Hi Tweeters,

I birded my way around the Olympics this weekend, saw a some birds and
some lovely birdy places. My favorites: the North Fork of the Quinault,
off the 101 in the Olympic National Forest. The (primitive) campground
is a great unpaved drive through all this mixed rainforest swampy stuff
and regular rainforest and of course the majestic and impressive Quinault
River, with mergansers and a pileated woodpecker and golden crowned and
white crowned sparrows, and golden crowned and ruby crowned kinglets, and
winter wrens all over. I finally figured out that the drumming I heard
was a ruffed grouse. That was a lot of fun. Life bird. Very slowly
crossing the road (not drumming, unfortunately). And the grassy Eastern
Washington-like meadow, with the stream and all those birds I just
couldn't quite figure out, that little grey flycatcher and the warbler
that kept flitting off before I could get a good look to match the voice
with the bird, and then that extremely unlikely bird I glimpsed for two
seconds: it sang a chopped off couple of syllables, then a sort of
mid-range finchy song only with harder edges. It sat tilted on a branch
like an oriole but it was oh, blue grosbeak sized, and it had a big fat
beak like that, but its colors, I swear, they looked mixed up mostly blue
with orangey-reddish, most like the painted bunting picture, but that's
quite impossible. Even I don't believe me. Could it have been a
crossbill? I've never seen one before. It was on a sparsely-leafed
branch, in the morning sun, chest high, a couple of car-lengths away.
Maddening. This field. It was the elk field I'd passed the evening
before; I thought I'd seen a grouse fly up as I passed, and I couldn't
wait to bird it the next morning, and it was everything I had hoped it
would be. And more, obviously. Let's see, the rest of my list for that
area, including the drive in:
(no eagles. I saw 30 there the last time, and I heard that
ringing-school-bell sound that I associate with them, constantly, but I
never saw them.)
Rufous hummingbird
Downy woodpecker
Tree swallow
American crow
Chestnut-backed chickadee
Black-capped chickadee
Red-breasted nuthatch
Brown creeper
American robin
Varied thrush
Song sparrow
Dark eyed juncos (slate-colored)
Pine siskin
American goldfinch

Now, my other favorite place, on Highway 101 along the coast, is Fourth
Beach. Just north of Kalaloch State Park, it's fantastic, a wonderland
of rocks surf and there's a nice island protecting it, and plenty of tiny
little dots I couldn't quite make out with my binoculars in the glassy
smooth lee of the island, fishing their birdy hearts out. But what I did
see...
common loon
I think I may have seen a pacific loon, breeding plumage, I'm hopeful,
but I never got a good enough look. Loon. Grayish head, smaller than
the common loon. The back didn't look 'right'. That was all I saw, then
the lady came, and I was looking for whales, and talking, and worried
about my sardines spilling,...
western grebe
pelagic cormorant, and I saw the white breeding patch.
all three scoters (so that's why they call them surf scoters!)
A flock of bigger black birds, flying in a line formation, along the
water, a few miles out.
bald eagle
surfbird
no black oystercatcher, but I saw my first one at this beach last year,
so I'm extra fond of it, I guess.
glaucous winged gulls
western gulls
herring gulls
crows
winter wrens
all those little dots on the water
And finally, the mysterious bird call. Constantly calling. I was at the
beach from around 1 p.m. to 4. It seemed to be calling from high up in
the spruce, two of them calling back and forth. Sounded like a cell
phone, a high burr, no rhythm to it, just a long slurred transition from
high e to up to f sharp down to d sharp. one, two, three. Major to
minor. Like three half notes at a walking tempo. I was looking for the
bright yellow bird sitting on top of the tree, I guess. I never found
the d*&%ed thing.

I finally got to see a blue grouse, this trip. Life bird. On the other
side of the Olympics, south of Port Angeles by Elwha. It was vwhumping
high up in a spruce, in between bites of whatever was up there. Grouse
are funny. It didn't look as yellow or as orange as either the 'Pacific'
or the 'Tiaga' picture, though; very copper. I was glad to figure out
the vwhump. I'd heard it at Lake Silvia State Park, over by Montesano
and the Brady Loop and all that, the day before, and looked and looked
but I had no idea the bird was probably a mile or so away. Adventures of
the Bumbling Novice Birder. BNB.

Trip total: 70 (that I identified), 2 life birds, 3 Washington firsts:
rufous hummingbird, black turnstone (Point Brown Jetty by Ocean Shores),
greater white-fronted goose (Brady Loop).

Happy birding,

Norma Larson
Tukwila, WA
abbynorma at juno.com