Prequel – The Beau Rivage Casino

Although I pass them many times on my way to favorite birding spots near tribal lands I have never visited any of the many casinos in Washington.  I have never been to Las Vegas.  I have never even been to Atlantic City.  I do remember a visit to a “casino of sorts” in Ocean City, Maryland.  I was maybe 10.  We played bingo.  The only reason I knew of casinos in Mississippi was because of the publicity following the recent Supreme Court decision that made sports betting no longer illegal if approved by the states.  In August of this year, sports betting became legal in Mississippi. The Beau Rivage Casino was one of the first two casinos in the state to accept sports wagers.  Part of my 50/50/50 adventure is being open to new things and exploring local experiences.  I had checked into my hotel in Moss Point, Mississippi.  It was less than 30 miles to Biloxi.  Heck I had to eat dinner anyway.

It was Monday evening and not yet 6 p.m. when I arrived at the massive parking structure for the Casino/Resort.  It wasn’t full, but definitely not empty either.  At least I did not have to pay for parking.  I negotiated my way to the elevators and figured out how to get to the…well it was not clear what I was getting into.  Definitely something very large and very expensive.  It was an opulent combination of high end shopping arcade, hotel, conference center, restaurants, bars and gaming casino.  I was in birding gear and even so to some degree compared to some there I was over dressed.  Hmmm…

The Beau Rivage Entry 

I guess I should have known better, but when I took a few photos with my phone, I was almost immediately descended upon by two security types – well dressed but no question who they were.  It was politely and very clearly explained that no photography was allowed – for the privacy of the clientele.  Judging by some of the odd couples I saw, I quickly understood at least part of the message.  I did not erase any photos and in fact had an ok conversation with one of the gentlemen about the sports betting.  Yes business had picked up with the sports wagering.  Six p.m. was indeed a slow time.  If I waited a couple of hours, it would get quite busy.  Since there were already many hundreds of people standing at various gaming tables and sitting at game consoles that were flashing boldly their electronic colors and sounds and were completely indecipherable to me, I could only imagine.  At least the worst of my nightmares did not materialize, even though I did not go to the smoke free area, the area I was in was almost entirely smoke free.

I value my funds too dearly to have tried any of the machines and I certainly was not up for poker, keno, roulette or whatever other games were being played at the tables.  I sat alone at a table at a sports bar with 30 giant screens and had a relatively decent and only slightly overpriced barbecue sandwich.  I was probably the only person there alone and definitely the only one without an alcoholic beverage. It is stretching it a bit to say I had a “casino/gambling experience” but I had a taste and decided that was enough before indigestion followed.  Back to my hotel and to my own gaming/habits for the next day – birds.

A Small Part of the Gaming Area – Definitely Not the High Rollers Club Section

Back to the Birding

Especially over the past 7 years, much of my birding has focused on listing and chasing.  The majority of that has been in Washington State and even much of that has been “local” in the sense at least that it has been in areas relatively closest to my home in Snohomish County.  In the last few years, I have worked on expanding my ABA lists – observations and photos and that has taken me to many of the bird meccas throughout the U.S. with multiple trips to bird rich areas of Texas, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, California and Maine.  When I first thought up my 50/50/50 project, a major objective was to get me to more places that were not the hot areas and also to have many intersections with traditional local birding and local birders.  Since there had to be 50 species in a single day in each of the states, I still had to find places that were “birdy”, but research told me that with good planning and good help that should be possible in every state – although timing was important and for example Wyoming in February might not be a good idea.

                Getting Connected

My experience birding in Mississippi with Brian Johnston is as good an example as I can imagine of how local birding with local birders is rewarding and productive and definitely fun.  Getting in touch with Brian is a good example of networking in today’s birding world.  I started by researching places in Coastal Mississippi through Ebird that looked good for getting my 50 species in early November.  Among other spots, Ebird took me to Grand Bay Estuarine Research Reserve.  One of the best lists for the area had been submitted by Mark Woodrey.  Ebird does not provide background or contact information for those of us submitting checklists (thankfully probably), but when I researched this hotspot, Mark appeared as one of the top Ebirders for the location – now what?  I found a website for the reserve and it certainly looked like a great place.  But a special permit is needed for access – and the area seemed to be dedicated primarily for conservation, research and education.  I explored to see if maybe my visit would coincide with a program and in that process found an email address for Mark Woodrey.  I also learned that Mark is a big time academic at Mississippi State University and is much involved with research at the Reserve.

Brian Johnston at Buffett Beach in Pascagoula – Yes, Jimmy Buffett

With fingers crossed I sent him an email explaining my project and upcoming visit and asked for any help.  His return email was super and supportive.  The timing did not work for him but he had copied several people on that email and I got unsolicited contacts from several people including Brian Johnston who said he birded around Pascagoula, Mississippi and would be happy to help.  I didn’t know if Brian was maybe a student and when I called him, he was so enthusiastic I thought that might be the case.  It turned out that Brian is retired and is just very young at heart and spirit and an enthusiastic birder.  I have been fortunate to have met GREAT folks as I have gone from state to state.  And even as here, when there was no prior connection and getting together took several steps, my experience has been positive and very rewarding.  Our community of birders is a wonderful place.

Brian did some scouting the day before I arrived and had great plans for birding around Pascagoula to get our birds.  I think he took as much ownership of the project as I had and I knew I was in good hands.  We got off to an early start and there really are birds almost everywhere as we picked up seven species in the first few minutes traveling to our first real destination: Fish Crow, Boat Tailed Grackle, House Sparrow, Northern Mockingbird, European Starling, Mourning and Eurasian Collared Doves.  Nothing exciting but it was reassuring to have a good start on numbers right away.  Our first real stop was a little oasis in the middle of an industrial area.  Again nothing special, but we added another 23 species including my first Brown Thrasher and shockingly my only American Robin for my three state trip.  We also had several Palm Warblers and a Blue Gray Gnatcatcher.  Less than a mile away, we hit the water at a boat launch and quickly added 8 more species including both adult and immature Little Blue Herons – one white, one blue – in addition to my first Spotted Sandpiper for the 3 states.  We also had a fabulous fly over by an Osprey.  I had seen several in my birding in Alabama and Louisiana, but this really is a favorite bird – perhaps because I have enjoyed them so much when they compete with me for trout on some of my flyfishing trips.

Osprey

It was barely 8:00 a.m. and we were at 37 species.  This is the magic of birding.  We had not been anywhere that would have been thought of as bird rich.  There were no extensive mudflats or water fowl-rich ponds or frankly much of a forest habitat, but birds are everywhere.  You just have to look for them.  (Local assistance helps.)

Our next stop did take us to a “bird” area – the Pascagoula – Scranton Nature Center – not far from where we had been but a spot that had been preserved for its habitat.  Not including the domestic Muscovy Ducks which came begging for handouts as soon as they saw us, we added another 8 species including a “Snake Bird” or Anhinga – a southern specialty.

Muscovy Duck (Not Countable Here – Yet)

Anhinga (Brian’s Photo)

Barely another mile away we hit the beach on the Gulf Coast.  We spent more time here than we had spent at all of the other places combined.  We had 38 species including 16 new for the day and two more new for my trip:  Yellow Crowned Night Heron and American Oystercatcher.

Yellow Crowned Night Heron

We had now traveled only about 7 miles from my hotel at Moss Point and had spent about 3.5 hours birding.  We were over 60 species for the morning.  There would be more – starting with an Eastern Screech Owl that Brian knew about at the Pascagoula Greenwood Cemetery.  Brian was the first to hear its bouncing call, but I was very happy to finally get on it a couple of minutes later.  Any checklist with any owl is a great checklist.  Another bird there that I really appreciated was a good view and decent photo of a Yellow Bellied Sapsucker.  I had seen them in both Alabama and Louisiana but we get them only extremely rarely in Washington.  To me they are not as appealing as the Red Breasted, Red Naped and Williamson’s Sapsuckers we do have in Washington, but I was very happy to get the photo.

Yellow Bellied Sapsucker

There was one more species that Brian very much wanted me to have on my day list.  As shown in the chart below, Mississippi has a very small population of Sandhill Cranes.

In an area just west of the Mississippi Sandhill Crane NWR it barely took us 10 minutes to find two cranes.  We also added 4 shorebird species for the day:  Greater Yellowlegs, Killdeer, Dunlin and a Wilson’s Snipe.  (As an aside, looking back on the three state trip over 6 days of birding, I am surprised to see that the cumulative list includes 24 shorebird species.  By comparison, in all of November in 2017 in the entire state of Washington, only 25 shorebird species were reported.)

Sandhill Crane (Banded)

We made one more stop that did not add anything new for the day and wrapped things up around 1:30 p.m. with 68 species for the day.  We had traveled barely 20 miles, most of which was to get the Sandhill Cranes.  Had I been on my own, I doubt that I would have picked many or maybe even any of these spots for a birding trip.  I certainly would not have expected to get my targeted 50 species in places such as these.  And that is what made this trip especially valuable – the reminder that there really are birds everywhere and time spent locally to really know a place is incredibly rewarding.  Brian knew every nook and cranny of his Pascagoula area.  When we first met, he was very self deprecating describing himself as just an average birder at best.  Hardly the case.  I don’t think we missed anything.

I was tired and glad to get back to the hotel.  But the day was not done.  I got a call from Brian who had returned to Tillman Street where we had started the day.  He had found a yellowish Kingbird and wanted me to know.  He thought it might be too yellow for a Western Kingbird which are common in Washington but not so much in Jackson County, Mississippi.  I certainly did not “need” it for the day.  But I really appreciated Brian’s commitment and decided to give it a try.   A good decision.  It took a bit to find the Kingbird as it was down the road past a locked a gate.  If I had not known to look for it I am sure I would not have found it.  I had great scope views and could confirm the white outer edges of the tail so it was a Western.  Then I had a great “bonus”.  Just as I was getting back into my car a larger than Robin sized bird flew over me and perched in trees across the road.  Sadly I had not brought my camera with me, but I was able to get a very poor photo with my phone – sufficient to confirm the identification as a Yellow Billed Cuckoo – species 70 for the day.  I called Brain and he was able to return later and also saw the Cuckoo.  At least I added something to the day – well in addition to my stellar personality LOL!

It had been a long week with too little sleep and I was definitely tired.  One of the birds that had first taken me to explore Grand Bay NERR which started my networking and then the connection with Brian was a Henslow’s Sparrow which appeared on the list there in November.  It would be an ABA Life Bird and thus of course would be nice.  I had missed it in Illinois – too late and was perhaps a bit too early for the best time here.  Before returning to the airport in Mobile to fly home (and returning the rental car and the rental lens) I considered going to the area and giving it a shot.  But I checked on Ebird and found that none had been reported in Mississippi over the past week so guess I will just have to wait.

As I am finishing this post, I just got a notification from the Mississippi listserv that Brian has found a Groove Billed Ani at Tillman Road this afternoon (November 15th) .  I think one had been seen there in October as well. It would not be an ABA Life Bird – but an ABA Life Photo.  Someday…

In a completely honest acknowledgement, Alabama has never been filed in the “positive” drawer in my mind’s filing system.  For many of us who grew up in the 1960’s and particularly in the North, there has been a negative association formed by politics, race, religion and even language.  George Wallace and certain money seeking evangelists were about as negative memories as I have from that era.  If someone mentioned Alabama to me, my first thoughts were of those memories and then probably football – and that was it.  Certainly birds, birding and birders would not come to mind.  Is any of that fair?  At most only in part and re-examining my feelings, thoughts, impressions and biases in many areas has been an important part of my 50/50/50 undertaking.  Using birds, birders and birding as points of entry, I wanted to explore personal experiences not ones from the media or past personalities or even history.  Visit the actual places.  Meet real people.  Listen, look and engage.  Maybe grow…

The original plan was to bird Mississippi after Louisiana then finish the trip in Alabama – flying back to Seattle from Mobile.  As described in my previous blog post, two things changed that.  The most important was that it had taken some time to connect with local birders in Alabama and when I did, I hit a home run (two actually) but scheduling only worked with an earlier visit.  Since reversing order also worked with my Mississippi connection, that was no problem.  The second matter was that malfunctioning camera.  There was what appeared to be an excellent camera store in Mobile, Alabama and nowhere else close, so I wanted to get to the store to see if there was a solution – either a repair or a rental lens.  It was a long drive from Jennings, LA to Mobile, and that precluded more birding in Louisiana but without a functioning camera that was less of a loss than it might otherwise have been.

This is probably a good place to talk about some of the non-birding aspects of my travel undertaking.  In addition to new experiences, I am trying to gain some new perspectives and life approaches.  In any planning or project, the ability to adapt and to be flexible is important.  Stuff happens.  Sometimes completely unforeseeable but sometimes at least somewhat foreseeable if lessons are learned from earlier experiences.  Either way the ability to find solutions is invaluable.  They may not be perfect but if they improve what comes next, then that is a big plus.  AND being able to accept less than perfect but still really good is, well – really good!  There have been times when I have not been as good at that as I would like.  I am trying to improve.  The camera issue is a good example.

