Woodard Bay Report
Woodard Bay Field Trip Report: February 10, 2024 by Bonnie Wood Whenever guests who have never been to Olympia come to visit, we take them to Woodard Bay. This past Saturday would have been an excellent day to do that. Although it was cold to start, the sun was strong and bright, the sky blue. Four of our field trip group had never been to Woodard Bay before. Although the birds were not abundant in the early morning’s cold, Woodard Bay still impressed. As is usual at Woodard Bay, many Song Sparrows and Pacific Wrens were singing and warning and diving down into underbrush along the road out to the inlet. Kinglets, chickadees, Pine Siskins (we speculated), and robins foraged high up in the trees. We heard a Pileated Woodpecker and saw it fly away through far trees, but it never showed nearer to us. We heard crows
2023 Bluebird Summary
SUMMARY OF THE 2023 BLUEBIRD PROJECT Kathleen Snyder The bluebird team wrapped up the nesting season with our volunteers cleaning out, repairing, and installing new nest boxes in two locations where we had monitors and in two locations where we did not. Everyone involved enjoyed the seeing all the activity on prairies filled with wildflowers; here are the results: Violet Prairie with 14 boxes – Western Bluebird successful nests 2 Violet-green Swallow 2 Tree Swallow 2 House Wren 2 Glacial Heritage with 38 boxes – Bluebird successes 9 Violet-green Swallow 7 Tree Swallow 8 House Wren 2 Unknown Swallow 5 The two locations that did not have monitoring were Tenalquot Prairie and Cavness Ranch. Cavness had some successful swallow nests but no bluebirds. Bluebirds have been seen in this location so our team will try
Willapa Hills Field Trip Report
Black Hills Audubon Willapa Hills Field Trip Report: October 14, 2023 By Grace Thornton A group of nine met at the HiIlburger Road parking area of the Willapa Hills Trail. Cloudy and cool but no rain. There were some Golden Crowned Sparrows and Bewick’s Wrens, and we heard a Varied Thrush and Spotted Towhee. We then headed over to look at Hillburger Pond for possible waterfowl and we did manage to find a few different species. There was a large number of Cackling Geese, mixed with Mallard, Gadwall, Wigeon, a few Ring-Necked Ducks and Greater White Fronted and Canada Geese. Also in the mix were 4 Pied-billed Grebes. Red-winged Blackbirds were in the reeds across the pond, and one Belted Kingfisher gave a flyover. We worked our way to the trail and spotted many more birds, including Bald Eagle, Song Sparrow, American Robins and many Bewick’s Wrens along the route.
Young Birder
A Weekend at the Cornell Ornithological Lab By Joe Zabransky Change has been a part of Dorian Seel’s life since she was interviewed three years ago (see The Echo Oct. 2020) but the one constant that has remained is her passion for birds. Dorian’s family planned to move from Olympia to Fort Collins, CO during her junior year (2022-23) of high school. As part of that process, she went to Hawaii where her grandparents lived and spent her junior year there. While there, she wrote a paper for her science class about the endangered Hawaiian Crow or Alala which will be printed in a forthcoming Hawaii Audubon newsletter. She was also selected to participate in the Young Birders Event at the Cornell Ornithological Lab in June of this year. The annual Young Birders Event is a weekend of field trips, lectures, workshops and tours open to high school students from
Ocean Shores Recap
RECAP OF BHAS FIELD TRIP TO OCEAN SHORES By Paul Hicks Our team of six birders covered several sites in Ocean Shores and identified around 55 species over the course of the morning of August 19, 2023. “Best” birds were Pacific Golden-plover which provided perfect, prolonged viewing for everyone and Green Heron, a species that was on just about everyone’s year target list. Though plenty of peeps were around, shorebird diversity was limited. At midday the wind kicked up and the fog rolled in, so the group reluctantly disbanded. Ken and I continued through the afternoon high tide, adding a dozen-plus to the day list. Great fun with a great group!! Oyhut Wildlife Area via Tonquin St access (8:00 to 10:45am) Passerines in the bushy margin outside the dunes were plenty evident (if not visible) in the morning hours. Several were ID’d by voice, a theme throughout the day: Swainson’s
The Enchantment of the Familiar Pt3
By Rachel Hudson It was midnight when my aunt and I stepped off the plane and into Texas… my original homeland. It had been three long years since I’d visited the state, and even longer since I’d been able to see most of my family. Much had changed in my absence, as my aunt explained on our way to her house. The city I had spent so many childhood summers in had grown immensely and was no longer the quaint, quiet tourist town of my past. It was now one of the fastest-growing cities in the entire United States, with a current population of well over 100,000 people and rapidly rising. The fields of wildflowers where, as a little girl, I had watched Greater Roadrunners trot and Northern Cardinals sing had been replaced by masses of houses to accommodate the population explosion. I could barely recognize anything as we drove
