There's the year in visual form! We simply couldn't continue our winter birding, but Kevin and I made it out for single day trips in March and April, and the big year possibilities are still open, so I'll at least continue to update this list, and kind of see how May goes. We are actually doing okay on code 3-5 birds. We need 50 of them for the year (on top of all 130 code 1 and 2 birds), and would be on pace to get ... maybe 48. There are definitely a couple code 2 birds that we're worried about. Black-bellied Plover comes to mind, as we did not get out to search for them in February. Fingers crossed.
Here's the list so far! (Ebird list order) An asterisk next to a bird (*) means that only I have seen it so far. Additional birds seen by Kevin are listed at the bottom. We are hoping to keep the lists as close to each other as possible, but even when we have been together one person or the other has missed a bird that the other has seen/heard well enough to count.
- Greater White-fronted Goose* (Code 3)
- Cackling Goose
- Canada Goose
- Trumpeter Swan (Code 3)
- Wood Duck
- Blue-winged Teal* (Code 4)
- Cinnamon Teal*
- Northern Shoveler
- Gadwall
- Eurasian Wigeon*
- American Wigeon
- Mallard
- Northern Pintail
- Green-winged Teal
- Canvasback (Code 3)
- Ring-necked Duck
- Tufted Duck (Code 5)
- Lesser Scaup
- Bufflehead
- Common Goldeneye
- Barrow's Goldeneye*
- Hooded Merganser
- Common Merganser
- Ruddy Duck
- California Quail* (Code 3)
- Ring-necked Pheasant
- Common Loon.
- Pied-billed Grebe
- Horned Grebe (Code 3)
- Western Grebe
- Double-crested Cormorant
- Great Blue Heron
- Green Heron*
- Turkey Vulture
- Osprey
- White-tailed Kite (Code 4)
- Northern Harrier
- Cooper's Hawk *
- Bald Eagle
- Red-tailed Hawk
- Rough-legged Hawk (Code 4)
- Virginia Rail
- Sora (Code 3)
- American Coot
- Killdeer
- Dunlin*
- Least Sandpiper
- Wilson's Snipe
- Spotted Sandpiper
- Greater Yellowlegs
- Ring-billed Gull
- California Gull
- Glaucous-winged Gull
- Rock Pigeon
- Band-tailed Pigeon
- Eurasian-collared Dove (Code 3)
- Mourning Dove
- Barn Owl
- Great Horned Owl *
- Northern Pygmy Owl*
- Barred Owl * (Code 3)
- Vaux's Swift
- Anna's Hummingbird (Code 3)
- Rufous Hummingbird
- Belted Kingfisher
- Red-breasted Sapsucker*
- Downy Woodpecker
- Hairy Woodpecker
- Northern Flicker
- Pileated Woodpecker
- American Kestrel
- Merlin * (Code 3)
- Peregrine Falcon (Code 3)
- Olive-sided Flycatcher*
- Western Wood-Pewee*
- Willow Flycatcher*
- Hammond's Flycatcher*
- Pacific-slope Flycatcher
- Hutton's Vireo*
- Warbling Vireo*
- Gray Jay*
- Steller's Jay
- California Scrub-Jay
- American Crow
- Common Raven
- Northern Rough-winged Swallow
- Tree Swallow
- Violet-green Swallow
- Bank Swallow* (Code 3)
- Barn Swallow
- Cliff Swallow
- Black-capped Chickadee
- Chestnut-backed Chickadee
- Bushtit
- Red-breasted Nuthatch*
- Brown Creeper
- House Wren* (Code 3)
- Pacific Wren
- Marsh Wren
- Bewick's Wren
- American Dipper
- Golden-crowned Kinglet
- Ruby-crowned Kinglet
- Western Bluebird (Code 3)
- Mountain Bluebird* (Code 4)
- Townsend's Solitaire
- Swainson's Thrush*
- Hermit Thrush*
- American Robin
- Varied Thrush
- European Starling
- American Pipit
- Cedar Waxwing
- Orange-crowned Warbler
- Nashville Warlber* (Code 3)
- MacGillivray's Warbler
- Common Yellowthroat
- Yellow Warbler*
- Yellow-rumped Warbler
- Black-throated Gray Warbler*
- Townsend's Warbler*
- Hermit Warbler*
- Wilson's Warbler*
- Chipping Sparrow* (Code 3)
- Fox Sparrow
- Dark-eyed Junco
- White-crowned Sparrow
- Golden-crowned Sparrow
- White-throated Sparrow (Code 3)
- Vesper Sparrow (Code 4)
- Savannah Sparrow
- Song Sparrow
- Lincoln's Sparrow
- Spotted Towhee
- Yellow-breasted Chat* (Code 5)
- Western Tanager*
- Black-headed Grosbeak*
- Lazuli Bunting* (Code 3)
- Western Meadowlark
- Bullock's Oriole* (Code 3)
- Red-winged Blackbird
- Brown-headed Cowbird*
- Brewer's Blackbird
- Evening Grosbeak
- House Finch
- Purple Finch
- Pine Siskin
- American Goldfinch
- House Sparrow
April notes:
The trip home in April included a few stops that Kevin didn't make, so I've got a few birds on him now, but we'll try to remove those asterisks. He's sitting with 102, and there are actually two other birders over 100 for the year in the county as well! We've talked about how even if we don't make the record ourselves, it might be nice to see someone break it. Seems like a good start!