First, since photos are an important part of my birding, maybe this will once and for all get me to ALWAYS bring a back up camera with me.  My Canon SX60 is not nearly as good as my SLR set up, but until only three years ago, it and its predecessors were all I had and they enabled me to get serviceable and sometimes even quite good photos.  My SLR had died on my big trip to Arizona last year and had not one of the birders allowed my to use his SX50 I would have had no photos.  I should have learned the lesson – I didn’t.  Stubborn, stupid, overly optimistic?  Maybe all of them, but the reality is that stuff happens.  I need to be a better Boy Scout – and “Be Prepared”.  I WILL NEVER GO ON ONE OF THESE TRIPS WITHOUT A BACK-UP!!!!!

Even though the lens’s sudden inability to communicate with the camera body was inexplicable and definitely maddening – it was a fact.  Now what?  Research solutions online.  Use common sense.  Contact friends with some technical expertise.  I had done all of that and nothing worked.  OK look at plan B – trade birding time with a visit to that camera store in Mobile and see if that would solve it – or if not maybe they could rent me a lens.  It would not make up for the missed photo of a Yellow Rail but maybe it would allow me to get a photo of a Clapper Rail or a Seaside Sparrow – both important to me.  And as I often write in my blog posts, sometimes when a goal or target is not hit, there is a consolation prize that might be pretty darn good as well.

As it happened Calagaz Photo Supply was fairly close to the hotel where I was going to be staying in Mobile.  I could visit the store, check into the hotel and if I was lucky even do some birding on my own.  My visit to Calagaz was unplanned but was one of the best parts of my trip.  Bottom line is that they could not resolve the camera problem, but they did rent me a reasonably priced telephoto lens.  So that was good, but what was really good was the interaction with the folks there.  Calagaz is a small, privately owned camera and photo supply store.  It is not some big national company with a phone tree help line or a call center.  The people there are invested in personal service and care deeply about photography.  We talked about photography and my birding and then shared pictures, mine and Dori’s, taken over the years.  I think they felt almost as bad about my missed photos in Louisiana as I did.  I would gladly recommend them to anyone.

The lens I rented was a Tamron 150-600 mm zoom for Canon.  It is a heavy lens and I knew I would need to get used to it especially for hand held photos which mine would be.  So after checking in at the hotel, I headed south to Dauphin Island – where I would return many times over the next few days.  I birded on the causeway to the Island, at the Airport and a couple of forested spots – providing a variety of conditions to check the lens.  Probably due to my unsteady hand with the heavier and longer lens, I found that my photos were not as crisp as I would have liked.  This required shooting at a faster shutter speed which in turn required some adjustment of the ASA.  Not perfect – but acceptable.  In about 3 hours of birding I was able to find 38 species – so I was confident I would get my 50 the next day with expert help.

Birding friend Chazz Hesselein who now lives in (near?) Tacoma and used to live and  bird in Alabama had told me that the Dauphin Island Airport was an excellent spot for Clapper Rails.  I did not see one on this visit but heard at least 3 so knew I would be trying for a photo on another trip.  At the pond there, however, I did find both a Tricolored Heron and a Reddish Egret – less common than the other waders in the area.

Tricolored Heron

Feeling very good about the birding and photo opportunities for the next day, I returned to my hotel and contacted Larry Gardella who I would be meeting the next morning to finalize arrangements.  This was Saturday night and the next morning would be the shift back from Daylight to Standard time.  Theoretically this meant losing an hour of sleep, but my sleep pattern is so chaotic when I travel that I had been getting up by 4:00 a.m. anyhow.  Without going into details, I was up even earlier AFTER adjusting for the time switch.  Plenty of time to meet Larry at Gate 4 of the Blakeley Island Mud Lakes hotspot.  This is a restricted access area, but we had taken care of the details to get permission to enter the property and were birding in sunlight by 6:45 a.m.

Larry is a top Alabama birder and in fact has the highest species list for this location – 166 species.  Interestingly good friend Chazz is number 2 at 163 even though he has not lived there for many years.  In addition to knowing the area and its birds very well, Larry was fascinating because he has seemingly been everywhere.  He is fortunate to have a spouse that not only supports his birding but also participates and contributes in her own right.  They have been all over the world and it was particularly kind of Larry to take time to help me this day as they were heading off to Hawaii in a day or two – vacationing with birding on all the islands.

Blakeley Island Mud Lakes are a complex of disposal ponds that host a wide array of shorebirds and waterfowl.  A former industrial waste treatment site, the waters in these dredge material management ponds are currently used for the disposal of dredge materials by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Alabama State Port Authority.  Although Larry said we missed some expected species we did pretty well with a final list of 51 species (including some Common Grackles and Starlings that I had seen just before arriving at the Ponds).  This included 10 shorebird species, 4 ducks,  5 waders and 7 raptors.  Included in this latter group was a Golden Eagle – a very rare bird here and in the area and one that quite pleased Larry,  My terrible long distance photos were confirming but not more.

Even though I had seen many earlier in Louisiana, I was particularly pleased to see and photograph a group of Black Bellied Whistling Ducks – some of my favorites.  In the same pond there were at least 70 American Avocets and 30 Black Necked Stilts.

Black Bellied Whistling Duck

American Avocets (with One Black Necked Stilt)

This is another area where Glossy and White Faced Ibis overlap with the former being more common.  We had sufficiently good scope views of three to clearly see their brown eyes and ID them as Glossy Ibis.  I just barely had my 50 species for the day.  Larry wanted to visit another spot for some insurance species and also because a Harris’s Hawk was being seen there. Harris’s Hawks are often kept by falconers and it is possible that this bird is an escapee, but it was first seen last year – migrated away and then returned this year.  As it turned out I did not have to worry about whether to count it or not since we were not able to locate it at the Chickasaw Ponds , but we added 9 new species for the day removing any question on hitting 50.

Larry is a Christmas Bird Count Regional Editor, a mostly retired attorney (Legal Services Alabama) and a transplant from the northeast.  Our discussions were mostly about birds and I would welcome an opportunity to talk about Alabama with him.  He likes being there and certainly enjoys the birding.  I am sure I could learn a lot from him on all of those subjects.  I also hope to hear about his Hawaii visit.

I thanked Larry again for putting up with me for the morning and helping me find 50 birds in Alabama.  But the day was still young and I decided to return to Dauphin Island and try to find a photogenic Clapper Rail as well as to add to the species for the day.  I also remembered a restaurant along the way that advertised the best “Po’ Boys” and figured I had to have at least one on my visit.  As I said in my previous post there would be more than one overindulgence on the trip and this was another one – a shrimp Po’ Boy – which is essentially just a sandwich on a baguette type roll – maybe with some sauce.  It was good – why not I like bread and shrimp, but one was enough.

The map below shows the area birded that day – only about 40 miles from Chickasaw to Dauphin Island, mostly through rural countryside.  But before going to the Island I made a detour to Grand Bay Savannah to the west – almost to the Mississippi state line.  Henslow’s Sparrows were a possibility there as well as Clapper Rails and some passerines.  The last 5 miles of road were gravel, red clay and water.  I almost turned back thinking my GPS had to be wrong, but eventually I got to the boardwalk which led out to some reds  after going through a woody area.  No sparrows and no rails but I picked up 6 new passerine species for the day including the only Brown Headed Nuthatches I had seen on the trip so far.

Then I headed to Dauphin Island passing through Bayou la Batre – more exotic sounding than it appeared.  Along the way I passed by the only cotton field that I saw on my entire trip.  Maybe it is from the “land of cotton” reference in the Dixieland song or memories of colonial and Civil War history, but I had expected cotton fields every where.  Maybe they are just farther north.

Cotton Field

Dauphin Island has some wooded areas, some bays and a long sandy beach.  It has been hit very hard by hurricanes in the past 20 years.  Some homes have been rebuilt and others not.  The birding is certainly excellent.  My first stop again was the airport. The Tricolored Heron was back and was joined by a Snowy Egret, two Semipalmated Plovers  and a Willet.  An Osprey flew overhead and I heard the rattle of a Kingfisher.  I had not even gotten out of the car and here were new birds.  WAIT – what was that??  A dark form was next to the grass in one of the channels.  OMG it was a Clapper Rail.  I did not dare get out of the car.  I rolled down the window (unfortunately it was on the passenger side) and took a picture – it was my ABA Life picture of a Clapper Rail!!  Not going to win any prizes but no question about the identification.  This alone justified renting that lens.

Clapper Rail – First ABA Photo 

Unfortunately the Clapper was moving further into the channel and it quickly disappeared.  But I had my photo and I was quite happy.  I explored some other spots on the Island and birded for a awhile at the Audubon Bird Sanctuary which produced a really good bird and my best encounter with an alligator.  It was about 5 feet long and was close but fortunately in the lake/pond at the center of the sanctuary and I was on a platform just above it.

Alligator – Audubon Sanctuary – Dauphin Island

The really good bird got me very excited at first because I just knew it was a warbler and still in bright plumage but I was not sure which warbler it was.  I got a series of photos that helped with the identification and was able to ID it as a male Pine Warbler.  They are not rare at this time at this location, but I later found out that bright ones are very unusual.  Something rarer would have been even better, but it was a great way to end the day – species #77.

Pine Warbler – Audubon Sanctuary – Dauphin Island

 

When I asked about the most “Mobile” thing to do while in town, several options were mentioned including some grand homes but the one that came up most was a visit to the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park.  A summary of the Battleship’s history and that of the park is provided by the park as follows:

 

I took a short tour – similar to a tour I took of the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier in San Diego last year.  Although I stood fervently against the Vietnam War and believe that most military undertakings in the last 50 years have been misguided and wasteful of resources and lives, it is impossible to visit a ship like this or the USS Midway and see the photos and films of the War in the Pacific in WWII and not appreciate the sacrifices of the men and women who fought in them and the sad need for such sacrifice.  There is a much closer connection to the military in the South than in many other areas of the country.  It is a cultural factor.  Seeing this historical ship helped me understand that – whatever I may think of current conditions.

My usual procedure when I am traveling is to exchange the mini SD card from my camera and the one in my tablet to review photos.  I knew from this experience the previous night that the photos with the rented lens were not super crisp and photos from this day were about the same – and I had to take most of the blame myself just not being steady with the large lens.  I vowed to do better the next morning.  I joined Emma Rhodes – Coastal Assistant Biologist at Birmingham Audubon – at Pelican Island on Dauphin Island who graciously allowed me to join her on her coastal bird survey that morning.  We were also joined by Orin Robinson, a graduate student at Cornell and a native of the area.  I was by far the least talented birder in this group as had been the case with Larry Gardella the day before.

With Emma Rhodes and Orin Robinson at Pelican Island

We had excellent weather and excellent birds – 32 species in all including 13 shorebird species, 8 gulls and terns and 4 waders.  The highlights were the Snowy and Piping Plovers, some Red Knots and an incredible fly-by stream of over 3000 Double Crested Cormorants – more than any of us had seen at one time – ever.

Snowy Plovers

Red Knot

There were hundreds of terns – primarily Royal but also some Sandwich Terns and many Black Skimmers.

Sandwich Terns (Yellow Tip on Bill Visible)

Black Skimmers

It was a beautiful beach with very white sand which was good for the many crabs we saw skittering back into their holes and also great background for close up Dunlin and Short Billed Dowitcher photo ops.  We also found a single Marbled Godwit which was a life bird for Orin – a real treat for the day.

Crab on the Beach

Dunlin

Short Billed Dowitcher

We hiked back about 1.4 miles to the car and headed over to the Airport – by now very familiar to me.  We heard a number of Clapper Rails but never got a visual.  Same with Sedge Wren.  Emma was most interested in a Nelson’s Sparrow and tried to lure one out with playback.  There was no response, but when we tried Seaside Sparrow we got fleeting looks at one and then a second bird that responded with quick inquiries before disappearing in the dense grass.  Emma did not have tall boots so we did not follow it into the swamp to try for a photo.  (I filed this away for future reference.)

A rare Varied Thrush had been reported in a woodlot on the Island.  We gave it our best shot but were unable to locate this bird that I can find regularly at Yost Park about a quarter mile from my home.  We ended the day with 42 species seen.  Had I not already had a great day with Larry the day before, I could easily have gotten over 50 species again with short visits to a couple of different habitats, but that was no longer important.  It had been a really great morning with two outstanding ornithologists/ birders with yet another great Dauphin Island experience.  Two more were ahead.