Woodard Bay Report
Woodard Bay Field Trip Report: February 10, 2024 by Bonnie Wood Whenever guests who have never been to Olympia come to visit, we take them to Woodard Bay. This past Saturday would have been an excellent day to do that. Although it was cold to start, the sun was strong and bright, the sky blue. Four of our field trip group had never been to Woodard Bay before. Although the birds were not abundant in the early morning’s cold, Woodard Bay still impressed. As is usual at Woodard Bay, many Song Sparrows and Pacific Wrens were singing and warning and diving down into underbrush along the road out to the inlet. Kinglets, chickadees, Pine Siskins (we speculated), and robins foraged high up in the trees. We heard a Pileated Woodpecker and saw it fly away through far trees, but it never showed nearer to us. We heard crows
2023 Bluebird Summary
SUMMARY OF THE 2023 BLUEBIRD PROJECT Kathleen Snyder The bluebird team wrapped up the nesting season with our volunteers cleaning out, repairing, and installing new nest boxes in two locations where we had monitors and in two locations where we did not. Everyone involved enjoyed the seeing all the activity on prairies filled with wildflowers; here are the results: Violet Prairie with 14 boxes – Western Bluebird successful nests 2 Violet-green Swallow 2 Tree Swallow 2 House Wren 2 Glacial Heritage with 38 boxes – Bluebird successes 9 Violet-green Swallow 7 Tree Swallow 8 House Wren 2 Unknown Swallow 5 The two locations that did not have monitoring were Tenalquot Prairie and Cavness Ranch. Cavness had some successful swallow nests but no bluebirds. Bluebirds have been seen in this location so our team will try
Willapa Hills Field Trip Report
Black Hills Audubon Willapa Hills Field Trip Report: October 14, 2023 By Grace Thornton A group of nine met at the HiIlburger Road parking area of the Willapa Hills Trail. Cloudy and cool but no rain. There were some Golden Crowned Sparrows and Bewick’s Wrens, and we heard a Varied Thrush and Spotted Towhee. We then headed over to look at Hillburger Pond for possible waterfowl and we did manage to find a few different species. There was a large number of Cackling Geese, mixed with Mallard, Gadwall, Wigeon, a few Ring-Necked Ducks and Greater White Fronted and Canada Geese. Also in the mix were 4 Pied-billed Grebes. Red-winged Blackbirds were in the reeds across the pond, and one Belted Kingfisher gave a flyover. We worked our way to the trail and spotted many more birds, including Bald Eagle, Song Sparrow, American Robins and many Bewick’s Wrens along the route.
Young Birder
A Weekend at the Cornell Ornithological Lab By Joe Zabransky Change has been a part of Dorian Seel’s life since she was interviewed three years ago (see The Echo Oct. 2020) but the one constant that has remained is her passion for birds. Dorian’s family planned to move from Olympia to Fort Collins, CO during her junior year (2022-23) of high school. As part of that process, she went to Hawaii where her grandparents lived and spent her junior year there. While there, she wrote a paper for her science class about the endangered Hawaiian Crow or Alala which will be printed in a forthcoming Hawaii Audubon newsletter. She was also selected to participate in the Young Birders Event at the Cornell Ornithological Lab in June of this year. The annual Young Birders Event is a weekend of field trips, lectures, workshops and tours open to high school students from
Ocean Shores Recap
RECAP OF BHAS FIELD TRIP TO OCEAN SHORES By Paul Hicks Our team of six birders covered several sites in Ocean Shores and identified around 55 species over the course of the morning of August 19, 2023. “Best” birds were Pacific Golden-plover which provided perfect, prolonged viewing for everyone and Green Heron, a species that was on just about everyone’s year target list. Though plenty of peeps were around, shorebird diversity was limited. At midday the wind kicked up and the fog rolled in, so the group reluctantly disbanded. Ken and I continued through the afternoon high tide, adding a dozen-plus to the day list. Great fun with a great group!! Oyhut Wildlife Area via Tonquin St access (8:00 to 10:45am) Passerines in the bushy margin outside the dunes were plenty evident (if not visible) in the morning hours. Several were ID’d by voice, a theme throughout the day: Swainson’s
The Enchantment of the Familiar Pt3
By Rachel Hudson It was midnight when my aunt and I stepped off the plane and into Texas… my original homeland. It had been three long years since I’d visited the state, and even longer since I’d been able to see most of my family. Much had changed in my absence, as my aunt explained on our way to her house. The city I had spent so many childhood summers in had grown immensely and was no longer the quaint, quiet tourist town of my past. It was now one of the fastest-growing cities in the entire United States, with a current population of well over 100,000 people and rapidly rising. The fields of wildflowers where, as a little girl, I had watched Greater Roadrunners trot and Northern Cardinals sing had been replaced by masses of houses to accommodate the population explosion. I could barely recognize anything as we drove