Audubon Washington Chapters and Centers Map
Washington Audubon provides an interactive map that links to other Audubon chapters where often regional birding maps and sightings information are provided.
The Great Washington State Birding Trail Maps
Find the best places for bird watching in the Evergreen State on The Great Washington State Birding Trail maps, created by Audubon Washington. Each of the Birding Trail Maps provides detailed information and directions to numerous birding sites and natural areas in a region of the state. Like the birding trails in other states, the Great Washington State Birding Trail is a series of driving loops, each with many stops. Each stop is a special place to view birds and other wildlife or the start of a walking trail along which birds may be seen.
Black Hills Audubon Society is proud to help sponsor The Great Washington State Birding Trail and its maps.
See location of each maps –
the Cascade Loop,
the Olympic Loop,
the Southwest Loop, (see more details below)
the Coulee Corridor
the Sun and Sage Loop
the Palouse to Pines Loop
the The Puget Loop
These maps are now available for purchase, with the proceeds going toward reprinting of the popular publications and promoting the trail overall. The retail cost? Just $4.95 for each map (plus tax and shipping).
The full-color maps feature original artwork of birds along the routes, plus descriptions of habitat, access, and when to go.
For example, the Trail Map for the Southwest Loop provides information on 54 birding sites in the region from Olympia south to the Columbia River and west to the Pacific Ocean. It takes travelers from the wetlands of south Puget Sound out to breaker-washed coastlines of the Pacific Ocean and then retraces some of the 1805 Lewis and Clark journey along the Columbia River.
There are stops at sheltered bays that are the winter havens of waterfowl, costal spots to see hundreds of thousands of migrating shorebirds, and inland lakes, streams, and prairies for spring and summer birding. Special thanks to Kristin Stewart and Bob Morse from Black Hills Audubon for helping develop the Southwest Loop Trail Map.
To order maps, please see the Audubon Washington shopping cart for maps web page.
Sighting References
“BirdingWashington.Info provides information an out-of-state birder might find useful in planning a birding trip to Washington State. An in-state birder who has not planned his or her own trips might also find this useful. It acts as a portal, or gateway, to other websites and resources. A birder who is new to this state has many wonderful resources available to learn about the birds and birding areas in the state. However, this information is scattered and there is no one website that gathers it together and provides an organized view of that information. BirdingWashington.Info attempts to do that.” (by Randy Robinson, site creator)
E-bird is a online facility for birders — either beginners or experts — to enter their personal bird sightings into a national (actually international) database, which keeps track of location, date, and other features. To get started with this program, which is sponsored by the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, go to ebird.org, or simply google ebird, and sign up.
Each time you go on a walk, take an excursion, or just watch your birdfeeder, keep track of each species you see or hear, as well as how many individuals of that species. You then submit your observations either on a cellphone while you walk or watch (using an app) or online afterwards on the ebird website.
You can then ask for tables or graphs of your own records or request aggregate information about other ebirders’ records by species, location, and date. For example, if you enter Barrows Goldeneye and Thurston County, you get a map of the local area with pin markers for all locations where this species has been observed, with the most recent observations in red. Or if you are anxious to know where folks are seeing Wood Storks in the Florida Everglades, it’s just as easy.
The program also identifies hotspots in areas where you may be traveling, lists the most birds of each species seen by anyone with the dates of observation, and lots of other interesting and amusing stuff. Although this informal program isn’t intended to meet scientific standards, it provides a great deal of suggestive information about the occurrence of birds in far more detail then is practical in scientific surveys.