the hills as we went. I couldn't believe my eyes when right in the middle of a field sat the crested caracara (133). What a find! This is the first time I've seen this species in the United States - I saw them once before in Mexico, where it is far more likely to be encountered. As we sat and watched, the white-tailed kite came over and dive-bombed the caracara a couple of times (click to see a larger view): Next, we stopped at the elephant seal colony. There were lots of males, females, and youngsters, which made for some interesting interactions to watch. Quite a few males were sizing each other up, but only one altercation reached this posturing stage: The largest males were in the middle of the packs of lounging females, with the smaller and younger males around the periphery. Several smaller males in a row tried to pursue this female, who wasn't the least bit interested: All the big male had to do was lift his head and look at the younger males, and they all turned tail and scampered back to the surf. The female rejoined her companions further up on the beach. The males, with their large snouts and enormous size, look otherworldly. Most of them are battle scarred and not all that pretty to look at, but even they can look kinda cute when at rest: Not as cute as the weaner pups, though: The elephant seals weren't the only mammals around. I haven't mentioned some of the other mammals we've seen - while watching the kite and caracara I spotted a coyote running across the hills in the background. While on the train, I saw a jackrabbit. And the ground squirrels are everywhere around here: The elephant seals were the main attraction, but of course I was looking at the birds, too. There were horned grebes, brown pelicans, surf scoters, and black oystercatchers nearby, but the highlight was a brandt's cormorant (134) in breeding plumage. We didn't get too far south of the elephant seal colony when I had to pull over at a viewpoint after seeing a flock of large shorebirds come in to land on the beach. Some of them were whimbrel, but there were also about ten long-billed curlews (135) in the mix. Just before getting back on the road, Keith spotted a hawk in the distance on the other side of the road. It turned out to be a ferruginous hawk (136), only the second time I've ever seen this species. After picking up and eating another picnic lunch, we went for a hike in Los Osos at the Elfin Forest Preserve. The best part of this walk were the overlooks of Morro Bay. The tide was low and the mudflats were FULL of birds - I can only imagine what all I would have seen if I'd had a scope! The birds close enough to ID were still impressive, including lots of green-winged teal, northern shovelers, willets, and American avocets (137). While scanning the flats I also heard my first marsh wren (138) of the year. Next up was a climb to the top of Bishop Peak. We knew it would be a somewhat strenuous hike, and the view from the bottom didn't look too bad: It turned out to be a bit more strenuous than I was anticipating! It was just over two miles more or less straight uphill for a 1500 elevation gain, with the middle stretch more like bouldering than hiking. Add the unaccustomed warm temperatures, and my heart was beating hard and the sweat was pouring. It was also a little disheartening to see some of the local college kids RUNNING up and down the hill for exercise (there were some others huffing and puffing along like me, though). The near 360-degree view from the top was pretty darn impressive, though. Here's a three frame panorama that only captures a fraction of the view - click to see a larger version: Here's Keith taking in the view well over halfway back down: The rum and coke that awaited me at the hotel was well deserved after that excursion! So many great sightings and experiences in two days, but still another full day to go. Next up: more hiking, more exploring, and more birding.