After a thank you and goodbye to Emma and Orin, I returned to the Airport bolstered by the quick view of the Seaside Sparrow earlier.  Just as I was putting on the rubber boots I had used at the Yellow Rails and Rice Festival and to head out into the muck, I saw movement in a small channel next to the grass.  There was only about 5 seconds before it disappeared, but I now had a second photo of a Clapper Rail.

Clapper Rail

 

I plodded out hoping it would reappear – but not this time.  I switched gears and thought “sparrow”.  This turned out to be one of the best and worst moments of my trip.  When I got out about as far as I could go in the area where Emma had called out one an hour earlier, I played the various songs and calls for Seaside Sparrow.  A minute or so later in what may have been a delayed response, a very dark sparrow flew in very close.  My inexperienced brain played a trick on me.  I had noted so many dark Savannah Sparrows in the Louisiana rice fields that I initially processed it as another one.  Too late I remembered that Seaside Sparrows are also very dark and in fact larger than Savannahs.  This was a relatively large sparrow.  Just as my poor brain put two and two together, the bird that had been in the open (sort of) disappeared.  I spent another half hour trying for a repeat performance.  There was another brief appearance of what I am sure was the same bird, but this time no perching and it was 20 yards further away.  No photo.

Disappointed I headed off to Mississippi for my next adventure.  That will be covered in my next blog post, and this is where I am going to go out of chronological order and share my last visit to Dauphin Island, after Mississippi, on the morning before my flight home from Mobile.  And now my brain was thinking only Seaside Sparrow.  Before heading into the grass, I noticed some movement out on the airport runway.  It was a distant Red Fox – always a welcome observation and I took it as a good omen.

Red Fox

Back into the mud – to the same spot where a Seaside Sparrow had made a brief appearance before.  It took about 20 minutes, but finally a large dark sparrow made an appearance hiding in the grass about 10 yards.  Maybe if I had my own lens set up I might have been able to focus through the layers of grass – maybe…  I did the best I could and then got a tail end photo as it flew into some closer reeds and then disappeared.  Barely ID quality photos but the yellow “supraloral” is discernible and given all of the previous failed attempts, these photos – my first of this species – will have to do.  Someday I will get better ones – but these made me very happy.

Seaside Sparrow

Pleased with the morning but with time to kill, I revisited Pelican Island and walked the same loop covered earlier with Emma and Orin.  Similar birds as seen with them but without the giant Cormorant fly over.  If you get the impression I really liked Dauphin Island, you are correct.

It was time to return the lens to Calagaz, return the car to Hertz and head home.  It would be a long wait at the airport, but the long week of early mornings and not enough sleep had taken its toll.  If it were possible to take an earlier flight, I probably would have paid the premium and taken it.  No such option.  I did some reading, edited some photos and actually dozed off for an hour or so.  It had been an excellent visit.  Altogether I had seen 100 species in Alabama.  I had added two ABA Life photos bringing me to 693 species photographed.  I had hoped for photos of Sedge Wren and both Yellow Rail and King Rail, but given the camera woes I was pleased with the two new photos I did get – the glass is not half empty; it is half full – actually way more than half.

Some reflections: (to be added later)

 

 

 

 

Early on October 31st, I was off to Jennings, Louisiana to attend the 10th Annual Yellow Rails and Rice Festival a first stop on a Southern swing that would also include birding in Alabama and Mississippi.  There was no way this would not be a great trip – lots of birds with the very hard to see Yellow Rail almost guaranteed, interesting folks, new experiences, good food, completely new territory and great fun.  My early morning flight took me to Dallas where I would change planes and fly into Baton Rouge, Louisiana and then a 90 mile drive to Jennings.  There wouldn’t be time for any birding that first day, but I took it as good omen when a Pileated Woodpecker flew directly across the highway in front of me as I neared the turnoff to Jennings.

In the planning stages for this trip, I had great communication with LSU Ornithologist Donna Dittman the coordinator for the Festival and one of its founders 10 years ago.  I was impressed with all the details she provided including numerous personal touches when I explained my 50/50/50 project to her.  She also got me in touch with Bob Reed, a gentleman and retired Army Colonel from Alabama who had attended the festival annually and not only could help me at the festival but also would be a source of information for the Alabama leg of my trip.  Bob indeed was helpful and I met him and his wife Pat and friend Mary Frances for dinner that first night at Mike’s Seafood Restaurant and Steakhouse in Jennings.  Going “native”, I had the Crawfish Platter which included fried crawfish, crawfish pie, crawfish au gratin and crawfish etouffee.  A half portion would have been more than sufficient.  It  would not be my only overindulgence of the trip.

After dinner we returned to the Festival Headquarters at the Hampton Inn for an orientation.  There could be no better example of the rewards from the 50/50/50 project than this evening where in addition to fun talks with Bob et al, I reconnected with birding friend Mel Senac from San Diego, met up with neighbor Ann Marie Wood who I bird with often in Washington State and taking nothing away from those intersections, I also got the chance to talk with Donna, with another LSU ornithologist, Steve Cardiff, the Festival’s field trip coordinator, and best of all to visit with several rice farmers.  As you might expect, this was a first of a kind experience.  An afterword will share some information about the world of rice.

While the main attraction of this trip was the Yellow Rail, this was a very birdy area – thankfully so, because the key to seeing the rails is the harvesting of the rice fields where Yellow, Virginia and King Rails and Soras hang out, and harvesting can only occur when the fields are relatively dry.  The rain that fell on the night of the 31st meant that harvesting was unlikely the next day, so I chose that day to head off for some birding on my own – figuring I would get my 50 species in a day for Louisiana out of the way and then have the entire next day available for the rails.

Then trouble struck…

My plan was to bird the area around Lake Arthur and the Lacassine NWR.  I was unprepared for the numbers of birds that I found.  Frankly it far outdid the Everglades.  I came across two Roseate Spoonbills very close to the highway and pulled over to take a photo.  Uh-oh… An error message informed me that my lens and camera were not communicating.

“Err 01 Communications between the camera and lens is faulty. Clean the lens contacts.” 

I removed the lens and cleaned the contacts.  I turned the camera off and back on.  I took out the battery and waited a couple of minutes and reinserted it.  I carefully wiped all of the connection points again. Nothing worked.  I was camera-less and extremely unhappy as a major purpose of the trip was to get Life photos of several ABA species including of course the Yellow Rail – this being probably the best place to be able to do so.

Even though this was a 7 day trip and I needed my scope, I had managed to pack everything into a single carry-on bag and my backpack.  But this had left no room for a back up point and shoot camera.  Big problem!  There was nothing I could do so I kept on birding reminding myself that mental pictures were good as well.  However, mental pictures are not readily copied onto a blog page, so I will settle for my words and pictures borrowed from some of my other birding trips.

No photos aside the birding was tremendous.  In addition to the two Roseate Spoonbills, one field had a Great Blue Heron, a Great Egret, 4 Snowy Egrets, 10 White Ibis and hundreds of “Dark Ibis”.  This area is at the western end of the range of Glossy Ibis and the eastern edge of the range for White Faced Ibis with the latter being far, far more numerous.  The two species also hybridize, so Ebird wants birders to enter observations as Glossy/White Faced Ibis even though the probability is high that the bird is a White Faced.   Especially in breeding plumage there are some notable differences including the amount of white around the eye and a slight difference in coloring of the wing feathers and the legs.  In really good light and with a close up view, the eye of a Glossy Ibis “usually” appears red while that of the White Faced appears brown.  I had excellent close scope views of about 50 of the birds observed and at least one had a very red eye, so I reported 1 of each species and then “X” Glossy/White Faced Ibis being certain that each of those numbers was inaccurate.

Glossy Ibis – (Photo from Everglades NP – April 27, 2017) Note how white does NOT surround the eye

White Faced Ibis – (Photo from Sprague Lake, Washington) Note how white surrounds the eye.

A second field a bit further south had even more Ibis and easily 1000 Long Billed Dowitchers in addition to several other shorebird species and lots of Blue Winged Teal and other ducks.  This was one of the very areas where I had many waterfowl on the entire trip and this included flocks of both Greater White Fronted and Snow Geese.  There were Ross’s Geese around, but I never found the large flock of Snow Geese with whom others had reported them.  Continuing into the refuge area, highlights included some juvenile Purple Gallinules (along with American Coots and Common Gallinules), Crested Caracaras, several Gull Billed Terns, Black Bellied Whistling Ducks, a number of Loggerhead Shrikes and one pond with more than 800 Ring Necked Ducks.

I had spent about 3.5 hours birding and had more than 50 species for the day so that was no longer a concern.  So far all of the birding had essentially been in flooded fields, pools and ponds and I wanted to try a different habitat.  This took me to a big tree area on Streeter Road near the Lacassine NWR Headquarters.  In less than 30 minutes I added more than a dozen passerine species including three very good ones: a Barred Owl, a Yellow Billed Cuckoo and a juvenile White Tailed Kite.  The Owl was calling – asking – “Who cooks for you?”.  The Cuckoo flew out from behind me and came right over my head before disappearing down the road.  The real prize was the Kite.  I got a quick glance in a field behind the first line of trees and being completely surprised thought it might be a Mississippi Kite not knowing that White Tailed Kites were even a possibility – albeit a rare one.  With a second look before it flew away, what caught my attention was a slight cinnamon wash on the bird’s breast, and then I noticed the black “wrists” under the wings.  I had never seen a juvenile White Tailed Kite before and was not familiar with the identity- insuring cinnamon wash.

Juvenile White Tailed Kite (photo from Cornell)

It was now about 2:00 p.m. and there was a festival dinner starting at 5:30 p.m.  I headed back to the hotel traveling through the Thornwell Warehouse Area (“TWA”) where we would be meeting for the rice harvesting and rails the next day (hopefully) just to be familiar with it.  A tractor was working one of the fields and there were more than 1000 birds foraging for insects and whatever else the tractor was kicking up.  Mostly Red Winged Blackbirds, Great and Boat Tailed Grackles, Barn Swallows and White Ibis.

Before getting back to the Hampton Inn, I went to a nearby Walmart and bought a fairly cheap point and shoot camera hoping to maybe get some pictures the next day.  I then met up with Bob, Pat and Mary Frances and we were off to a Jambalaya dinner and some down home music.  More visiting with birders from all over and with the rice farmers including especially Kevin Berken whose rice fields we would be visiting and who was providing rides on his combine during the harvesting – truly a unique experience.

Me with Kevin Berken

Me with Pat Reed, Donna Dittman and Steve Cardiff

On the way to the dinner, we saw a Cooper’s Hawk and on the way back, Bob Reed said he often had a Great Horned Owl along the road we were travelling.  Not 20 seconds later, we saw one atop a telephone pole.  Had Bob conjured it in?  These species brought my count for the day to 72 species.  So the 50 species in a day part of the mission was definitely accomplished.  But I wanted to include a Yellow Rail in my 50 Louisiana species, so  with the expertise I had picked up in this first day of birding, I decided to get an early start on November 2nd and repeat my travels from the day before – taking less time and getting me to the Thornwell Rice Fields by 10:30 a.m. the proposed meeting time for the rice harvesting and rail viewing.

I retraced the first part of my birding steps from the day before but did not have time to do the full Lacassine loop and thus missed a number of ducks and some other species but still had seen 45 species by the time I got to the assembly area for the rice harvesting at the Thornwell Warehouse Area around 10:30.  The bad news was that due to some mechanical problems with the combine, the harvesting would be delayed.  The good news is that there were lots of birds to be seen in a couple of fields near the warehouses.  I quickly added a dozen new species for the day including three gull species (Ring Billed, Laughing and Franklin’s) – having seen none the day before.  So I already again had more than 50 species for the day and now just wanted those rails.

Just as this area has both Glossy and White Faced Ibis which can be difficult to tell apart, the same is true for Boat Tailed and Great Tailed Grackles.  There are size and voice differences and, for Gulf Coast birds, the eye color is different as well, with the Great Tailed having a pale/yellow eye while the eye of the Boat Tailed is brown.  The Boat Tailed is smaller but I found that very hard to tell when looking at a single specimen.  Fortunately we had a great display on a telephone wire with both species adjacent to each other in good light.  Size and eye color differences were pretty clear.  My back up camera was up to this task as the birds were still and close.

Boat Tailed (left) and Great Tailed (right) Grackles

We trudged out to the fields that would be harvested and with the combine repaired it was “go time”.  There were four approaches to viewing rails.  One was the chance to join Kevin and a spotter on the combine itself.  As it moved through the fields, with luck some rails would be flushed and with more luck, you would get a good but quick view, and with even more luck some of the rails would be Yellow Rails.  A second approach was to  wait by the mist nets that were set up to hopefully catch fleeing rails so they could be banded.  The third approach was to walk out into the fields and follow the combine hoping to see the rails as they were flushed.  Finally, and not until later in the day, a fourth approach was to ride on one of the ATV’s that would follow the combine.  This was less stable than the walking approach but it covered a lot more ground.  Over the three hours spent at the Thornwell Rice fields I tried all four approaches.

