Temps in the 40s, partly sunny, Wind W 15-25 mph
BREAKING NEWS! The Haas Department of Road Maintenance announces improvements to the road at the Breaches!
We (myself, Cody Brons, and his skid-loader) spent a few hours removing rocks and sand, widening and smoothing (a relative term) the road that was covered by the winter storm last winter. I supervised…
Here is what it looks like now.
We will see how it holds up with all of the birders running over it each day. If after a week, it needs some refining, we will return.
Now back to the birding…
When I checked the Seal Drive Feeder this morning, there were 3 Hawfinch on the street there.
These were not three different bird, just three different views. But there were three there.
Down at Sweeper Cove, the Back-headed Gull cooperated nicely.
When I got up to the National Forest, there was a Hawfinch there as well as two Brambling (later, one of the other groups had 6 Bramblings there!)
I headed up to Clam Lagoon to meet Cody there to work on the road. I got there early and the High Lonesome group was just in front of me. As we neared the Breaches, Stephan spotted a pipit. It was a Siberian.
I had my first one last year.
They went ahead and plowed through the gap. I waited for Cody to arrive. He arrived and we set about improving the road so getting stuck wasn’t an option anymore.
As we were just about finished, Stephan came back and got the privilege of trying it out.
Kudos to Cody! See above…
After we finished it up, I gave it another test run and it was 1000% better.
I started back and went to the Andrew Lake Rec Center and ate lunch (No, that is not an active Rec Center. It is abandoned. I bring my lunch with me).
On the road leading from there to Shotgun Lake, I flushed two Common Mergansers from a pond on the side of the road. It happened too quickly for me to get photos, but I believe they were Goosanders (the Asian subspecies of Common Merganser).
I stopped at the house and took a nap (all of that supervising was exhausting!).
I then headed up to the Marsh. On Redshank Drive (see the May 25, 2018 post), I saw a small shorebird which turned out to be a Temminck’s Stint.
It was soon joined by a Wood Sandpiper and they were feeding peaceably together.
Then another shorebird flew in. It was a Least Sandpiper (uncommon out here). It ran right at the two other birds and chased them off! I guess this was his feeding territory…
Shortly after that I heard Stephan talking to his group about a pair of Shovelers. I called him and he gave me the location. I needed Shoveler for my trip list.
I returned to the house, showered, had dinner, and worked on this post.
After posting the first draft of the post at 8 PM, I headed back out.
I went up to Clam Lagoon. Along the way, I ran into Stephan’s group. They were heading up to the Blue Building to see if the Eurasian Sparrowhawk might be roosting there.
At the lagoon, after scanning from the south side and not finding anything new, I went up to the peninsula to scan from there.
As I was approaching it, the two Great Egrets that have been hanging out around the lagoon flew out of one of the side ponds. I have seen the two who were hanging out at Andrew Lake, but not these guys.
I started scanning and I found a light-phase Parasitic Jaeger. As I have mentioned previously, 99% of the jaegers out here are dark. So it draws attention when you see a light jaeger.
I continued scanning and, low and behold, I spotted the Falcated Duck!
It was too far out for photos, but it was still a better view than I had on Saturday.
So I decided to walk out there and see if I could get close enough for better photos.
Yes! Not Nat Geo winners, but good enough.
And a side bonus was that Jaeger didn’t like me out there and kept circling me.
Good thing I went back out.
AND, the others got the Sparrowhawk!!
Although I already posted a rainbow shot, this one was a double…
And Mt Moffet looked fine on this sunny day.
The trip list is at 68. This is my Spring Trip average and I’m not even through the first week!
There are at least a half-dozen species that others have seen that I have not and there are some local species that I have missed so far. So this will be a banner trip when all is said and done.
You can see the total list at https://ebird.org/tripreport/525344?welcome=true