First Day in Pismo Beach
A good night's rest after a somewhat fitful night's sleep on the train made us ready for our first full day in Pismo Beach. While there were lots of places we wanted to check out, the first thing we did was walk along the bluffs in front of our hotel again, as the views and birding were so good the night before. In addition to Eurasian collared doves, which now seem to be everywhere, Brewer's blackbirds, white-crowned sparrows, and a few white-throated swifts, we also found a Bewick's wren (122) and a pair of California towhees (123) right in front of our hotel. The tide was high, so there weren't any shorebirds or much of a beach to walk on, but we did get some closer views of black phoebes. First up for the day was one of the major reasons I wanted to come to Pismo Beach: the monarch butterfly grove. From October through February monarch butterflies overwinter in California, and Pismo Beach has one of the largest congregations at anywhere from 20,000 to over 100,000 a year. Monarch butterflies are remarkable insects, and thanks to arriving just in time to hear the park docent give a talk about them, I finally understand their migration a little bit better. We got to witness several pairs of monarchs mating. They're all breeding now just before they leave their wintering site. From here, these butterflies will move north anywhere west of the Rocky Mountains, from elsewhere in California all the way into Canada. They will lay their eggs, then die. Their offspring, which require milkweed as caterpillars, will grow, mate, and die within 4 to 6 weeks. This will be the same for the following generation as well, all the way through four generations. Then, in the fifth generation, the caterpillars will be born with larger stomachs. They won't mate, but will begin to feel the urge to migrate based on the shortening days. They will eat much more, which is necessary to fuel them for their migration back to the wintering grounds in places like Pismo Beach. This fifth generation will live for 8 or 9 months, and will return to the same site their ancestors five generations ago came from. It's amazing! Equally amazing to the feats they undertake was the experience of standing in a grove of eucalyptus trees with hundreds of butterflies flying around and perching on branches all around you. There were probably several thousand there yesterday, short of the 20,000+ they had during the peak season in December and January. Already some are starting to disperse, and most all of them could be gone in as little as a week. I'm so glad we got here in time to see them! There was a lot of bird activity at the butterfly grove as well (though not to feed on monarchs - the milkweed they eat makes them toxic to birds). The first thing we noticed were several hawks flying overhead and calling. It took a bit to identify them as red-shouldered hawks (124) - not a common sight in the Pacific Northwest but as I'm finding out quite a common sight around here! I've probably seen close to ten already. The best view was a little later in the butterfly grove, where one was perched right out in the open. I would have missed it entirely if it hadn't been calling, and even then it was Keith who found it! There was a lot of warbler activity in the grove, too. They were mostly yellow-rumped warblers, but with a fair number of Townsend's warblers (125) mixed in, too. Then, a woodpecker flew into view. I was about to call it a hairy woodpecker but something made me stop short - it looked different. Luckily I took a closer look - it was a Nuttall's woodpecker (126)! Not only a year bird but a life bird to boot. At the same time I was looking at the woodpecker I saw my first common yellowthroat (127) of the year, but he mostly got ignored in favor of the woodpecker. The grove, part of Pismo Beach State Park, opened up right onto the beach, so we headed out that way. The transition from grove to beach was a beautiful one: A small lagoon right near the path was a foraging spot for a flock of least sandpipers (128). I took my shoes off and left them here while walking on the beach - when I got back the least sandpipers were right near my shoes! They didn't mind at all when I went to put them on; I'm always amazed at how bold they are for being such tiny birds. There were lots of sanderling and a flock of about 20 whimbrel out near the surf line, and a brown pelican (129) flew by, too. The warmth, the bare feet in the sand, the great birding, the thousands of butterflies....I was so happy!! The day was far from over, though. After spending several hours at the grove and on the beach, we picked up some snacks and had a quick picnic lunch at a little county park. There was a lot of duck and gull activity there, and they were clearly used to being fed. Most exciting to me, however, were the great-tailed grackles (130), though it was also nice to find some California gulls (131) in with the ring-billed and westerns. And I couldn't believe how many coot were there! Hundreds, all on land grazing in the field. This big flock must have decided the grazing was better across the street: Why did the coot cross the road? Then, we headed off to do something I have always wanted to do - horseback ride on the beach. Of course, it just reminded me how much I miss being around horses after riding a lot growing up, but it was nice to be back in the saddle again, if only for a short time. The horse I rode was Rooster - Keith was on a furry horse named Stu. It was just us and the guide and was a beautiful ride along the beach and through the dunes. We got back in time to enjoy a glass of California red wine on the porch of the hotel and take in our second stunning sunset of the trip: Next up: our second full day features elephant seals, mountain climbing, and of course, more birds!