The Combine in Action

Forgetting the rails, it was awesome to see the combine in action.  A very sophisticated machine, it cut the rice stalks, separated the grains from the chaff – spitting out the latter behind and collecting the grains in a large bin which was periodically offloaded to another vehicle that would take the rice to the storage area.  This process was repeated over and over.  Kevin harvested at least four fields while I was there.  I may be underestimating but I think each field was at least 10 acres.  The combine took maybe 40 minutes per field including getting festival participants on and off  for their rides.  Harvesting by hand would have taken MANY, MANY man hours for each field.  Maybe that is why a new combine costs just under $500,000!!!

Bob Reed on the Combine

The Action End of the Combine with the ATV Watching

Since I had a high number (determined by time of registration), it was unlikely that I would get a chance to ride the combine that day.  In any event I had heard that the best views and only real photo ops were from the ground following the combine – catching a flight shot.  With several others, I trudged into the muddy field (high boots were a necessity) and waited.  It did not take long for birds to fly out from the approaching combine.  At first there was a Sora, then another.  A couple of sparrows flew out – most likely Savannahs and then – the magic moment – a small rail with obvious white secondaries – zoomed out to the right of the combine and maybe 40 yards from us.  The Yellow Rail flew low and disappeared quickly into the next field.  If I had my good camera with me I think I would have gotten a photo.  IF… but the camera I had was not up to the task – too hard and too long to focus and too hard to find with the viewfinder instead of an eyepiece.  A second Yellow Rail flew out a couple of moments later – an even better but also quick view.  No photo…sigh…The photo below is what I saw  and is from the Festival sources.

Yellow Rail in Flight

I had already resigned myself to not getting a photo but it was still a low point – balanced by the sighting of my first Yellow Rail since one at Anahuac Refuge in Texas the old “rail buggy” days – more than 40 years ago – April 1978.  My only chance for a photo would be if one was captured by the banding operation.  Unfortunately that did not happen this day.  I remained at the fields for another 2.5 hours.  I was able to get a ride on the combine and had many trips on the ATV’s.  The combine was great fun.  Even though it is comfortable, air conditioned and does have music (I think), it has to be hard to harvest for the 10 to 12 hour stints that Kevin told me he routinely does daily from July into October and then less regularly later.  But it does flush rails.  On my trip we flushed maybe a dozen rails – 2 Virginias, 6 or more Soras and 4 Yellows.  I saw lots more rails from the ground and on the ATV rides which I especially enjoyed.  With a good camera…maybe some photos.

It was great to see the banding operation as well – even though no Yellow Rail was captured.  It was mostly Soras, a couple of Virginias,  Savannah Sparrows and at least one Nelson’s Sparrow.  This was the first time I have watched banding.  Very careful and very meticulous including measuring, weighing and checking for parasites or diseases.  Some banding photos are below.

Netting and Banding a Sora

A number of King Rail observations were reported by the Festival but I did not see any and neither did anyone else I talked to.  Maybe it was the next day.  Although King Rail shows up on my ABA Life List, I have not actually seen one – or at least seen one since it was split off as a species separate from Clapper Rail.  I had hoped for a view and a photo.  A bird I did see but did not get the photo I hoped for was a Sedge Wren.  I heard a couple and had a buried and quick look at another – no photo was possible with my substitute gear.  I did not keep exact count but estimate that I saw 6 or 7 Virginia Rails, maybe as many as 8 or 9 Yellow Rails and more than 20 Soras – a pretty awesome day.  And it really was great fun and definitely a unique experience!!

My day list was now up to 64 species.  There was time to head back to Streeter Road where I had had such good birding the day before.  I was hoping to again see the White Tailed Kite.  No Kite, but heard the Barred Owl again and added 6 species for the day – 70 in all.  Back to the hotel and a much smaller dinner than the two previous nights.

The original plan had been to bird some more the next day in Louisiana going on one of the field trips or returning to the rice fields and then head off to Mississippi for my “next state”.   That would have been a 260 mile drive.  I could have birded in the morning and then headed off.  But that was changed by two events: the camera problem and the need to switch Alabama and Mississippi scheduling because of the availability of folks I was going to meet.  I had located a good camera store in Mobile Alabama that might be able to fix my problem or if not rent me a usable lens.  And Mobile was also where I would be birding the next day with Larry Gardella.  It was only another 32 miles but I wanted to get to the camera store earlier rather than later – AND without my camera, photos from more birding in Louisiana were unlikely.  So it was going to be Plan B – leave after breakfast for Mobile – and that story will be told in my next blog post.

 

Rice and Rice Farmers – and Crawfish, Too

A big part of the reason to attend this festival was the opportunity to see the collaboration and cooperation between the rice farming and birding communities.  Like many (most?) urban based birders, I have little direct contact with or knowledge of farming and farmers.  Add to that the enormous differences between Western Washington and states in the Deep South, and this was an opportunity to get out of my so called box and experience a very different place and way of life.  This is one of the great appeals of my 50 birds in 50 states on 50 days project.  It takes me to new places and brings new people into my world view.

Rice is an important crop in Louisiana, joining California and Arkansas as the three leading rice producing states in the U.S.  More than 50% of the Louisiana production is exported.  Top international markets for U.S. rice include: Mexico, Haiti, Central America, Canada, Colombia, Peru, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, the European Union, Ghana, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.  Mexico, Central and South America are the most important markets for Louisiana.  As I traveled through the state I saw many areas which seemed to have poor soil.  I had a lengthy discussion about growing conditions including soils with the rice farmers at the festival orientation and learned that the soil is shallow but sits on a clay pan that allows the water to remain in the fields – a necessity for rice.  It is also conducive to what has become a somewhat parallel industry – farming for crayfish (crawfish).  They occur naturally in many of the fields and are now cultivated as a cash crop – an important adjunct to rice farming which is not a high return crop.

Louisiana is the largest domestic producer of crawfish, a delicacy whose peak season runs from Mardi Gras to Easter.  Per the LSU AgCenter about 1,600 Louisiana farmers produce 130-150 million pounds of crawfish per year with a combined value to producers of over $172 million.

Crawfish – In the Wild and On the Table

 

In addition to needing the land, rice cultivation is expensive with the need for seed, fertilizers, chemicals, expensive machinery and the gasoline to run the combines and other machinery.  As stated earlier, combines are incredibly productive but also incredibly expensive to acquire, maintain and operate.  Continuous attention is needed for the planting, growth, harvesting and sale of the product.  Risks from weather, storms, flooding, and disease are not insignificant.  The farmers I met were hard working and dedicated to this industry.  Often several generations of their families had been rice farmers before them.

There is a continuing effort to improve yields and protein values of the Louisiana rice with most production being of the long grain variety – higher value and generally more appealing for cooking.

I will not elaborate here – saving it for a later writing about my 50/50/50 experiences, but the majority of people I met were Republican and conservative even if not fond of Donald Trump’s personal qualities.  I navigated cultural and political conversations carefully, but had valuable ones.  One of the biggest problems in our country is the absence of intersection and discussion with “others” who I do not believe have to be “enemies”.  As I said – no elaboration here – more later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Itinerary
Day 1	Fly to St. Louis
Day 2	Bird Missouri
Day 3	Bird Illinois; Travel to Kentucky
Day 4	Travel to Tennessee; Bird Tennessee
Day 5	Travel to Kentucky
Day 6	Bird Kentucky
Day 7	Travel to Indiana
Day 8	Bird Indiana
Day 9	Fly to Seattle

 

Birding
Missouri	65 species
Illinois	58 species
Tennessee	57 species
Kentucky	57 species
Indiana	68 species
Cumulative for Trip	124 species
ABA Lifers	Philadelphia Vireo and Eurasian Tree Sparrow
ABA Life Photos	Same
Cumulative for 50/50/50	602 species
ABA Life Total	727 Species
ABA Photo Total	692 species
Seen in all 5 states	23 species
Seen in 4 states	15 species
Waterfowl	7 species
Gallinaceous	3 species
Shorebirds	8 species
Gulls and Terns	6 species
Raptors (incl, Vultures)	12 species
Woodpeckers	7 species
Flycatchers	3 species
Vireos	5 species
Wrens	3 species
Sparrows	6 species
Icterids	5 species
Warblers	16 species

Commentary and Reflection:

• Great companions – Pat Lueders, Carol Besse, James Wheat, Amy Hodson and Mark Welter
• 1100 miles traveled by car
• Special places – Forest Park, Cave Hill Cemetery (Graves of Muhammad Ali, Col. Harland Sanders and grandson of Jim Beam) Mammoth Cave, Jim Beam Distillery, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, St. Louis Gateway Arch
• Monarch Butterfly Migration
• Very different geography/topography – rolling hills and flat, big rivers, more deciduous than coniferous forests
• Very modern and seemingly strong downtowns – St. Louis, Nashville, Louisville and Indianapolis – lots of old and beautiful residential areas with architecture different than Northwest – but evident poverty as well in some areas.
• Ethnic mix compared to Seattle/Northwest seemed less Hispanic and Asian and more African American
• Corn and soybeans were dominant crops
• Definitely hotter and more humid than October in Seattle – but birding was blessed with no rain and very little wind
• Very different politics – radio talk shows were very “red”
• Very nice, helpful and engaging people everywhere
• 17 States completed with 50 species in a single day.

 

 

 

 

First a Word from Our Sponsors – The Indy 500 and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Indiana was to be the last stop on this whirlwind trip to the Midwest.  The birding was preceded by a stop at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  Unfortunately the bus tours were not offered that day as there was a hold over from some air races the previous day, but I wanted to visit what may be the most famous place in Indianapolis so I settled for a visit to the Museum.  Motorsports are not my thing but I certainly remember watching the Indy 500 in my youth when there were far fewer offerings on TV.  The 500 mile race means 200 laps of the 2.5 mile track at speeds over 200 mph with the record speed being 238 mph.  Yikes!!

It was very cool to see the cars in the museum – especially how they have evolved over time.  The first Indy 500 was in 1911.  There were 40 entrants then and only a dozen cars completed the race.  The average speed then was just under 75 mph and the interest in the race was at least as much in the major accidents as the finish itself.

First Indy 500 – 1911

The Indy 500 – 2018 – Things Have Changed Just a Bit

Some Cars in the Museum

And now back to the birds — well not quite yet.  One of the best stories of this trip was how I was able to hook up with some terrific birding companions – a story of networking and community – a really wonderful part of the birding world.  I had no contacts or connections with Indiana  at all let alone with birders there.  It was important to get help both for bird finding and identifying but also to get that local flavor that was a critical part of my 50/50/50 adventure.  I proceeded along two different routes to find help and they ended up intersecting – and definitely succeeding.  I am going to detail this because I think it is such an important part of being birders – our connections to each other.

Route 1 involved a suggestion from John Puschock to connect with Laura Keene who he thought might have recommendations for contacts in Indiana and Kentucky.  John own Zugunruhe Bird Tours and lives in north Seattle.  He was my guide on a fabulous visit first to Adak and then Nome, Alaska in 2016, the latter being my 50/50/50 experience in Alaska.  (We also just had an abortive chase of the Pine Bunting that was reported – or misreported – from Victoria, B.C. this week, but let’s not go there.)  Laura was one of the Big Year birders in 2016 who smashed the previous ABA Big Year record.  She saw 763 species – breaking the old record held by Neil Hayward of 749 – only to end up in third place that year behind John Weigel with 783 and Olaf Danielson with 778.  Laura was able to photograph an astounding 741 of her 763 species.

Laura recommended contacting Amy Hodson in Indiana.  I friended Amy on Facebook and shot her a message.  Route 2 – Meanwhile after showing a number of my 2018 photos to the ABC Bird group in Tacoma, I asked if anyone in the audience had any birding friends in Indiana that I might contact.  Joe Tieger said he would check with a friend.  That friend was Lee Sterrenburg. Lee is an English professor at the University of Indiana and is a much honored conservationist and birder in Indiana who has made an enormous impact protecting wildlife habitat especially at the Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area.  Lee and I had a great talk and if he did not have a conflict for the time I was visiting, we would have gone out together.  To help he sent an email explaining and supporting my project to a number of Indiana’s top birders and guess what…that included Amy Hodson and she and I then connected and arranged a day together starting at Eagle Creek Park.  So Route 1 met Route 2 and I was all set.  There’s more…

I got to Indianapolis and made a stop at Eagle Creek because I had seen that a Sabine’s Gull was reported there.  A beautiful gull that breeds in the far north (including Nome, AK) and is seen regularly on pelagic trips in the Pacific, it was very, very rare for Indiana.  Not surprisingly when I got to the Eagle Creek Marina, others were there looking for the bird.  One of the birders was Don Gorney.  Don is a top Indiana birder and holds the record for a Big Year in the state.  When I introduced myself, he knew “of me” from the message he had received from Lee Sterrenburg.  With Don was Aidan Rominger, a student at Purdue, another top birder with a big Indiana list.  He, too, knew my story.

