4/02/2025   Indigo Bunting  (link to here)
One of my favorite birds was reported in Issaquah a week ago. The Indigo Bunting is a gorgeous blue songbird which breeds across the eastern half of the country from Kansas to Maine. I first got to know it in New Hampshire during my first summer of birding 50 years ago, when I discovered through my casual observations that each individual in my rural neighborhood sang its own unique song. Using their songs I was able to determine the range of their summer wanderings (up to 0.7 miles) and that they returned to the same territories in successive summers. I regret now that I did not conduct a more rigorous study but I was not then, and have never been since, that devoted to natural history or scientific investigation. I just love looking at beautiful birds (and flowers, and insects and rocks) and knowing their names and a little something about them.
Anyhow Indigo Buntings winter mostly in Central America (some in Cuba and south Florida) from October to late April so if the Issaquah bird, a male mostly molted into breeding plumage, is a northbound migrant it is both far off course and abnormally early. Alternatively it might have overwintered at a feeder nearby. Eastern warblers, also neotropical migrants like the bunting but even less inclined to subsist on seeds, have been known to do that. Indigo Buntings are very rare in Washington but every two or three years one turns up in early summer, claims a territory and sings tirelessly to attract a mate. As far as I know none have succeeded though the bird over at Wenas Creek in 2017 was rumored to have paired up with a closely related Lazuli Bunting. Hybrids occur, and in my limited experience are never quite as beautiful as their parents.
Initially suspecting that the bird had been misidentified and subsequently concerned that it might be inaccessible, we did not race over to see it but as more details emerged we gave up and made the 23 minute drive. Darchelle having done her research, she recognized the owner when he happened to come out to walk his dog just as we happened to pull up to his house. He was friendly and helpful, even inviting us to wheel around behind the house to watch for the bird. His feeder had fallen down and he had not seen the bird all morning but he offered to put out seed on his deck railings to improve our chances. Reluctant to go to the trouble of getting out of the car, I suggested that we try watching from the cul-de-sac around the corner L+, from which others had reported decent, though distant, views of the bird. That worked. After monitoring the deck railings for a half hour (Darchelle with binoculars and I through my opera glasses), we both spotted the very blue bird land on the railing.
We left a thank you note and a ten dollar donation for seed by the front door on our way out.
Being so close we stopped by Lake Sammamish State Park L+ on our way home and found our customary first-of-year Red-breasted Sapsucker.

4/5/2025   Walla Walla  (link to here)
Richard had a high school reunion in Vancouver but Donna didn't want to make the long drive and Sally was heading out of town with Ben and the kids, so we got up uncharacteristically early this morning and drove over to Walla Walla to keep Donna company. Of course there was some birding involved too, particularly on Durr Road L+ outside of Ellensburg where we hoped that the shrub-steppe birds which we missed a week ago in the wind and rain might be more active in the morning sunshine. They were, and we picked up the three sagebrush species we hadn't yet seen this year.
We also found a White-hroated Swift and a Cliff Swallow at the Selah Rest Area L+, both new and both summer nesters in the impressive cliffs below the overlook. On our way through Pasco Darchelle spotted a sixth new year bird, new not just for us but for the entire state, a Western Kingbird. She had only a brief glimpse as it alighted on a sign above the freeway but a flycatcher with a gray back and bright yellow belly can't be much else. Our report was approved despite being two days earlier than the previous earliest arrival.
We had a pleasant visit. Darchelle watched church wih Donna while I fixed a few broken pages on the website, then after lunch I think we all took naps.

4/6/2025   Lyle  (link to here)
We didn't leave Walla Walla until after lunch. Richard ran or mostly walked the first Sunday of the month 2-mile time trial down at the track, averaging a respectable-for-his-age 16 minutes per mile. The rest of us stayed in bed until he got home then we all ate breakfast together. I squeezed in a little more eye-gaze time while Darchelle packed up and Richard napped.
In Wallula we stopped at the Whitetail Bay overlook L+ and found our first Caspian Terns of the year. They've been around for two weeks now but we've missed them on our prior somewhat casual attempts. This afternoon Darchelle caught the male in the act of offering his (prospective?) mate a small fish, a behavior I've also seen in Black and perhaps Common Terns. It's a Tern family tradition apparently.
Passing through Lyle we scored Acorn Woodpecker for the year thanks to Maxine who'd reported three at the Syncline Winery on Balch Road L+ a day or two earlier. They were still there. We did not see any Lewis's Woodpeckers other than one along Hwy 14 some 50 miles to the east, for which we did not stop to confirm my ID because I was sure we'd find them in Lyle.
Sally, barely, talked us into joining them for the night at the Government Mineral Springs Guard Station + back in the damp woods north of Carson. Darchelle has had a sore back for several days now so I've been very anxious about transfers, to the point that I've been trying to avoid using the toilet which in turn means minimizing food intake, which Darchelle doesn't like because she worries about my weight getting too low. Anyhow Sally assured us that she and Ben would be happy to help with transfers, and I liked the idea of visiting Ridgefield on the way home tomorrow. We would be going there soon one way or another and it's a shorter drive from Carson than from Seattle.