We'll see how May goes before creating a needs list. The arrival of breeding birds will take care of a lot of the list, anyway. That said, with migration coming, we would welcome a message if anything interesting shows up!
May Notes:
I made a few trips in May! One run was made with Lewis County birder Roger Moyer, and others were solo runs, including one short trip in early May, and a long long day in late May. I will put the birds in here by code, but I was thinking to myself... "they're all code 3 birds now!" What I mean by that: Code 3 birds are birds that you should be able to find annually with some planning, but will not be easy. That's how I will treat the code 1 birds (planning out for them, and imagining they might be tough), and the code 4 birds (believing they can be found with planning).
Here they are!
Code 1
Cassin's Vireo
Red Crossbill
Both have been seen this year, although it hasn't been a great year for crossbills!
Code 2
Tundra Swan
Ruffed Grouse
Sooty Grouse
Black-bellied Plover
Mew Gull
Sharp-shinned Hawk
The plover and Ruffed Grouse have me worried I was happy on the last trip to stumble into two code 2 birds that may have had me worried otherwise: Green Heron and Northern Pygmy-Owl. 6 left out of 41 is a great start!
Code 3
I'm hoping I get around to updating the blog to talk about the code 3 birds that I *have* found, but here's the ones that are still waiting to be found, and some thoughts on each.
Snow Goose: They've been in the county! Hopefully they'll show up again when the year is wrapping up. This is one of the more likely code 3 birds to get picked up.
Greater Scaup: I'll hit the same spots for this (Carlisle Pond, Swofford Pond, Ponds on Mandy Road), and hope to find one, or maybe another surprise! One of these spots got Kevin and I a Tufted Duck. Maybe there's a Redhead waiting next time. Probably not until fall.
Common Nighthawk: No problem. Just gotta wait for them to show up. :)
Western Sandpiper, Long-billed Dowitcher: I'll put these together! I got pretty skunked for shorebirds in the spring. Dunlin were my big find. Hopefully I'll have better luck and pick these up during the long slow fall migration.
Western Gull, Herring Gull, Iceland Gull: It feels like we were just looking for other things early in the year, and just totally blew it on gulls. At any rate, these are three birds that shouldn't be too hard in the winter, but ya never know!
Northern Goshawk: Goodness. It's always so nice to come across these. It's just hard to know when to expect them, or where. I have this vague plan that we will be up at a good migration spot (where is that in Lewis??) during the peak migration for these guys (they have such a flat migration pattern, but it looks like October is when it picks up), and get them that way. I'd love a surprise showing while we're out looking for other birds.
Golden Eagle: Fingers crossed when we head up looking for ptarmigan (a code 4 bird that... I mean they simply *must* be in the county annually, unless some birds pack it up and make the trek out of the Tatoosh Range for entire years. Or maybe the ones in the Goat Rocks pretend that the Lewis County side is lava? Nah. Ptarmigan are up there!) Rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky, according to John Denver, should be good habitat.