Sabine’s Gulls (from Nome, AK)

A few minutes later, Ryan Sanderson, another of Indiana’s top birders either tied with Don or maybe a species behind for most species in an Indiana Big Year, showed up – and he too had been on Lee’s list.  It was Ryan who had first found the Sabine’s Gull (and had a “fun” kayak experience, lol).  We did not see the Sabine’s Gull then but I had great visits and was made to feel very welcome in Indiana.  I spent the night at a Best Western not far from Eagle Creek and began the next morning birding a tiny marshy area next to the hotel.  I had 12 species including a Common Yellowthroat – a great start before meeting my guide for the day and getting serious.  At Eagle Creek I was met by Amy Hodson and her good friend Mark Welter.  I was in great hands as both are superb birders and know the area in minute detail.  They were also a lot of fun.  Amy is known as the “Bubbly Birder” – a perfect description as she had a smile on her face the entire day.

With Mark Welter and Amy Hodson at Eagle Creek Park

In the photo I am in the center wearing an Indiana Audubon hat – a gift from my new best friends.  Eagle Creek Park was a great place to start our day even though again, we did not see the Sabine’s Gull.  We did find 43 species not including 5 of the species (all common) that I had seen earlier in the morning so there was no question that I would have my 50 species.  We had several good birds including yet another Philadelphia Vireo, Bonaparte’s Gull, Forster’s Tern, Northern Parula Warbler, Yellow Bellied Sapsucker and a very late White Eyed Vireo.

Yellow Bellied Sapsucker (Juvenile)

We would return to this area later to try again for the Sabine’s Gull, but Mark and Amy had plotted out several more stops not just to get and surpass 50 species and to try for two unlikely but possible Life Birds for me – a Henslow’s Sparrow and a Sedge Wren (which I have seen but have no photo).  Henslow’s Sparrow breeds throughout the area I had visited this week but they have generally departed by the first of October.  We were not successful with either of these in good habitat but we added 9 more new birds for the day including Bobolink, Horned Lark and several sparrow species.  I hope to be able to see both Henslow’s Sparrow and Sedge Wren on my next trip to Louisiana where they live in the winter.  The Bobolinks are among my favorite birds and were great to see.  They are limited to a very few locations in Eastern Washington and I have only seen them in breeding plumage.  These were in non-breeding plumage – still beautiful but not nearly as striking.

Bobolink – Breeding Plumage in Washington

Bobolink – Non-Breeding Plumage in Indiana

Amy learned that the Sabine’s Gull had been refound and we headed to Rick’s Boatyard – not far from the Eagle Creek Marina.  There is a restaurant there that is supposed to be excellent.  It was now about 11:00 a.m. and not many cars were parked near it.  Note:  when we drove by later, the parking lot was full.  When we arrived Don and Aidan that I had met the previous day were already on the bird and we were able to get good scope views and distant photos.  We did not stick around to try for closer ones.  Later Aidan did get great pictures.  The one below is only showing the image on the back of his camera as he has not had time to process his pictures yet.  Still a beauty. Not including some of the species I had seen at the hotel earlier, the Sabine’s Gull now brought us to 50 species for the day.  We were not done.

Aidan’s Sabine’s Gull Photo

There were more sparrows on this trip than in all of my other birding in the four previous states combined.  We had Eastern Towhee and Song, Chipping, Vesper, Field and Swamp Sparrows.  We tried hard for some of Amy’s favorite “Orange Sparrows” – sparrows with an orange cast in their faces at the Lebanon Business Park Marsh where we were joined by Roger Hedge.  No orangish Nelson’s or LeConte’s Sparrows but that’s where we had numerous Swamp Sparrows and my only Eastern Meadowlark of the entire trip.  It’s also where we had our first American Crow for the day – hardly rare but somehow missed during the day and they all count.  What I also got was very wet boots, socks and feet.  My boots were waterproof but in water that was several inches deeper than they were tall, that hardly mattered.  Once you are wet however, more wet doesn’t matter.  Fortunately I had a plastic bag to wrap them in for the trip home in my baggage the next day.

These were not special species, but I realized that I had not included photos of them in any other of my posts and since they were seen almost everywhere including with Amy and Mark, I want to include photos of Northern Mockingbird and Blue Jay here.

Northern Mockingbird

Blue Jay

The species count for the day was now about 60 but Amy and Mark as a minimum wanted Indiana to be state where I had my high count.  They also wanted to find me a Red Headed Woodpecker.  We returned to Eagle Creek Park and had a woodpecker bonanza and adding Red Headed and Pileated Woodpeckers and our only Northern Flicker for the day.  We had other new species as well ending the day with 68 species – and yes, Indiana finished first.

This last stop probably also had the best photo of the day.  An Eastern Bluebird was sitting completely in the open in brilliant light.  Mark had left his camera in the car.  We watched the bird for at least 5 minutes, Amy and I taking MANY photos.  Mark finally could stand it no longer and went back to the car for the camera.  Yep…the Bluebird flew off just as he returned.  The lesson there is pretty evident…

Eastern Bluebird

As I have mentioned in my earlier blog posts for the trip, I was struck by just how enormously different the birding was here compared to my native Northwest.  And each state was different – something I will probably quantify in a wrap up post.  We had only 4 Warbler species in Indiana but did have 6 Sparrow species.  Mallard and Wood Duck were our only ducks and we only had three shorebirds.  Similarly there were only 3 gull species including the very rare Sabine’s.  And there were very few individuals (often just one) of many of these species.  We had no Red Tailed Hawks and no Falcons and only a single Bald Eagle and 2 or 3 Red Shouldered Hawks.  If I had been birding here in May or even a couple of weeks earlier or a couple of weeks later, the story would have been very different.  I don’t know if I will get back, but if I do I could not have better companions that Amy and Mark.  I hope they make it to Washington, I would love to show them my state and our great birds.

The goodbyes were sad because it ended such a great day but also happy because it had been a truly great day!!

 

 

 

 

The objective of my so called 50/50/50 Project is to have my passion for birding take me to each of the 50 States, find 50 bird species but far more importantly to experience new places and meet wonderful people.  My visits to many states earlier had confirmed the value of this adventure, but there is no better example of how all these things come together than my trip to Kentucky.  It was originally to follow immediately after birding in Missouri and Illinois, but as explained in previous posts, successes in those two states came more quickly than planned which enabled me to drive through Kentucky and visit Tennessee as an additional state.  With that successfully completed, I was back in Kentucky – with a whole day to explore before meeting my companions the next day for the birding part of the trip.

Heading north on Interstate 65, I stopped to refuel in Bowling Green, KY and did a double take at the gas pump.  Since there have been a couple of times when I almost used the green diesel hose, I now pay attention.  No diesel at this pump, but I was glad I watched as there was a clear reminder that I was not on home turf.  I would not have liked the $8.00/gallon price tag but wonder if my rental car would have turned into a rocket ship.  As an aside, the speed limits seemed to be suggestions only on many of the highways as the majority of cars were traveling 5 to 10 miles over the limits – my kind of place.

Hi Test – Racing Fuel

As I continued further on my way to Louisville I saw a sign for Mammoth Cave National Park.  It was not part of the previous plan, but in part the plan was to have time to react to opportunities as they arose.  This seemed like a good one so off I went through lovely forest to the Visitor Center.  It was already very crowded when I arrived around 8:15 a.m. and the early tours were already sold out.  A guy came to us in line and said he had inadvertently bought an extra ticket for a 10:00 a.m. tour.  I bought it figuring I would kill an hour birding the area.  Otherwise I would have had to wait until 11:00 and that was just too long.

In spring migration, this is apparently a great area, although not so much so this morning, I did find a couple of Wild Turkeys.  Somehow they seemed perfect in this area – conjuring up images of pioneers like Daniel Boone hunting them for the table more than 200 years ago.

Wild Turkey

Mammoth Cave is exactly that – mammoth!  Actually a connected cave system more than 400 miles in length it is the longest explored such system in the world.  I may not have been on the best of the tours and I found it interesting but also disappointing.  Groups are taken by bus to a narrow entrance and via a combination of stairways and paths you descent into the cave.  Lighting is fairly minimal but essential as otherwise of course it would be totally black.  At one point they do turn out the lights and it is the darkest dark possible.  Except at the end of this tour, there were no formations, the stalagmites and stalactites that I expect in caves and remember (probably with some distortion) from the only other major cave I have visited – Luray Caverns in Virginia when I was a boy.  There were some passageways that were so tight that I was surprised that some of the “larger” members of our party could make it.  Other areas were large and open.

There are no longer bats in Mammoth Cave having been wiped out by a disease called “White Nose Syndrome”.  Steps are being taken to be able to restore the population.  I am not sure how their presence would have affected the experience.  The only life we saw were large and somewhat diaphanous Cave Crickets.  The best part of the tour was visiting with a family from Mississippi.  The kids were oohing and aahing throughout.

A Mammoth Cave Chamber

I was glad I visited for the experience but it was not the highlight of the trip and would not highly recommend it unless someone really wanted a cave experience.  The area is beautiful though.

After checking in at my Louisville hotel, I stopped at a couple of nearby birding spots.  One was Caperton Swamp where a Blackburnian Warbler had been seen the previous week.  I am missing that photo and although it was unlikely, I figured I would give it a try.  No go of course but I did get my first Yellow Bellied Sapsucker of the year which I knew was likely there.  My last visit was to Anchorage Trail, a great area with mixed habitat.  (I understand the land was donated by the founder of Papa John’s Pizza).  A Winter Wren had been reported there earlier that day and that is another photo “need”.  It is a big area and I had no idea where the Wren had been seen.  I just started birding along a creek and decided to play the Winter Wren calls to be familiar with them.  I instantly got a response and saw a little Wren darting about in brush along the creek.  I had not anticipated that and my camera was not ready.  It darted about but never came into the open again.  This may have been the biggest frustration of my trip so far.  Hopefully I will have better luck in Massachusetts next month.

My best find at Anchorage Trail was not a bird but another birder.  I had wandered along finding a few birds but since the “countable” ones would be the next day, I decided to turn back.  About halfway back a Coopers Hawk raced out of a group of trees and disappeared into some others.  A birder was coming my way from the other direction and we both asked each other – “Did you see that?”  We made introductions and the birder was James Wheat from Louisville.  What made it interesting was that he knew my name and of my project.  My companion for the next day was to be Carol Besse.  I had connected with Carol through a fellow named Rob Lane.  I had found his name on a Kentucky listserv and although he was not free to meet me, he circulated my name and the background on my project to others and Carol volunteered.  Well, small world.  James Wheat had also been contacted and now that we had met in person, he wanted to join us.  It worked out great.  He is a fun guy and a terrific birder.  We said our goodbyes and planned to meet the next morning.

There was a minor disappointment at dinner.  Being in Kentucky and knowing that I would be visiting the grave of Col. Harland Sanders the next day (read on below), I went to a Kentucky Fried Chicken “restaurant” for dinner.  This was a favorite of my family when I was growing up but for healthy eating reasons, it has not been an indulgence in recent years.  This seemed like an appropriate time to make an exception.  I ordered a two piece dinner – “original recipe” of course.  Nowadays all fast food restaurants seem to get much of their business from drive through customers.  Just before placing my order, one had ordered 48 pieces of “original recipe” and completely depleted their supply.  My choices were crispy (no way), a single “original recipe” wing or getting my money back.  I opted for the latter and got a salad elsewhere instead.  Well, I tried…

Carol Besse and James Wheat

I met Carol and James the next morning and we started the day at Cherokee Park where on a “slow day” according to them we picked up about 20 species in just over an hour.  We had a pair of heard only Great Horned Owls – my first owls of the trip.  The major birding though was to be at Cave Hill Cemetery.  When Carol and I had planned the itinerary for the day, Cave Hill worked out perfectly for many reasons.  First the Beckham Bird Club had a walk there that morning.  The Club was founded in 1935 and is very active with field trips and other bird related activities.  Second, the large cemetery has an impressive bird list and was likely to get us a long way to our 50 species goal.  Most importantly to me, among the many thousands of graves were those of three famous folks from Louisville:  Jim Beam of Bourbon fame (more on that later), Col. Harland Sanders, and one of my all-time heroes – Muhammad Ali – nee Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. and aka “the Louisville Lip” and “The Greatest”.  Now that is local color at its best!!

There were maybe a dozen birders from the Club and we were guided by Pastor Lee Payne.  Pastor Payne was highly enthusiastic and knew the favorite hangouts of many birds in the cemetery.  A somewhat sad commentary is that he was the only person of color who I met as a birder in the entire trip.  It was particularly important to Pastor Payne that we see some of “his” Great Horned Owls.  He delivered big time as we found at least three and possibly four.