Coast Starlight: Southbound
On Sunday afternoon we took off from Union Station in Portland heading south on an Amtrak train along the Coast Starlight route. The first part of the trip traversed territory I'm pretty familiar with, but as we got further south in Willamette Valley we entered more rural country and ended up seeing just about every possible farm animal. The highlight was a newborn sheep that was too young to even stand up yet! We headed through the mountains in the dark, though I could tell there was snow on the ground. I look forward to seeing that section of the trip in the daylight when we head back north. In the morning, I woke up as we pulled out of the Sacramento station. We had breakfast along San Pablo Bay, where there was lots of bird activity. I saw my first year birds of the day - a turkey vulture (111 - they'll be reaching Oregon and Washington soon!) and a western grebe (112). One reason train travel is so fun is because you get to see things you otherwise wouldn't be able to see - the train often travels where roads don't. I've taken the Empire Builder from Portland to Chicago three times, and you get to see a lot of stunning scenery with no roads in sight. On this trip, one thing that stood out as we traveled through several big cities was the human side of things that are often out of sight: homeless camps, trash, and graffiti - everywhere. Not exactly the most pleasant thing to look at (though some of the graffiti is pretty impressive), but interesting nonetheless. After getting through the Bay Area, there were more natural areas to take in, and that meant more birds. Near San Lorenzo I saw a pair of snowy egrets (113), near Morgan Hill I saw a flock of wild turkeys (114), and then as we traveled along the Elk Horn Slough (pictured above) I added willet (115), black-necked stilt (116) and western gull (117). As we continued south, the sun came out and the climate became more arid. Between Salinas and Pasos Robles I saw an immature golden eagle (118) riding the thermals over a cliff. That was the last year bird for the train ride, but I was pretty amazed I added eight year birds while traveling at such speeds! Here are a couple more pictures from the train before we pulled into San Luis Obispo - our stop: When we stepped off the train, the sweatshirts came off, the sunglasses came on, and I could almost feel my body sighing in relief as it soaked up the sun for what felt like the first time in months. It was warm! This is what we came for. And this - the view from our hotel room porch: After settling in, we had time before sunset to go for a walk and explore the trail down to the beach. In half an hour I added three more year birds - black phoebe (119), white-throated swift (120), and a single whimbrel (121) down on the rocks with two pairs of black oystercatchers. The swifts were the biggest surprise, and it took me a moment to identify them. I first detected them by their descending call, which I finally located as coming from up overhead. There was a flock of about fifty of them swarming around, I'm assuming gathering up before roosting for the night. They look like ants in this photo, but it was impressive - you'll have to take my word for it! There were lots of surfers enjoying the last few waves before sunset: And it was a very spectacular sunset! Next up, our first full day at Pismo Beach: butterflies, birds, and horses!
Sightings Update
I had a few sightings I wanted to log here before leaving on the main part of my trip..... Last weekend J-Pod made a trip around San Juan Island, and I got a very distant look at them for my first orca sighting of 2012. While looking for them, I also saw my first Pacific loon (108) of the year. An interesting sighting off the front porch this week was of a nudibranch species I hadn't seen before. My memory of the field guide told me it might be a sea peach - I was close, but when I looked it up it was actually called a sea lemon! (A sea peach is in a different marine invertebrate family entirely). It's a poor picture, but here it is: Yesterday was the first leg of our trip - the drive to Portland. I made a side trip through Fir Island in Skagit County to see the flocks of snow geese (109), and was successful in finding a flock of about 1000! Then this morning, I got to see the impressive flock of 60+ pine siskins (110) that visits my parents' bird feeders. Here's a portion of them: Next up, we're getting on a train and heading south to California! It should bring plenty more sightings to report, and hopefully some better photos than the ones posted here!
