jespah@milton.u.washington.edu (Kathleen Hunt) (02/25/91)
Last weekend I went on a trip to Friday Harbor, on San Juan Island in the
middle of Puget Sound (near Seattle, Washington, in the house that Jack built).
I went with a friend ("Katie" for future reference) who is studying sandpiper
migration and wanted to check out the mud flats and see who's around.
I've only recently moved to Seattle from Boston -- so most birds are new birds!
We stopped Skagit Flats on the way up. It's a big wet lowland where the
Skagit River opens into the Sound, and is technically an island (Fir Island).
Lots of flooding there this year. Dikes bursting, etc. It's really
lovely -- you walk on gravel paths on top of the dikes, and you can
see all the way out across the swamps and mud flats to the distant water,
and in the ditches nearby are lots of scrubby brush for all those dickeybirds.
Anyway. Saw a Pintail paddling around -- nice distinctive white neck.
A gorgeous Northern Harrier went by, slow and low, wheeling around slowly
looking for prey. The belly and the underside of the wings were all cinnamon,
so must've been an immature. There was also a female Gadwall
turning in little circles in a pond, a coupla Mallards, and in the distance
huge flocks of Snow Geese. Last year when I went there (my first visit to
Seattle), there were a zillion red-winged blackbirds, who very helpfully
gave alarm calls every time they saw a hawk, so I saw a lot of hawks that
day! But no RWB's this time.
There was one nice Song Sparrow chirping away. It was so red! (compared to
the eastern song sparrows that I'm more familiar with) I heard Golden-crowned
Kinglets and Black-capped Chickadees but didn't see any, and there were a
handful of "Oregon" Juncos darting around flicking their outer white tail
feathers. The "Oregon" Junco is really quite dashing with its clean black
cap and chestnut sides, though I'm still quite fond of the lovely dove-grey
of the eastern Juncos.
Heard a lot of American Robins giving their distinctive clucking, laughing
call. I've seen fledglings in captivity give this call when they're in some
sort of skirmish with another robin, so I've always called it the "annoyed
robin call" but I don't really know what adults use it for or what it means.
So, we left Skagit Flats and headed north for the ferry to the San Juan
Islands. Saw a lovely Red-tailed Hawk swoop in and perch in a big tree
by the side of the road. I'm trying to keep myself from that "ho hum,
another red-tail" mode because actually they are quite dramatic birds.
I should have been out with my binocs on the ferry, but one of my friends
pulled out a big bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa, so we just stayed
on the lower levels and ate. Hey, I've got my priorities straight! Food
above all else! :-)
Next day, we headed out to False Bay (on San Juan Island) to look for
sandpipers. My friend Katie and I were scouring the distant mudflats for
shorebirds when our travelling companion (Susie) said "you know there's a Bald
Eagle right in front of you?" It was sitting right there on a rock on the
beach about 20 yards away, so close that we'd been looking right over it!
A beautiful adult, blazing white head and tail, with its head feathers sort
of ruffed out in that ragged "tough-guy" look. After a while
it took off rather heavily and flapped its way to a large tree across a
field. I was surprised at how slim it looked in flight.
There were some Dunlins on the bay, a flock of about 200. Katie id'd them
from an astonishing distance, by the site they had chosen to feed: right
in the water, a foot or two from the water's edge. As we got closer she said
she thought she saw a Killdeer and two other non-Dunlins in the flock. All
I could see was a flock of possible sandpipers! We thought of trying to net
them and band them, but the tide was so low that the Dunlin flock was exploring
a wide area of mud flats, and it was totally impossible to get them to fly into
the net. Spent a lot of time walking back and forth across the mud, with me
taking long detours around those tiny low-tide creeklets because my boots were
too short.... Tons of Mew Gulls around. It was the first I'd seen them -- I
kept thinking, hmm, what are those ring-billed-like gulls, but with no ring,
and with a darker grey on the wings, and with a different voice? They were
making all sorts of odd sounds and a lot of them were doing the "Mud Flat
Stomp", one of my favorite behaviors. (First you hear a "patter patter
patter", and when you look around you see a gull dancing on the mud, shuffling
from one foot to the other very fast, its body almost stationary. Every now
and then it gobbles something up. Apparently the foot-drumming scares the
little crawlies to the surface of the mud somehow. This behavior has been
reported for a number of invertebrate feeders, including turtles.) There was
one gull trying the old "get a clam, then fly up in the air and drop it"
trick, but unfortunately it was dropping it on the mud, so of COURSE the
clam wasn't breaking. (This was one of Tinbergen's examples of a lack
of insight in apparently "intelligent" behavior.) Lots of the gulls were
hassling each other, chasing each other around, etc. One was very gingerly
trying to pick up a large crab from a saltwater pool.
The bald eagle reappeared, soaring very high now in slow flat circles. And
then, the most frustrating thing -- a Peregrine Falcon came in and perched
right in the cove -- or so Katie said -- and I just could NOT see it. It
was apparently being very cooperative, too, just sitting there.
Katie: "Okay, see that crooked tree? Go about ten yards to the left, and it's
right on that stump!"
Me: "Which crooked tree? Which stump?"
[repeat above exchange for two minutes]
Katie: "Oh, it just flew away."
Grr!
Out on the water were a couple Red-Breasted Mergansers, and one cute little
flock of Buffleheads swam up one of the little creeklets. A *very* vivid
black-and-white male, and about six females (or males in eclipse? or
juveniles?) The little flock was practically glued together.
We eventually gave up on the Dunlins and drove on, past a farm with some
gorgeous Arabian horses prancing and dashing about in muddy blankets, past
a flooded field with about six Trumpeter Swans looking very regal (at the
"Trumpeter Inn", appropriately). Drove on down a coast road and screeched
to a halt to check out an immature Bald Eagle sitting in a scraggly tree
by the road. Even immature, it was pretty impressive! It was so *big*!
And what a beak! It kept giving us those sizing-up sideways glances that
birds give when they're deciding whether or not to fly away, but it stayed
put. It only had about 1 white feather on its head -- still pretty young,
I guess. Further down the road, we nearly ran into a small Black-tailed Deer
crossing the road, and then pulled up near a steep rocky cove to meet some
friends who were -- gak -- scuba diving in the freezing cold water! They
were right below us in the cove, and right next to them were a bunch of
Harlequin Ducks. What gorgeous birds! They were so vivid and wildly colored.
Later on I looked them up in the Audubon book, and believe me, Harlequin Ducks
are *much* more dramatic than the drab picture in the book! In particular,
there were two harlequins whose whole sides and crest were a brilliant, rich
chestnut, with particularly black heads and well-defined white bars. Most
of the other harlequins also had very well-defined white bars, but their heads
were greyer, and the whole side of the bird was grey instead of chestnut. Two
were half-and-half grey and chestnut. Our diving friends later told us that
they unintentionally surfaced right in the middle of the flock and terrified
all the harlequins. My bird books say that harlequins "appear dark from a
distance" but in this case this wasn't true at all -- it was more a case of
"what on earth are those tiny zebras doing out there on the water?"
There was also another Red-breasted Merganser, looking very silly because the
wind was coming from behind, and its crest was blown forwards over its bill.
Also a Harbor Seal poked its head out of the water for a moment, and then
vanished.
We drove past False Bay again at almost-high tide to check out the dunlins,
but a pelting rain had come up and the dunlins were gone. There were two
Black Oystercatchers, though, nosing around in the mud with their absurd
large long orange bills.
Pretty neat trip!
Kathleen
jespah@milton.u.washington.edu