Great Horned Owl

It was another hot day and this may have slowed some of the birding but we had a number of good birds – 38 species in all.  Still not even a good photo but I finally got a barely acceptable one of a Philadelphia Vireo.  It had been ABA Life Bird #727 and was ABA Life Photo #692.  We also had Cape May and Bay Breasted Warblers – the latter a new ABA species for my 2018 year list.

Pastor Lee Payne Leading the Group

Philadelphia Vireo

Cape May Warbler

One more good bird before we get to the grave sites.  Almost in unison several of us yelled out “Peregrine Falcon” as a large falcon flew above us.  It was being attacked repeatedly by several of the many Chimney Swifts that were also zooming around.  My photo caught one as it took its shot at the Falcon.

Peregrine Falcon and Chimney Swift

A Break from Birding – the Grave Sites

Col. Harland Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken

Colonel Harland Sanders died in 1980 at the age of 90.  In 1930 Sanders was running a service station in Kentucky, where he would also feed hungry travelers. He moved his operation to a restaurant across the street, and featured a fried chicken so notable that he was named a Kentucky colonel in 1935 by Governor Ruby Laffoon.  After closing the restaurant in 1952, Sanders devoted himself to franchising his chicken business. He traveled across the country, cooking batches of chicken from restaurant to restaurant, striking deals that paid him a nickel for every chicken the restaurant sold. His first franchise sale went to Pete Harman of Salt Lake City. In 1964, with more than 600 franchised outlets, he sold his interest in the company for $2 million to a group of investors.

Kentucky Fried Chicken went public in 1966 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1969. More than 3,500 franchised and company-owned restaurants were in worldwide operation when Heublein Inc. acquired KFC Corporation in 1971 for $285 million. KFC became a subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds Industries, Inc. (now RJR Nabisco, Inc.), when Heublein Inc. was acquired by Reynolds in 1982. KFC was acquired in October 1986 from RJR Nabisco, Inc. by PepsiCo, Inc., for approximately $840 million.

There will be more on this later as I visited the Jim Beam Distillery in Clermont, KY the next day.  The predecessor of the Jim Beam Company was founded by Jacob Beam in 1795 and has remained in the family for 8 generations.  It was officially branded as Jim Beam Bourbon post Prohibition in 1934 by Colonel James B. Beam.  It is the grave of his son, T. Jeremiah Beam who died in 1977 that is pictured below.  It is immediately adjacent to that of Col. Sanders.

For me the real treasure in Cave Hill Cemetery is the relatively simple grave of Muhammad Ali.  The history of this great man is long and complex.  He was an Olympic Champion, Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World (3 times and 19 title defenses), poet, activist, philanthropist and civil rights leader.  He converted to Islam, resisted the Vietnam War Draft, and spoke courageously and openly about race, freedom, war and peace.  In his later years he suffered from many conditions of Parkinson Syndrome but he never lost his mental acuity.  He lit the Olympic Flame in Atlanta in 1966 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor in 2005.  Ali died in 2016.  He was one of the most beloved and controversial figures of the late 20th Century.  Being a participant as a teenager and in college in the turbulent 1960’s and 1970’s, Ali was my hero.  I am emotional and tears run down my face as I write this and recall those challenging and difficult times and his meaningful and courageous life.  Standing at his grave site was important to me – very important and very moving.

Ali’s Funeral at Cave Hill Cemetery

Standing At Muhammad Ali’s Grave

Back to the birds…

We had 38 species at the cemetery putting us at 43 for the day.  We had one more stop – the Melco Flood Retention Basin, a restricted access area.  Carol and James both had keys to the locked gate so we were able to visit this completely different habitat.  We finally got some shorebirds and some other good species.  Altogether we only had 23 species at this location but 16 were new for the day bringing us to 59 all told.

The best birds were probably the shorebirds.  We had Killdeer, Wilson’s Snipe, Greater Yellowlegs, Stilt Sandpipers and Dunlin. We also had 4 new raptors: Red Tailed and Red Shouldered Hawks, American Kestrel and Bald Eagle.

Stilt Sandpipers and Dunlin

What I liked most about my Kentucky experience were the mixes – mix of birds, mix of people, mix of places.  The birds have been detailed a bit.  Here is some more about the people.

Carol Besse is one of those people that I think anyone would value as an interesting friend.  She and her husband (I hope I have that right) Michael Boggs, started Carmichael’s Bookstore in the funky, cool, hip and friendly Bardstown neighborhood in Louisville in 1978.  It is Louisville’s oldest independent bookstore and has survived and thrived even post Amazon.  In 2014 it was joined by Carmichael’s Kids – a children’s bookstore down the street from the main store.  In the words of Carol and Michael, the stores “although small…offer a hand-picked selection of titles reflecting both the taste of the owners and that of the neighborhoods they are a part of. From the very beginning Carmichael’s has been committed to being a neighborhood gathering place by being open seven days a week and every evening. Both stores are on corners that hum with activity – walkers, joggers, dogs and children, families and couples – lively streetscapes never darkened by the shadow of a big box store.”  I did not have a chance to visit the stores but could easily feel their vibe as I drove by and watched folks coming and going.  I also love that the bookstore gets its name not from a last name but from the combination of the first names CARol and MICHAEL.  Who knew?!

Carmichael’s Bookstore

James Wheat is a transplant from Florida and when not birding is in the IT field.  He has the enormously challenging responsibility of organizing the Christmas Bird Counts for the Louisville circle.  He is also active in other Louisville area birding organizations.  He was great company and was super in the field with a terrific ear and a quick eye and it was also clear to me that he was well organized and a “get it done” guy.  He would be a wonderful aide in organizing the logistics of a big year or a 50 state kind of project.  It was also great that the mosquitoes seemed to prefer him to me.

Kentucky Bourbon

I had an open day after the great birding with Carol and James and before meeting up with by birding companions in Indiana.  When I first thought about some special local aspects for a Kentucky trip, two iconic events came to mind:  “The Kentucky Derby” and a University of Kentucky vs. Louisville basketball game.  Timing was not right for either but I traveled through some thoroughbred horse country and was taken by its gentle beauty.  I also thought about Kentucky as the “Bourbon Capital” of the world and found that tours were available at the Jim Beam Distillery in Clermont, KY and thought that would be fun – another new experience that came to me because my passion for birding had taken me to Kentucky.

My visit to the distillery was very interesting including a tour that took us step by step through the entire process of manufacture, aging, bottling and distribution.  Jim Beam is the largest selling bourbon in the world and has many products under the Beam umbrella.  At the end of the tour we had an opportunity to taste many.  I am definitely not a connoisseur but even I could discern the differences of the differently aged and proofed forms.  I am going to let some pictures speak for themselves and may write up details another time.

Jim Beam – Clermont, KY

I continued north to Indiana with a first stop at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway – but that is a story for my next blog post…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being able to get my 50 species in both Missouri and Illinois in consecutive days gave me a chance to add another state to the trip before meeting with birding companions in Kentucky on October 7th.  In anticipation of this the night before I researched possibilities and decided to head south from Illinois, spend the night in Kentucky and carry on to Tennessee early the next morning.  The good news was that it looked to be possible to find the 50 species by hitting a few different Ebird Hotspots.  The bad news was that I would have to be doing it on my own.  My plan for the 50/50/50 project was for birding in each state to be with local birders.  This would improve the odds of reaching the 50 species goal and certainly increase the efficiency.  Equally importantly it would provide local color and perspective that was an important part of the adventure.

There simply was not time to line up local birders so I made the executive decision to go anyhow but to be sure to intersect with others – hopefully including some birders – that I expected to find at the locations I chose.  This worked very well and I had great intersections with a number of “locals” in Tennessee, although since I was primarily in the Nashville area, I quickly learned that many of the “locals” had not been local very long and had moved to Nashville for job or lifestyle opportunities.  This was a good perspective to add to my experiences along the way.

I would be returning to Kentucky in two days but when I crossed the state line from Illinois into Kentucky on Highway 24, I was in a new “Life State”.  That now left only North Dakota and Kansas as states I had never visited – using the term “visited” very loosely as at least a couple were airports only.  I stayed the night in Paducah, KY because it was about as far as I could go while still being able to drive safely with my sleep deprivation and also I just liked the name.  I would still need to travel another 120 miles the next morning but since I am an early riser even when I have traveled two time zones east, that would not be a problem.

Ebird reports suggested that Shelby Bottoms Park a little northeast of Nashville would be a great place to start.  Nashville was just across the Cumberland River from Kentucky.  I had gotten a very early start and was birding by 8:00 a.m.  The heat and humidity continued, but that first hour was not too bad.  Shelby Bottoms has a variety of habitats including a small lake or pond that I hoped would produce some waterfowl – species that had been few and far between in the two previous states.  Unfortunately the only ducks were Mallards but there were some Double Crested Cormorants, a Great Blue Heron and a Belted Kingfisher.  I was already worrying about getting to 50 species.  There was one great experience there though.  Seemingly out of nowhere a flock of at least 45 Chimney Swifts appeared and swooped over the pond – acting like more like swallows.  They circled and dove and were very close to the water – a behavior I had never seen before.  This lasted for maybe 15 minutes and then they were gone.  I had seen numerous Swifts in Missouri and Illinois but they had always been fairly high or even extremely high overhead – their presence often first revealed by their chattering.

I birded in the park for almost three hours.  I am sure I missed some species as I did not recognize some calls and chips but ended up with 38 species including four warblers the most numerous of which were Magnolia Warblers found in small groups in several areas.  I found another Philadelphia Vireo but again was able to get only a very poor photo.  If not the best, at least my favorite find was some Brown Thrashers.  In the past I have only seen them in open areas.  These were in the trees, buried at first and then into the open feasting on berries.

Brown Thrasher

As in Missouri and Illinois there were Carolina Chickadees and Carolina Wrens.  The latter seemed to be everywhere in this park.  And like the Bewick’s Wrens that are abundant in Western Washington, the Carolina Wrens have numerous calls, chips, songs and … well, noises.  There were few moments in the Park when I was not hearing these Wrens, Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays or Mockingbirds.  I was not able to get a photo but I had a quick look at a beautiful Wood Thrush.  It reminded me of the experience with Frank Caruso in North Carolina where we saw many Wood Thrushes that would fly in front of us and then disappear into the trees and brush.  Finally I got a good photo there.

Carolina Wren

I was able to get a decent photo of a Tufted Titmouse, another common (and noisy) species that had eluded my camera until finally getting one earlier this year in Massachusetts.

Tufted Titmouse

I was surprised not to find any other birders in the Park but I really wanted some local color so I struck up a conversation with two young kayakers.  When I asked how long they had lived in the area, they both laughed.  One had only been here 3 months and the other barely over a year.  They said that nobody they knew was actually “from Nashville”.  The city’s economy was good and jobs were available, but the big attraction for young people (they were late 20’s I would guess) was the music and club scene – a vibrant urban life with accessible and beautiful countryside all around.  The cost of living was also much lower than in the east coast cities they had departed.  It turned out that one of the young women was from my original home state of Maryland and had grown up not more than 15 miles from where I lived.  Although Nashville was somewhat of an exception, she did note that Tennessee was far more “red” than Maryland which was much more “blue”.  Again Nashville was somewhat different, but she also said the pace of life was significantly more at ease.

So no local birding lore but a good intersection and just the type of perspective I was looking for – getting out of my birding and Pacific Northwest silos so to speak.

Still hoping for some more waterfowl to bring up my species count, I headed off to Radnor Lake State Park about 10 miles south of Nashville by a route that took me just east of the downtown core.  Not nearly as many high rise office buildings as Seattle and I did not notice any cranes which are still so prominent in the Seattle skyline, but it looked like a bustling city and it was hard to miss Nissan Stadium home of the Tennessee Titans of the NFL.  I imagine that someone driving into Seattle from the South would have the same impression of my city with Century Link Field for the Seahawks but we also have “the Safe” – Safeco Field for the Mariners and Nashville is not Major League at least in that sense.

Once again I was disappointed with the only waterfowl being a distant view of a single Wood Duck. In fact I only added four new species for the day and I was getting concerned.  One new species was a Yellow Billed Cuckoo – another species I had photographed earlier in the year in North Carolina.  What this location lacked in new birds, it more than made up for with interesting people.  One was a birder who said that the day seemed less birdy than expected and thought it might be the heat.  We first heard and then got quick looks at both White Breasted and Red Breasted Nuthatches together.  The latter are far less common although I had seen them in the morning and also in Illinois.