The Sad Story of L112
L112 was first seen off Depoe Bay, Oregon in January 2009 during a rare winter Pacific Coast encounter with the Southern Resident Killer Whales. Many calves are born during the winter months, but they often aren't seen until the whales return to inland waters in the spring, so it was exciting to get the news of her birth in what for many orca lovers is a relatively whale-free month in January. L112 Sooke with mom L86 Surprise in 2009, the year Sooke was born L112, later named Sooke through The Whale Museum's orca adoption project , was the second surviving offspring of L86 Surprise. Her brother, L106 Pooka, was four years her senior. The subgroup of L-Pod her matriline belonged to, a group of about 10 whales descended from the late L4 Sonar, is probably the one group of Southern Residents I'm least familiar with. Part of the reason is because it's a group made up entirely of females and juveniles with relatively indistinct saddle patches, so there's no "keystone" whale that makes it easy to identify the group as a whole. Another reason is because they also tend to spend a lot of out in the open ocean, even during the summer months, so they spend much less time in inland waters than most of the other whales. The new little calf Sooke, however, definitely stood out in the summers of 2009 and 2010. L112, the smallest whale in the photo, surrounded by her L-Pod family in 2010 L112 tail slapping in the Strait of Juan de Fuca All calves born to this endangered population of whales are a cause for celebrations, but there was an extra special reason to be thrilled about L112's birth: she was a girl. While the sex ratio of juvenile whales in J-Pod is even, there's a strong male-bias in K and L Pods. As of July 2011, there were 8 juvenile males, 2 juvenile females, and 4 juveniles of unknown gender in L-Pod. Sooke was one of the two females. Sooke also gained some attention in the summer of 2010, when she became one of the first whales to receive two names as the whale naming disagreement between The Whale Museum and the Center for Whale Research came to a head. The Center named her Victoria. One and a half year-old L112 swimming among her immediate family Early in the morning of February 6th, 2012 ear-piercing sonar pings began being heard over the hydrophones on the westside of San Juan Island. It was mid-frequency active sonar being emitted by a Canadian naval ship. A full recap of the incident can be read here . It is not believed any killer whales were in Haro Strait at the time of the incident, though there had been several nighttime recordings over the preceding couple of days indicating Southern Residents had been in the area. L112 (right) with L86 (middle) and L27 Ophelia (left) On February 11th, a 12-foot female orca washed up dead on the shoreline of Long Beach, Washington. As a necropsy was performed the next day, it was confirmed that this whale was L112, and that she had died from massive trauma surrounding the head. It is rare for a killer whale to wash ashore, and even rarer for it to be a Southern Resident. Currently, it is unknown what caused the massive trauma, but the evidence doesn't suggest a vessel strike or predation. You can read Cascadia Research's necropsy report for more details. This has left the whale world wondering if the recent sonar incident might have played a role - cetaceans have shown massive head trauma as a result of sonar before. It's believed she was dead for about three days when she washed up, and it would take about two days for the whales to travel from the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Long Beach, which adds up to the five days that span the sonar incident and when she was found. One thing that's amazing to me in the following photo of her is how big she is compared to the people around her. She looks so small in the pictures above, alongside her adult family members. Distance and size can be hard to judge for us humans on the water where there aren't many reference points - but a three year old killer whale is a pretty darn big animal! As sad as her death is, it does provide a huge opportunity to learn about things like genetics, contaminants, disease. Until the cause of death is determined, however, I'm especially concerned for her family members - hopefully it wasn't the sonar, so they aren't experiencing any adverse affects from it. If it was the sonar, however, hopefully this will become a rallying point to help keep these exercises out of critical whale habitat.
The Lengthening Days: Sunrises of Winter
While there is undoubtedly still some more winter weather between us and the true arrival of spring, it's impossible not to notice the changes that are leading us towards longer days and warmer weather. Last Tuesday afternoon I went for a walk on the docks of Friday Harbor and it was beautiful out - sunny and mild: We "spring ahead" with daylight savings time in about a month, and already it's not fully dark until after 5:30. Similarly, I notice the changes in the mornings, as it's lighter and lighter when I get up each day. One thing that helped get me through the dark winter mornings over the last few months, however, was being able to witness some pretty stunning sunrises right off our front porch. It was amazing how often the day would dawn in a splash of color, only to turn gray and dismal ten minutes later and remain that way until dusk. I've wanted to post a series of sunrise photos for some time, and now that I'll be seeing fewer of them it seemed like an appropriate time to share some sunrise highlights from November-January. The best sunrise of the winter, in my humble opinion, was January 11th. I may have posted this photo once before, but it's worth sharing again: Happy "quickening", everyone!