4/7/2025   Ridgefield  (link to here)
My anxiety persisted through the evening and even after Darchelle and Sally got me safely settled into bed. I must have found something else to worry about but we were in bed long enough that I eventually got some sleep. In the morning Gracie, I think, made pancakes but we didn't stick around long enough to enjoy them, leaving instead just in time to find a cell signal near Carson and send a message for Sally before her 9 AM deadline.
The one bird we really wanted to see at Ridgefield NWR L+ was an American Bittern. We've seen at least one every year for the past decade but fewer in recent years since I've been in the wheelchair so we don't take it for granted. Ridgefield is not the only place in the state to see one from the car, but it unquestionably the easiest. Not for me today though.
Most of the Bittern habitat along the Ridgefield loop drive is on the driver's side of the car, and so were both of the Bitterns that we, that is Darchelle, spotted. Darchelle was not able to maneuver the car into a position from which I could see the first bird so we drove around again and found a different individual, which I saw. We also had good views of pairs of Cinnamon Teal, a striking bird albeit in my opinion not as attractive as its North American cousins. Blue-winged Teal are simply elegant and Green-wings are cute in their own earnest way whereas the bill on the Cinnamon is too large and the red eye gives the drake a perpetually startled expression.

4/10/2025   Mountain Quail  (link to here)
Like most of the other North American members of its family the Mountain Quail is a very good-looking bird, which makes it all the more disappointing that despite hearing them for the past four years in a row we haven't actually seen one since 2018. We used to see them annually at the Port Orchard Airport Quarry + but that location required a hike, and moreover the birds have not been reported there since 2022. At our alternate location, the 144 St PowerLine + northwest of Gig Harbor, I've been able to hear them from the car but they've always stayed out of sight. Until today.
Like the Northern Bobwhite, Mountain Quail are not native to western Washington but unlike the Bobwhite, they are widespread in Oregon right up to the south bank of the Columbia River. They evidently refuse to cross the water so in Washington they are native (though rare) only around the northern and eastern edges of the Blue Mountains where the river is not an obstacle. Perhaps this summer we'll try to find them over there.
Knowing that the quail are early risers, we tried to do likewise but seduced by an ultimately rather mediocre movie, we stayed up too late and didn't get to 144th Street NW L+ until almost 8 AM. Once on site we were birding our way up the road from 118th NW, reluctant to really try for the bird in case we'd have to acknowledge that we weren't going to get it, when we both heard two distant calls. The quail has a distinctive "qwierk" call which is not easily mistaken for any other local bird so we were confident of the ID and relieved to dodge being skunked. That's the problem with birding the way we do, chasing individual species; it's hard to relax and enjoy being out in nature until you get the bird. Once you do though, it's great.
We hailed Ed and Delia, who'd just returned to their car about a quarter mile up the road at the gate after an unsuccessful quest for the quail. Soon after they joined us they too heard the distant "qwierk"s. In years past we've mostly heard the birds beyond the gate where Ed and Delia had been searching but these calls were coming from off to our left, south of the powerline road in an area which appeared to be forested. Although I think of Mountain Quail as birds of chapparal, their primary requirement is dense brush, preferably with some tree cover along with small clearings. In western Washington they seem to favor Scotch Broom; their range corresponds well to those areas in the southern Puget Sound region where Scotch Broom is the dominant pioneer shrub in clearcuts. The satellite map M+ reveals that 144th Street NW fits that description, and that the quail we were hearing was probably calling from a plantation of young conifers just out of sight down a grassy double-track.
We followed the double-track through the brushy strip of woods along the powerline to a closed tube gate, parked there and listened. The calls were definitely closer now, not far off to our left along the edge of the young cedar plantation beyond the gate. With everyone's consent Darchelle played a few "qwierk" calls on her phone and suddenly the bird darted into view behind the gate. I didn't see it until it had retreated into the brush on our left, hopped up onto a mossy fallen limb and resumed calling, but at least I saw it, and both Darchelle and Ed got photos.

4/12/2025   Home  (link to here)
All three of the above species have established breeding territories which include our back yard with its feeders and source of water, but the leucistic chickadee appears to be an unattached male and the female junco appears to have an injured leg. I don't yet know if she is the female of our breeding pair, whose nest may again be located in the brushy median strip in front of the house.

4/18/2025   Solitary Sandpiper  (link to here)

4/22/2025   Appointment  (link to here)

4/24/2025   Solitary Sandpiper  (link to here)