White Breasted Nuthatch

Another interesting intersection was with a woman who was walking her Schnauzers – at a very brisk pace.  She noted my camera and asked if I had taken any good photos.  I often get asked that by non-birders when they see my camera – a good conversation starter.  I told her that I had not “yet”.  I also told her that she did not sound like she was “from here”.  In her New York accent, she said definitely not.  She was another transplant – from one of the New York City suburbs – relocated to be with grandchildren.  She missed the East Coast but remarked how friendly people were in her new home.  That was my sense as well.  Everyone I met throughout my trip was engaging and friendly – a different vibe than some other places.

My last connection there was with a young couple from Arkansas who were vacationing in Nashville and had wanted to get out for a walk.  They were not birders but were bird aware and had a lot of questions when I told them what I was up to.  I showed them a number of photos I had taken as well as some from phone apps.  It would not surprise me if they develop a further interest.  They told me they had seen a “giant woodpecker” in the park maybe 30 minutes earlier.  I guessed it was a Pileated Woodpecker and just as I was about to show them a photo, they said they had a video.  And of course that is what it was.  They were thrilled to have seen it and now moreso to know what they had seen.  I have had dozens of connections like this in the field and always take time to share experiences, ask and answer questions and find these times to be among the most rewarding that are part of my birding life.  This is particularly the case when there is a chance to show some young kids something about birds.  Maybe a spark will light a fire.

Back to the birds – there were not enough of them and the momentum from the morning felt like it had disappeared.  I needed a new kind of habitat and some different birds.  I did a quick check of Ebird reports and identified a couple of good spots.  The first had the very appealing name “Old Hickory Lake–Snow Bunting Peninsula”.  I wasn’t expecting a Snow Bunting but some new water related species seemed likely.  I don’t think I have ever been so pleased to see American Coots, Pied Billed Grebes, Ringed Billed Gulls and Canada Geese.  I also noticed that some of the vultures did not have red heads, so I added Black Vulture for the day.  A small flock of American Redstarts flew into some trees and I also found what turned out to be a Summer Tanager.  Now my day list stood at 49 species.  I needed one more but I  wanted a few more species “to be sure”.

Black Vulture

My research had suggested another good spot that was very appealing with different habitat.  Bells Bend Park is a rural preserve of 808 acres located in Davidson County west of Nashville along the Cumberland River.  Its description as “pastoral” seemed very fitting – an easy going place with open fields with high grass, some big trees and the river.  I spent more than an hour there and probably enjoyed it as much as anywhere I had been.

A Cut Grass Trail at Bell’s Bend Park

I found only 20 species but 8 were new for the day – including a Summer Tanager that I clearly identified and counted.  The most surprising were the 5 Northern Bobwhites that flushed from right in front of me and almost gave me a heart attack.  Finally I found some real sparrows and some swallows: 2 Field Sparrows, an Eastern Towhee and 2 Tree Swallows.  Other new species for the day were Orange Crowned and Black Throated Green Warblers, and a Sharp Shinned Hawk.

Eastern Towhee

Summer Tanager

With these new species I was at 57 for the day – goal met.  Repeating myself, I am sure there would have been many more if I had local expertise (and eyes and ears) with me.  There had been a lot of walking at the locations today and I figured I had hiked at least 5 miles.  And now it was just after 6:00 p.m.  The temperature had dropped a bit but it had been in the high 80’s or more all day and I was tired.  The plan had been to hit the music scene that night – some of that Nashville country music.  Unfortunately for all of the places that appealed to me the music did not start until 8:00 or even 9:00 p.m..  There was no way I was going to be able to be sufficiently lively at that time to enjoy it.  I retired to my hotel room very pleased to have snuck in a new state.  Tennessee was the 15th state where I had my 50 species in a day.  Kentucky and Indiana were ahead and I was looking forward to meeting some excellent birders that would be helping me.

When I started thinking of a trip to add more states in my 50/50/50 project, a major criterion was being able to cover at least three states on a single trip.  With Illinois being immediately across the river from St. Louis and Missouri, it was an obvious choice as a second state.  Kentucky was not far away for a third state and I figured I could add Indiana as well – making a four state swing in 8 days available for four days of birding and having some extra time for including places of interest which was also an objective of my “project”.  So the initial plan was two days in Missouri, then two days to follow in each of those other states.

When Pat Lueders offered to provide assistance in both Missouri and Illinois in successive days, it confirmed my trip choice and provided some extra flexibility.  It worked perfectly.  Day two started with a visit to Pat’s home and a chance to see the Eurasian Tree Sparrows that nested there in those wren houses with 1 1/8″ entrance holes that keep the House Sparrows out.  We found the Tree Sparrows quickly – a great start to the day.

Eurasian Tree Sparrows

Our first stop in Illinois was to be Horseshoe Lake State Park less than 10 miles into this new state.  Our first species though was a Peregrine Falcon I spied as we sped along the highway – a good omen.  We also had more Eurasian Tree Sparrows just outside the park, now only a new “state bird”.  The park is almost 3000 acres – more than 5 times the size of Discovery Park in Seattle.  Eighty percent of the area is Horseshoe Lake itself but that still leaves plenty of forest and mixed habitats.  Almost 300 species have been seen at the park.  Just in the month of May this year, 138 species were reported including 19 species of shorebirds and 14 warbler species.  In September this year, the comparable numbers were only 93 species including only 3 shorebird species and only 7 warblers.  So this clearly was not the prime time to visit, but we did very well finding 49 species with only a single shorebird – one Spotted Sandpiper – and an excellent 7 Warblers including two that were not seen the previous month.  My favorite was one of them, the Chestnut Sided Warbler.  It is a nemesis bird for me in Washington as I have chased several – always unsuccessfully.

Chestnut Sided Warbler

We also had a nice Tennessee Warbler – also a rarity in Washington but I have seen them at Neah Bay – not as well as here, though.

Tennessee Warbler

This area was not that different from some of the area we had birded the previous day, but the experience was certainly completely different when it came to migration.  The day before we had not seen a single Yellow Rumped Warbler.  Today they were everywhere.  We conservatively listed only 40 on our Ebird reports, but there may well have been more than twice that many.  Yellow Rumped Warblers are our most common Warbler species in Washington and I will never forget one incredible day at the Railroad Ponds in South Cle Elum when there were hundreds of them along the ponds – as many as 25 in a single tree.  We also birded one area near the Borrows Pits (actually adjacent to Horseshoe Lake) where we had at least 15 Palm Warblers – clearly a flock in migration.  In Washington, we have Palm Warblers in migration but they are not common and even 3 at a time is very rare.   The 15 in Illinois were about the same as the top number seen on two days of peak migration in Florida in April 2017.  We searched for different warbler species among them, but found only a couple of Yellow Rumps.

Yellow Rumped Warbler

Palm Warbler

We ended the day with 59 species – amazing to me since we had no sparrows, only the single shorebird species and only a single duck species – of course a Mallard.  This was definitely a day where I doubt I would have had 50 species without expert local help.  Pat’s ability to identify the species by their chip calls was very impressive.  A case in point was a Northern Waterthrush, the other warbler not reported in September.  This is seen regularly but uncommonly in Washington.  It breeds in a small area around Calispell Lake in far eastern Washington and is found in a few other spots.  It does have a fairly distinctive “chink” call, but in Illinois there are many other chips and chinks that to my ears were either too similar to identify or were even lost in the other calls and noises around.   Pat had heard a distant call note  and it told her a Waterthrush was around.  Sure enough, we found great habitat and heard it several times – eventually getting a good look through thick brush.

The pursuit of this Northern Waterthrush is emblematic of what impressed me most about Pat Lueders.  Of course it started with the identification based on fairly minimal input.  But it was her determination to find the bird for me, yes, but also for her own satisfaction that made the difference.  She was both confident that the ID was correct and that it was findable in a tough environment.  She was being a birder, a guide and also a co-participant with me in my quest.  Let’s segue to Pat as professional guide with Naturalist Journeys.  I have birded with many excellent (and a couple not excellent) professional guides.  Most are extremely good at identifying birds and finding them.  The best also are very good at making sure that their birder clients also see the birds and learn about them – whether it is their field marks, calls, songs, behaviors or natural histories.  And the very best can put themselves in the shoes of their clients, understand what is most important to them and as often as possible make sure that is what they experience.  It was important to Pat that I see this Northern Waterthrush and she made that possible.

Naturalist Journeys is headquartered in Portal, Arizona and offers tours, safaris and cruises worldwide.  Its stated mission is to  provide exceptional quality experiences that foster a deep respect for nature, inspire wildlife conservation, and enrich and renew lives through shared exploration.  Their tours definitely have an avian focus but many have a broader reach and strike me as perfect for those of us either ourselves or with partners who wish to experience the culture and natural history of an area beyond a lengthy species list.  My 50/50/50 project proceeds on this premise – that my passion for birding gains me entrance into a wider world with wonderful experiences everywhere.  Birding is the catalyst that gets me going.  There are great people, places and all of nature waiting to be experienced.

Following our birding together, Pat was heading off to lead her “Southern Charm” tour.  How’s this for an appealing vacation:  “Discover the history, nature, and culture of the charming and beautiful South Carolina coast. Explore Savannah and Charleston, and make stops at historic forts and Morris Island Lighthouse. Relax on horse-drawn carriage rides over cobblestone streets, bird the beautiful Magnolia Plantation, tour antebellum museums and mansions, and indulge at famous local restaurants.”  Oh yeah – lots of birds too in a massive National Wildlife Refuge area of over 1 million acres.  I wish my schedule would have permitted me to take this tour as both Savannah and Charleston are places I very much want to visit.  I will get there later and will have those 50 species days in both Georgia and South Carolina, but I am definitely going to take time for those non-avian pleasures as well.

I am happy to put in a good word for this company not just because of my great time with Pat, but also because I have had great experiences with other of their guides as well.  In 2013, I birded with Michael Marsden in South Texas and Carlos Sanchez joined our Victor Emanuel Nature Tours trip in South Texas this year after Victor had to leave because of a schedule conflict.  They were both excellent.  I have also met Woody Wheeler in my home state of Washington where he is highly regarded.

This was not a day with cultural and historic content.  No major attractions, no tourist appeal.  One non-birding thing did make a major impression, though.  Unlike many birders, I am not a butterfly guy.  Sometimes I note them but except for example maybe the Blue Morphos of Costa Rica, I generally quickly move on and look for more birds.  Moreso in Illinois than the previous day in Missouri, we saw many, all told well over a hundred, Monarch Butterflies.

The Life and Times of a Monarch Butterfly

Like the warblers, they, too, were migrating – heading south to warmer climes.  Monarchs go through four stages during one life cycle, and through four generations in one year.  The first three generations all include the four stages of egg (laid on milkweed plants) , larvae (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis), and adult butterfly.  The adults of the first three generations move on north and east dying off after laying the eggs for the next generation.  They live only 2 to 6 weeks.  The fourth generation lives longer – making the entire return journey south and surviving until they begin the migration begins again in the following February and March the next year starting their complex life cycle anew.  It was this fourth generation of southward bound Monarchs that we were seeing.

Milkweed

Monarch Caterpillar Becoming a Chrysalis

Monarch Emerging from a Chrysalis

Adult Monarch Butterflies

It had been two great days – the unseasonably high heat and humidity the only negatives.  It was mission accomplished with more than 50 species in Missouri and Illinois and a great visit with Pat.  And I was two days ahead of schedule.  As will be evident from my next post, I found a good way to make use of this bonus time and added a fifth state to the itinerary.  I said goodbye to Pat and thanked her for two super days and treated myself with a prime rib dinner.  If only calories didn’t count on these trips.

Pat Lueders

Pat Lueders has been leading birding trips in the St. Louis area and Midwest for over 10 years. A love of traveling has taken her to many countries of the world and most of the US, often with Naturalist Journeys’ trips. When not out birding, she is the coordinator of volunteers for a number of Citizen Science projects partnering with many agencies including U.S. Fish & Wildlife, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Audubon, National Trumpeter Swan Society, and Missouri Department of Conservation. Pat serves on the boards of St. Louis Audubon & Audubon Society of Missouri and is on a bird banding team.

 

“Show me some birds in the Show Me State“.  That was my request to Pat Lueders as I was heading to Missouri.  I am not going to go into the full details yet as there will be a full on Blog Post about it later, but this was the first stop on an 8 day swing through the Midwest working on what I have tentatively been calling my “50/50/50 Project”.  As I said there will be much more on this later, but in essence it is a journey/adventure where my objective is to see 50 species on one single day in each of the 50 states in the company of local folks and also to visit new interesting places.  My passion for birding has greatly enriched my life with exciting birds, people and places.  50/50/50 is furthering that enrichment adding great birds, people and places in every state.

