The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Snails, fish, insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds and/or flowers. All are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located.
During week of July 4th, bwren was in my town for a music festival. So, we met for a walk along North Beach, near Fort Worden State Park, and an east facing beach along the
Olympic Discovery trail, here on the NE corner of the Olympic Peninsula of WA state.
Small to Tall: Heerman's and Glaucous-winged gulls on North Beach
What a pleasure to go birding with bwren! I learned a lot from her, especially from her remarkable skill and technique for birding-by-ear. She is also a careful observer and is meticulous in recording what she finds. I hope she doesn't mind that I now consider her a mentor.
(bwren here, blushing. Thank you, Milly.)
We started out at the Chinese Gardens where there is a freshwater pond. The Chinese Gardens are now an open field, bordered by willows and wild roses. Historically, this was an area of Chinese farming in the 1880s and served as a smuggling center of Chinese immigrants through Canada. We saw Canada geese, Gadwalls, Mallards, Killdeer, Savannah sparrows, Goldfinches, Ravens, Crow, and Swallows (Barn, Cliff, and Violet-green).
(bwren here again - I've gone to this festival every year since 1994 and until this year had never wandered the half mile from the festival site to this lovely place. Besides the birds that Milly notes on and around the pond, there was also a raft of smallish ducks that were just out of binoc range. I returned two days later with another birder from the festival - we were delighted to find the raft just enough closer that we could ID the individuals as Ruddy Ducks, a rare summer sighting in this location.
Please note that Milly did not mention the first year Bald Eagle that I initially ID'd as a Red-tailed Hawk. Ahem, Red-tailed Hawks are not huge and dark, and do not wear big yellow clown feet! It came to rest on a little spit near a Great-blue Heron and was immediately set upon by crows.)
Then, we started walking the nearby North Beach which, as the name implies, faces north toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Salish Sea. Walking westward along North Beach, there are high banks where we hoped to see burrows of bank-nesting birds (no luck that day in seeing them there). However, we were accompanied by another beach walker.
Juvenile Brown-headed cowbird
This bird met us as soon as we got to the beach and explored the beach, strutting ahead of us as we walked along. It seemed to keep an eye on us. It kept to the upper beach, poking among the rocks and drift logs.
There was a bit of drama out on the water. We saw evidence of a bait ball of fish with a huge cluster of gulls above it in a feeding frenzy. A bald eagle took off from shore and flew over us. It went directly toward the gulls which erupted into the air just as the eagle arrived. The eagle failed in its attempt to snatch anything and immediately turned around to fly back to shore. The gulls took no time settling back onto their prey.
Gulls settle back on bait ball as soon as eagle (left edge of photo) turns to leave
There were gulls on the shoreline too. They were mostly Glaucous-winged gulls, but also the small Heerman's gulls and at least one California gull.
Heerman's gulls with "red lipstick" bills
(
bwren - Hermann's Gulls have never shown up on my Seattle lakeshore count sites. In fact, the first ones I ever spotted were on the beach down in Santa Monica. I do like knowing that they're present closer to home.)
The tide was low and there were actually patches of sand. Sandy beaches are fairly unusual in this area where rocky beaches are the norm. I guess that is why we were initially baffled by what looked (to me) like bicycle tire tracks, although from some rather drunken riders who couldn't go straight. We finally figured out that they were crab tracks from a number of different sized crabs.
We also encountered this amazing creature in the sand. It is a beachhopper and I hope I have the correct ID. I didn't get a photo (temporary equipment glitch), but this matches my memory with respect to its size (>2 cm) and the pink color at the base of the long antennae.
Megalorchestia Californiana
These amphipod crustaceans are sometimes called "sand fleas" but, of course, they aren't real fleas. They are scavengers of decaying seaweed and they live in burrows in the sand above the high tide line. They usually emerge after dark, so finding one during the day was unusual.
(bwren - this little critter was a highlight of the trip for me. I so wish Milly's camera hadn't gone wonky right then; the critter allowed me to pick it up, and rested on my hand long enough that Milly and I were able to get a good look. Its body was cool, and waterly soft.)
We were disappointed to see no shorebirds along this stretch of beach, so we went to an east-facing beach at the north end of the Larry Scott Trail which serves as the beginning of the Olympic Discovery Trail. My NE corner of the Olympic Peninsula is itself a small peninsula (called the Quimper Peninsula) with Discovery Bay to the west, the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the north, and Port Townsend Bay to the east. The peninsula is named after the Spanish explorer Manuel Quimper who charted the Strait of Juan de Fuca in 1790. Anyway, it's always a short distance to travel to another beach with different winds and currents.
We immediately found our shorebirds. This plover is listed as rare here in July, but when they flew, their white tail and white wingstripes were distinctive.
Black-bellied plover (non-breeding plumage)
(
bwren - ooh! la la! A lifer for me!)
We watched a Great blue heron catch several morsels.
There are high banks further along this trail that are riddled with holes. bwren was excited to see a Pigeon Guillamot fly in and out of one of these holes. After watching the activity up on cliffs for awhile, we turned to see three terns swooping over the bay.
Caspian tern with Cascades in the background
This trail section offers several habitats, including a marsh with nesting Red-winged blackbirds, bushes for White-crowned sparrows and American goldfinches, and rocky perches for a Belted kingfisher.
It was a lovely day! Thank you, bwren!
(And thank you, Milly Watt, especially for doing the back-at-home ID research! I'll be back next year, definitely.)
Your turn! What encounters with nature have you been having lately?
"Green Diary Rescue" is Back!
After a hiatus of over 1 1/2 years, Meteor Blades has revived his excellent series. As MB explained, this weekly diary is a "round-up with excerpts and links... of the hard work so many Kossacks put into bringing matters of environmental concern to the community... I'll be starting out with some commentary of my own on an issue related to the environment, a word I take in its broadest meaning."
"Green Diary Rescue" will be posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.