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 and Red-Breasted Nuthatches. We caught only very fleeting glimpses of a Bewick’s Wren and Brown Creepers, who became active as the morning warmed.
On the water were Barrow’s and Common Goldeneyes, Mallards, Buffleheads, Surf Scoters, Horned Grebes, and Western Gulls. In the sun, the male Mallard’s head feathers shone brilliant purple. Seals lounged in the sun’s warmth on the barge out in the inlet. Pelagic and Double-Crested Cormorants sat atop the poles. Most wow-inspiring was the siege of Great Blue Herons atop the trestle 100 yards out from the shore. A pair of geese napped next to them.
On the opposite side from the trestle, looking south, we spotted Belted Kingfisher and Red-Breasted Merganser.
Finally, five of us returned to our cars via the path through the woods. It is a winding path, up and down short hills, longer than one would expect, yet boasts some very big older conifers, snags peppered with a multitude of woodpecker holes, and limbs festooned with mosses and baby ferns. In the sunlight their green gleamed. When we first entered, at an overlook over a small pond, a flurry of kinglets, chickadees, Brown Creepers, and Spotted Towhees darted back and forth through the shrubbery. A lone Varied Thrush made an appearance on the path later.
I learned two marvelous new words this day: a siege of herons; and apricity, which is “the warmth of the sun in the winter.” The sun did warm us, into our cores, by midday. Spring is coming!
Photo credit: Glorious Greens and Song Sparrow, by Bonnie Wood.
