Tweets,

Vincent Lucas asked to post about our five-day whirlwind tour to the North
Cascades, Olympic Peninsula, and Pacific Coast with our friends Bill and
Eleanor Marr of New York. He has already posted about the Sooty Shearwater
spectacle and to detail the whole tour would be very long. Therefore I will
focus on 3 other "discoveries" and if you want more details I will happily
share them offline.



First Black Swift was a lifer that Eleanor really wanted to see so I did
much research and correspondence to try a find where this bird was most
likely in the North Cascades. Unfortunately we completely dipped at all the
suggested spots and many recent eBird spots on the way to and round
Winthrop. We finally found some in late morning the next day (Aug 10) by
scanning the partially cloudy skies while driving at 50+ MPH along US 20 (we
did stop to verify). Not only that but we saw 3 separate groups in
Okanogan, Skagit and Whatcom counties (which were all county birds for all
also)! Two additional facts make this even more preposterous. We never
did find a definitive Vaux's Swift on the whole trip just a couple of very
distant, probable "Swift sp." the first day. Second on a hike out to Cape
Flattery, another birder apparently saw some Black Swifts but we dipped on
getting them in 4 counties.



Second the only scoters we saw on our trip were in a single huge flock off
US 101 just north Kalaloch Campground, in a ratio of about 1,000 Surf, 100
White-winged, to 10 Black Scoter though there were about 5,000 ducks.

Third was that our 1,100 miles drive was really too long for 3 full and 2
partial days. We ended up getting some late mornings starts and missing or
shortening many of our carefully planned scheduled stops. But one hour
diversion that was definitely enjoyed by all was a delicious breakfast at
the Tokeland Hotel on Aug 13 where we also saw Red Crossbill,
Chestnut-backed Chickadee, and a few other birds at the feeder. We missed
the Elegant Terns at Graveyard Spit and Tokeland Marina before and after
breakfast, maybe because of low tide or maybe because they had not arrived
yet.

We ended up with only about 111 bird species but all things considered it
turned out to be a very scenic and good trip.



Cheers and good birding.

Bob Schmidt

Bothell WA