Western Screech-Owl, Spotted Owl: My plan here is to find out where these birds are and call until they come out into the open so that I can get a picture while the Barred Owl is eating them. Hold on.... bad plan. This one will require a little more thought, but with Spotted, I know that fall dispersal should put some birds into areas where Kevin and I plan to be out looking for other birds. Past the season of active calling now, so I'm not inclined to seek them out for a bit. Add Northern Saw-whet Owl to this list, incidentally (see Ptarmigan discussion above). Not sure why they would be a code three in this county with plenty of habitat for them. NSWO also get very active during the fall, so we should be able to run into a surprise or two in the fall with owls.
Red-eyed Vireo: A quite active county birder had some choice words for this elusive code 3 bird! We'll try to focus on good historical locations for these birds - from Riffe Lake through Packwood - and keep our fingers crossed.
Clark's Nutcracker: Burns (not sure how much the Sand Lake Burn will be attracting burn-loving species anymore, but we'll try), and other high elevation places. The Mount Rainier biologist I spoke with says he's concerned about these guys, who seem to be suffering in the wake of the disease striking White Pine in Washington. Hope we find some of these amazing birds.
Purple Martin: I mean... I really thought I went to the right places last time! They are breeding somewhere along King Road, and somewhere near Lake Scanewa, but I missed them in both places last time. The focus will be on the latter location, as there are other birds in the area that I'll be looking for as well.
Mountain Chickadee: Pfffft. Easy. With the hikes Kevin and I have planned, we should run into these guys somewhere. (Nice job jinxing that one, Tim. Real nice.)
Pine Grosbeak: See Mountain Chickadee, but subtract the overconfident prognostication. Finches are finicky. Is this a good year for Pine Grosbeaks? Not a clue here.
All of the threes and all of the fours comes to 25 birds. Add that to 149, and we're a few birds short of what we'd wanted to do this year. Miss some 2's and 3's and it's even shorter! Fortunately, there are some code 4 birds (three mentioned above), and even a code 5 bird that we can target. Heck, we even have our sights on a couple birds that aren't on the county list!
Birds we're not ignoring, even thought they're higher codes:
Spruce Grouse: Not listed. We're hoping to follow up on an eBird sighting and look in the southeast corner of the county for these guys.
Red-necked Grebe, Eared Grebe, Clark's Grebe, Red-throated Loon, Pacific Loon, Parasitic Jaeger, Long-tailed Jaeger, Marbled Murrelet, Surf Scoter, White-winged Scoter, Black Scoter, Red-breasted Merganser.... lord, I must have missed a few others, but I'm just saying that Riffe lake could produce any of these. It will be interesting to see which ones.
I don't need to list all of the possible shorebirds that would help out in the fall. There are quite a few. Double that for gulls in the fall and winter.
Black Swift! I like this one as a possibility. We'll keep looking up.
Calliope Hummingbird is possible up in the Goat Rocks Wilderness later. Add to the list White-winged Crossbill, Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, Rock Wren, random migrating raptors (Broad-winged Hawk, Ferruginous Hawk, Swainson's Hawk), and crazy things like Baird's Sandpiper, Horned Lark, and Lapland Longspur... we have a lot of opportunities to find something interesting on those hikes. Boreal Owl is another one, although I don't feel like we have a good lead on those at present.
American Bittern: See Purple Martin above. There are at the very least bitterns at Peters Road, although I've missed them on every try. How about a Great Egret popping up somewhere too?
Woodpeckers: The four 4's are Williamson's and Red-naped Sapsuckers, American Three-toed, and Black-backed Woodpeckers. Burns and/or the White Pass area will be our best bet, but most of the fires have been over in Yakima of late.
Least Flycatcher: A good reason to do some low elevation birding in June. Other birds rarer than this have shown up in June for sure, but this is the most tantalizing possibility.
Northern Shrike: Possible in fall/winter.
Harris' Sparrow: Wouldn't that be a fun one to show up at a feeder?
Lesser Goldfinch: Wouldn't that be... oh wait, they have! There's birders in the Centralia/Chehalis corridor who has them off and on at their feeder. We'll have this as something to try for in the winter.
Updates will be made here when I can! The infographic with the green birds will get updated for sure, but the total for the year is now 149!
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