Leading Lines at English Camp
I've been meaning to mention on my blog that I'm working on a 365 Project this year, where I'm taking a picture every day. While my blog usually focuses on birds, whales, and other things in the natural world, I'm aiming to improve my all-around photography by taking pictures of all sorts of subjects. My dad is also doing a 365 Project, and we're coming up with themes for certain weeks to help inspire us to look at things differently. This week's theme, chosen by my dad, was leading lines - strong lines in a photo's composition that help guide the viewer's eye through the image. (You can see my whole 365 project here , and my dad's here - click on the button that looks like a grid of squares between "previous" and "next" to see a calendar view.) I made leading lines that theme of my photo walk through British Camp this afternoon, and it certainly succeeded in getting me to look at things differently! The walk I've done dozens of times took twice as long as normal as I stopped to take pictures of all sorts of "lines" I've never really noticed before. Here are some of the results: Of course I wasn't just taking pictures of lines - I was also looking at birds! Highlights were hearing a pileated woodpecker (106) and then seeing a Townsend's solitaire (107). The solitaire wasn't only a year bird, but a new species for me in San Juan County! He's pretty camouflaged, but here he is:
To 100 and Beyond: A Great Shorebird Day
After work on Friday, we went for a hike at the Friday Harbor Labs. Down along the shoreline a friend showed us a little spot we hadn't visited before, where under a creek flowing over the edge of a rocky cliff there are some maidenhair ferns, the first time I've ever seen this species of fern on the island. Nearby, there were numerous little orange snails in the seaweed, another sight I haven't ever come across on the island. Looking in my intertidal book it looks like there are several likely options for what it could be, so I won't speculate here as to the species: On our walk back, we heard some strange noises that I thought sounded suspiciously owl-like. Sure enough, a moment later we got a brief glimpse of a barred owl (100), not a bad species to take the one hundredth spot on the year bird list. Yesterday I went down to Fourth of July Beach to do a COASST bird survey, and in the meantime hoped I would also see a shorebird species or two. Did I ever hit the jackpot! There were five shorebird species there: black-bellied plover (101), sanderling (102), dunlin (103), black turnstone (104), and surfbird (105). I saw a small flock of the first three species, then just before I left another larger flock flew in with more plovers, dunlin, and the turnstones and surfbirds. I was even able to get a photo with all five year birds in the same frame! Blue = dunlin, orange = black turnstone, yellow = sanderling, green = surfbird, pink = black-bellied plover This one shows four of them a little better - dunlin on the left with a black turnstone in front, then a surfbird by itself, then a black-bellied plover with another dunlin behind it: I also noticed in my photos that one of the dunlin had a couple of bands on the legs (green and red on the left leg of the left dunlin). I wonder what this bird's story is? Here's a black-bellied plover with a flock of dunlin: On my way home the rain returned, but I couldn't resist pulling over to take a portrait of this guy:
97, 98, 99.....
As we close in on the end of January (already?!), the year list is closing in on 100 species....here's an update..... While walking home one day before the snow melted, in addition to seeing another pair of Anna's hummingbirds, I also saw my first golden-crowned kinglets (94) of the year. Upon getting home, I could also see that the dark-eyed juncos had been very active on my deck all day: While making breakfast on Saturday morning, we spotted a small flock of bushtits (95) out the window - the first time I've ever seen this species from the marina. It was a super windy day, but a report of J-Pod on the west side of San Juan Island inspired me to head out to Lime Kiln Point State Park. I missed the whales, but was greeted by more than a hundred varied thrushes in the parking lot - an amazing sight! There have been a lot of varied thrushes and robins all over the island (more than in past winters, I think), and there has been discussion on the local birding listserv about all the varied thrush activity. Seeing so many in one place on Saturday allowed some photo ops of what can sometimes be a very unapproachable bird: While admiring the thrushes I also spotted a female hairy woodpecker (96). Down along the water's edge there was a lot of wave action. The bird activity was minimal, but I did find some mew gulls and four white-winged scoters (97) riding the surf: The wind continued, but there was more bird activity to be seen at a friend's house in the middle of the island on Sunday. In addition to the juncos, towhees, and purple finches at her feeders we saw a pair of trumpter swans, a pair of bald eagles, and a great blue heron - all from her yard! Then, right before it got dark, three California quail (98) came through, too. There have been some more pretty sunrises lately, and while I had the camera out to photograph one, a flock of geese flew by, allowing for the following snapshot to be taken: While waiting for an appointment in town, I was watching more robins and varied thrushes out the window when I also saw a downy woodpecker (99) in the trees. Nice! Hoping to find bird #100, I made a short excursion out to Sportsman Lake yesterday, and on the way had to stop and see Mona, our resident camel on the island. No #100 yet, but with a week left til the end of the month I'm assuming with a little effort it will happen - maybe this weekend? I wonder what the hundredth species will be? Last year it was the common raven, but that's already on the list this year!