I will add much more about Pat Lueders in my next post which will be about birding with her in Illinois the next day as well.  She was terrific – definitely as a birding guide – finding and identifying – but moreso as great company with a wealth of knowledge about her area.  She is also a professional guide with Naturalist Journeys and that too will be covered in more depth in my next post.  I had a great time and learned a ton.  I am going to try to avoid these 50/50/50 posts becoming a recitation of “then we did/saw this and then we did/saw that” – so not as chronological or linear as some of my other posts have been.  We will see how it goes.

I arrived in St. Louis on the evening of October 2nd. It was kind of a “tweener” time – between the peak migration of passerines and the arrival of waterfowl – but Pat was confident we would be able to find fifty species with some residents and later migrating passerines.  Although the only absolute was finding those fifty species, a close second was to finally see a Eurasian Tree Sparrow – found in only a limited geographical area in and around St. Louis.  There was also the hope of adding Philadelphia Vireo to my ABA Life List and a few possible new ABA photos – mostly warblers that could still be around but far less likely than even a week or two earlier.

St. Louis reminded me a lot of Washington, D.C. in the 1960’s.  I grew up in Maryland outside of D.C. but spent a lot of time there.  Lots of row houses with big deciduous trees and many parks.  The 90+ degrees and the 90%+ humidity also reminded me of D.C. weather – not my best memory.  Much of our birding was at Tower Grove Park near the Center of the City but Pat also showed me Forest Park – over 1370 acres with every use you could imagine.  One of the largest urban parks in the U.S. (bigger than Central Park) it is an incredible resource for the City.

One View at Forest Park

At Tower Grove Park we had 39 species including that hoped for Lifer Philadelphia Vireo – a barely recognizable photo only so not included (there will be one of another “Philly Vireo” in a later blog post).  I had finally gotten a photo of a Red Headed Headed Woodpecker earlier this year in North Carolina and I told Pat I hoped for a better one.  We only found one – much better than the North Carolina photo.  It has an amazingly big bill and there is no doubt about how it got its name.

Red Headed Woodpecker

The species list for Tower Grove Park includes an incredible 35 warbler species.  Two weeks ago we might have had as many as 15.  Only a half dozen this day including a very lovely Black Throated Green Warbler.  I hope to get back for Spring migration some day.

Black Throated Green Warbler

The topography in Missouri is very different from my home area of Puget Sound.  Of course, no saltwater – and no tides.  But two BIG rivers – the Missouri and the Mississippi and their confluence is at Confluence Park near the Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary – another area we birded.  I have to admit that I prefer the more dramatic topography of my Seattle, but the history of these rivers and the role they play in the Central U.S. is incredible.  Pat was an encyclopedia of knowledge with many references to the Lewis and Clark Expedition which followed the Missouri River into the Northwest more than 200 years ago.  Our Northwest is so young compared to the rest of the country.  The feeling of a presence of “history” was a big part of my visit.

At Riverlands we had 26 species, but they included our only shorebirds of the trip –  single Least, Baird’s and Spotted Sandpipers and a Killdeer.  Again very different from my recent birding in Washington – but important where we were trying to reach 50 species – especially when the day had no sparrows, no crows and no falcons.  It was at our last stop that we finally got my most important species, an ETS – the Eurasian Tree Sparrow.  We played hide and seek with them at feeders at the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area – along the Missouri River.  Later I finally got great looks and photos at Pat’s home.

Eurasian Tree Sparrow

We ended the day with 66 species including the two Lifers and two Life photos (now at 692).  We had talked about possibly visiting the famous St. Louis Gateway Arch.  Pat was game but in part because of sleep loss from travels the previous day and the oppressive heat, I lost energy.  We had many views of the Gateway Arch during the day – made easier by the flatness of the landscape.  It definitely stands out.  Something else that stood out were the many beautiful homes in some of the residential areas – very different architecture and many larger lots than in Seattle.  I asked Pat for a round figure of what a particularly nice (and large) home would sell for.  I won’t reveal the price but, if you could even find a similar home in Seattle, I am sure it would cost 3 or 4 times as much.

The Gateway Arch

A Brief History of the Eurasian Tree Sparrow

Pat gave me a copy of the list of “Migratory and Permanent Resident Birds” published by the St. Louis Bird Club – 1947 Revision.  Of particular interest was a lengthy article about what was then called the European Tree Sparrow and its comparison to what was then called the English Sparrow – and was referred to as a “chippy”.  The former, now the Eurasian Tree Sparrow was originally brought to St. Louis, released there, thrived there but unlike the English Sparrow – now the House Sparrow – it never moved away and spread.  Here is some of the history:

20 European Tree Sparrows were released in Lafayette Park along with some Linnets, European Goldfinches, Chaffinches and Bullfinches in 1870 by a bird dealer, a Mr. Kleinschmidt and Carl Daenzer, a prominent citizen.  The other species quickly disappeared, but bolstered by ample grain food supplies provided by the numerous local breweries, the Tree Sparrows thrived primarily in the suburban residential and parkland areas.

The larger and more aggressive House Sparrows had been released in Brooklyn in 1851 but did not appear in the St. Louis area until 1877.  The House Sparrows began to take over and the population of Tree Sparrows may have disappeared but for the community efforts in providing bird houses with entrance holes sufficiently small to prevent use by the former – wren boxes with holes of 1 1/8″.   The Tree Sparrows held on in an area of about a 50 mile radius of St. Louis.  The House Sparrows thrived in urban, suburban and rural areas but the Tree Sparrows remained in the rural and suburban areas only.  Post breeding they would gather in flocks in these areas – often in the company of the more robust House Sparrows, but when together, the Tree Sparrows yield to their larger cousins.

Both species are Old World Weaver Finches – not true sparrows.  The House Sparrow is dimorphic with males and females having different plumage, while both sexes of the Eurasian Tree Sparrow have the same plumage.  Identification was summarized by the Bird Club as follows.

• European Tree Sparrow – Crown chocolate brown; Black spot in white cheek; Two wing-bars; Narrow white collar; Black patch on throat; Female looks like male.
• English Sparrow – Crown slate colored, brown edge; Solid white cheek; One wing-bar; no collar; Black throat and breast; Female not like male.

Comparison Photo

Fall migration is in full swing and the last few weeks have been great for shorebirds in Western Washington – the impetus for writing this post.

Washington is an excellent state for shorebirds – some breeders, lots of migrants and occasionally a rare vagrant.  Altogether, sixty-one species have been seen in the state of which 16 are rare to exceedingly rare vagrants – some seen only a single time.  Migrating shorebirds come through in both in the spring (roughly March through May) and again in the Fall (roughly July through September although there is some carryover into October).  Because of the tidal mudflats and seashore habitats, far more species and individuals of  shorebirds are seen in Western Washington than Eastern Washington but a couple – Black Necked Stilt and American Avocet are common East and rare West and Wilson’s Phalaropes and Long Billed Curlews are somewhat more common in the East.

Of the 61 species ever reported in Washington, I have been fortunate to have seen 48 with the remaining 13 quite rare indeed.  I may someday see a few of them but I would be surprised if it will be more than a few, at least in the State itself.  In fact in all of my birding elsewhere in the ABA area, I have seen only three of those missing 13 species.  So far in 2018, I have seen 41 shorebird species in Washington.  The seven seen previously but not this year are:  Hudsonian Godwit, Wood Sandpiper,  Lesser Sand Plover, Red Necked Stint, White Rumped Sandpiper, Upland Sandpiper and Wilson’s Plover.  I have seen the latter three elsewhere this year.  All of the others save the Hudsonian Godwit (regular in the Central Flyway) are extremely rare anywhere in the U.S. except in Alaska where only the Red Necked Stint is seen regularly.

Washington has good migration in both the Spring and the Fall but more species are seen in the Fall.  As I said, my shorebirding has been very good the past week or two.  Among the best species seen were Buff Breasted. Pectoral, Baird’s, Semipalmated and Sharp Tailed Sandpipers, American and Pacific Golden Plovers, Ruff, and Red Necked Phalarope.  Here are photos of the shorebirds seen this year, in Washington, others out of State in 2018, others out of State prior to 2018 and then lists of birds not seen.

Washington Shorebirds – 2018

Black Oystercatcher – Fort Flagler SP – February 22, 2018

Black Bellied Plover – Tulalip Spit – September 11, 2018

Snowy Plover – Grayland Beach – January 28, 2018

Killdeer – Hoquiam STP – May 3, 2018

Whimbrel – Camano Island Rekdal Road – May 13, 2018

Long Billed Curlew – Nisqually NWR – July 5, 2018 (No photo this is from Bottle Beach – September 2015)

Bar Tailed Godwit – Hayton Preserve – June 26, 2018 (No photo then – this photo is from Westport Marina – August 2018)

Marbled Godwit – Bottle Beach – August 11, 2018

Buff Breasted Sandpiper – Ocean Shores Game Range – September 23, 2018 – (No photo then – this photo is from Midway Beach 2012)

Pectoral Sandpiper – Ocean Shores Game Range – September 23, 2018

Semipalmated Sandpiper – Eide Road – May 13, 2018 (Photo from same spot – September 2014)

Baird’s Sandpiper – Wiley Slough – August 24, 2018 

Semipalmated Plover – Open Beach South of Westport – August 11, 2018

Red Knot – Bottle Beach – May 18, 2018

Sharp Tailed Sandpiper – Wylie Slough – September 20, 2018

American Golden Plover – Ocean Shores Game Range – September 23, 2018

Pacific Golden Plover – Ocean Shores Game Range – September 23, 2018

Ruff – Jakle’s Lagoon – San Juan Island – July 16, 2018

American Avocet – Redmond, WA – May 5, 2018

Ruddy Turnstone – Bottle Beach – May 3, 2018

Dunlin – Ocean Shores Game Range – September 23, 2018

Sanderling – Open Beach South of Westport – August 11, 2018

Solitary Sandpiper – Puyallup – July 24, 2018

Greater Yellowlegs – Three Crabs – September 19, 2018

Lesser Yellowlegs – Wylie Slough – August 24, 2018

Willet – Tokeland Marina – August 11, 2018

Black Turnstone – Ocean Shores Pt. Brown Jetty – September 23, 2018

Wandering Tattlers – Westport Jetty – August 1, 2018

Rock Sandpiper – Ocean Shores Pt. Brown Jetty – January 3, 2018

Surfbird – Ocean Shores Pt. Brown Jetty – January 3, 2018

Western Sandpiper – Jakle’s Lagoon – San Juan Island – July 16, 2018

Short Billed Dowitcher – Bottle Beach – May 18, 2018

Long Billed Dowitchers – Wylie Slough – August 24, 2018

Wilson’s Snipe – Ridgefield NWR – January 7, 2018

Wilson’s Phalarope – County Line Ponds – May 19, 2018

Red Necked Phalarope – Westport Pelagic – August 12, 2018

Red Phalarope – Westport Pelagic – August 12, 2018

Black Necked Stilt – County Line Ponds – April 19, 2018

Spotted Sandpiper – Oso Loop Road – July 10, 2018

Stilt Sandpiper – Wylie Slough – August 24, 2018

Least Sandpiper – Tokeland Marina – January 27, 2018

Outside of Washington in 2018

American Oystercatcher – Salt Pond, North Carolina – May 31, 2018

Wilson’s Plover – Corpus Christi, TX – April 3, 2018 (In WA in October 2012)

Piping Plover – Corpus Christi, TX – April 3, 2018

Upland Sandpiper – King Ranch, TX – April 6, 2018 (In WA – September 2013)

White Rumped Sandpiper – Rodanthe, North Carolina – May 30, 2018

Shorebirds Seen Earlier than 2018 but Not This Year (Washington and Elsewhere)

Lesser Sand Plover – Open Beach above Ocean Shores – August 16, 2015

Red Necked Stint – Crockett Lake, Whidbey Island, WA – July 8, 2017

Mountain Plover – Colorado – April 7, 2016

Far Eastern Curlew – Adak, Alaska – May 29, 2016

Hudsonian Godwit – Semiahmoo Spit – September 29, 2015

Purple Sandpiper – Kitty Islet, Victoria, B.C. – January 12, 2017

Common Snipe – Adak, Alaska – May 30, 2016

 

Shorebirds in ABA Area Seen but No Photographs
American Woodcock	Assateague Island National Seashore -MD	11-May-75
Bristle-thighed Curlew	Nome River (Nome-Kougarok Rd) – AK	4-Jun-16
Northern Jacana	Manor Lake, TX	25-Apr-78
Spotted Redshank	Fort Stevens SP–South Jetty/Parking Area – OR	26-Feb-81
Wood Sandpiper	Samish Flats–West 90 – WA	11-Aug-11

Washington Shorebirds Not Seen in State
Common Ringed Plover	Great Knot
Curlew Sandpiper	Jack Snipe
Eurasian Dotterel	Gray Tailed Tattler
Little Stint	Bristle Thighed Curlew
Spotted Redshank	Piping Plover
Temminck’s Stint	Mountain Plover
Little Curlew
Italics – seen out of State