Month: May 2024

A Sunny Spring Day on the Coast

We hadn’t been home from Arizona very long before an unexpected sunny forecast at the coast inspired us to head out to Ocean Shores to see if the Spring Shorebird Migration had started and to see if there were any Loons still overwintering.  

Unfortunately, when we got to the spit we were greeted by heavy winds that made it difficult to open the car door.  In my heart I knew that we wouldn’t see any shorebirds on the beach with those kind of headwinds, but I didn’t drive two hours to sit in the car and watch waves break on the rocks.

We only walked about half as far as usual, and I can’t say we really enjoyed the walk, but I did like this shot of a large fishing boat appearing and disappearing behind the surf.


The only birds we ended up seeing were Gulls, and most of them were flying so fast that I couldn’t possibly get a shot of them.  So, I settled for this shot of one preening.


Though we were disappointed at not seeing any shorebirds, I was glad to see a Common Loon in breeding colors at the Westport Marina 


and it wasn’t shy about posing for us.


While taking pictures of the Loon, this bird popped up next to me.  I’m a little ashamed to admit that I didn’t recognize it at first and got distracted to taking shots of it instead of the Loon. 

I should have known from the bill that it was a female Surf Scoter, but the male Surf Scoter is so distinctive with its brightly-colored beak that I never really pay much attention to nearby females.

We finally got to see some large shorebirds at Tokeland.  A small flock of Marbled Godwits was feeding along with a couple of Willet.


Despite the high winds and too few shorebirds, it was a Good Day.  Having lived in Aberdeen for most of a year, I know that any sunny day one the Washington coast is a good day, one to be thankful for.  

I Call This Home

As much as I enjoyed our trip to Fresno and Arizona, I was looking forward to returning to Theler Wetlands and Port Orchard to see how things had changed in two weeks.  After experiencing near 80° degrees in Arizona, we weren’t quite ready for the cool, foggy weather at Theler.  

We were greeted by hundreds of huge spiderwebs,

the kind you expect to see in the Fall, not on March 31st.

The fog was so thick that even this brightly-colored male Green-Winged Teal appeared a dull gray.


I wasn’t truly convinced it was Spring until I spotted several Skunk Cabbage blossoms in the wetlands leading out to the boardwalk, one of the earliest native flowers to bloom in Spring.


The bold little Marsh Wren on the boardwalk rail certainly seemed to think it was time to Spring into action.


I suspect his bright song helped to dispel the fog that shrouded the first half of our 3 mile walk because by the time we were walking back to our car this male Green-Wing Teal looked a lot brighter in the sunshine.


It’s a real treat to vacation in California or Arizona after months of gray skies or days of drizzle, but a week or two on the road is about all I want.  Theler Wetlands strictly speaking isn’t home but it definitely feels like home, and home is a great place to be, no matter what the weather.  

Finally, an American Avocet

Although it was fun to see the deep pond that you can’t visit most of the year, my favorite part of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge is still the winter auto tour, even after thousands of geese have left the refuge. The first few times I visited the refuge, I thought that the main ponds were lakes, but over the years seeing the ponds when they’re drained reveal that they’re more like a wetlands than a lake.  That makes them good habitat for long-legged wading birds, and those are some of my favorite birds.

Through the camera lens, White-faced Ibis appear to be large birds with really long legs and the water they’re wading in seems deeper than it really is,


but when you see an Ibis next to a duck, though, you realize that they’re legs really aren’t that long and that’s why the frequent wetlands.


  Wetlands are also an ideal place to see Egrets, like this Great Egret

even if it is not actually wading.

Most of all, though, American Avocets also favor these wetlands, and Avocets are my favorite long-legged wading birds.


So, even though we only saw four Avocets the whole day, seeing our first Avocets of the season still made my day.

Where Did We Leave Off


Although we had stopped at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge on our way to Arizona a week and a half before, I didn’t want to drive by without seeing if there were any new birds there, particularly American Avocets. It didn’t take long to see animals we hadn’t seen on earlier visits.  We had just started the tour when Leslie captured this shot of a rabbit on her side of the car


while I was taking this shot on the other side of the car.


On our previous visit we only saw small flocks of Snow Geese and assumed that they had started migrating North, but we saw hundreds of geese fly overhead on this visit.


A large section of the refuge that had been flooded the week before had been drained, and visitors were diverted to a large pond that had been gated in previous visits.  We were thrilled to see Clark’s Grebes performing mating dances, even if they were too far away to get good pictures.


We were also excited by our first sighting of the year of a male Ruddy Duck in breeding colors. 

I love that bright blue bill and upright tail.

Although there were several birds we hadn’t seen our recent trip, there were also lots of birds that we have seen on recent visits, like this pair of Northern Shovelers.


Part of the joy of places like the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge is that you never know exactly what you will see on a particular visit. When we’ve circled the reservation twice in a row in the past, we were often surprised by not seeing birds we had seen an hour before as well as by seeing birds we hadn’t seen on the previous round.