Puget Sound is a bountiful destination for birders (and fisher people), and the Edmonds Fishing Pier has long been a favorite birding destination for Mr. WordsandBirds and me. Our third trip in eight days was on the early afternoon of Jan. 7th. As we arrived, we got our first surprise: Our friend and fellow Bucketeer Jeff and Ms. JG, his excellent spotting partner, were leaving, and they briefed us on their sightings.
We didn’t see Bonaparte’s Gulls or Pigeon Guillemots, which they had, darn it — birds are always on the move, and a short time can make a big difference in who’s around — but we saw something special that they hadn’t mentioned.
Looking out at Puget Sound, we saw Rhinoceros Auklets, Red-necked Grebes, Brandt’s Cormorants and lots of gulls too distant to distinguish. On our way back, as we scanned the breakwater, we got a big surprise: Surfbirds. I’d seen exactly one, about a year ago, and in roughly the same place. But here were three, busily foraging. And they led us to yet another surprise — two Black Turnstones.
The Snohomish County Bird Checklist classifies the Black Turnstone as “(2) Uncommon” and the Surfbird as “(3) Harder to find, usually seen annually.” That squares with my previous sighting.
Here’s what the scene looked like. Binoculars clued us in to who those specks were foraging at the base of the breakwater about 30 feet away. Who's down there?
“The Surfbird's winter range is among the
Surfbird’s winter range: 11,000 skinny miles of coastline.
longest and narrowest of any North American breeding bird. During the winter it can be found from Alaska to the Strait of Magellan, Chile, a distance of nearly 11,000 miles. At the same time, the winter range extends inland only a few yards above the tide line.” — All About Birds.
I hadn’t known much about either of these species. And because they’re birds of the coastal West, they may be unfamiliar to many of you. So, before getting on to the photo show, here’s a brief bio:
The Surfbird (reclassified as Calidris virgata, from Aphriza virgata) is about 9 to 10 inches long. In winter and in migration, it lives along the surf-pounded rocky coastline, where it forages just above the reach of the waves (hence its English name).
“This stocky little sandpiper leads a double life,” says Kenn Kaufman in his Lives of North American Birds, “abandoning the coast in late spring. Its nesting grounds, high in the mountains in Alaska and the Yukon Territory, were not discovered until the 1920s.”
I found a good description of those grounds in Arthur Cleveland Bent’s Life Histories of North American Shorebirds, Part Two. During an expedition in 1927, he wrote, Joseph Dixon and his party found Surfbirds nesting 300 to 500 miles inland from salt water “on barren, rocky mountains, high up above timber line … near the summits of the rock slides where the broken rocks are much the same as the rugged reefs they inhabit during the winter.”
In an entire summer, Dixon’s party never found Surfbirds below 4,000 feet, nor away from mountain-sheep country. Yet the nests are in the open; one was found just a foot from a sheep trail. The strategy? The moment an animal approaches, the bird flies off the nest straight into its face, startling it so greatly that it backs off and turns away. The party observed this repeatedly, and received the same treatment. Dixon said it was always alarming, even though they knew what to expect. Learning this enhances my respect for these creatures.
Okay, now we’re ready to go on this Surfbird Safari:
I admire how this Surfbird spread its toes to grasp a foothold while it foraged. Closer
In summer, Surfbirds feed almost entirely on insects, but in their winter coastal habitat, they forage by walking along the rocks, their eyes scanning for barnacles, young mussels or other crustaceans and small mollusks. They use their stout bills to grasp prey and pry it up with a quick sideways jerk of the head, then swallow it whole, shell and all. — All About Birds
Another display of those marvelous, endless toes. Closer
Rock-hopping again in search of the next course in its meal. The winter range of the Surfbird is among the longest and narrowest of any North American breeding bird — Birds of the World.
At such a distance, it can be difficult to distinguish a Surfbird from a Black Turnstone, and until we looked at the LCD screen on my camera, we hadn’t realized that Black Turnstones were also attending the party.
Left to right: Surfbird, Surfbird, Black Turnstone. Note the turnstone’s dark bill, eyebrow and scalloped feathers. These species are known to roost together. See the gang
“The Black Turnstone is named for its habit of flipping over objects to get at foods either beneath or attached to stones, algae, hard-shelled invertebrates, and all sorts of supratidal jetsam. When feeding in the wave zone it uses its specialized bill for prying loose or chiseling apart … foods, particularly mussels and barnacles.” — All About Birds.
The winter range of the Black Turnstone is shorter than that of the Surfbird, extending from south-central Alaska to south Baja California.
A Black Turnstone in flight exhibits the lovely pattern on its wings and back. Fly along
We saw a few other species in the area between the pier and the rocky shore:
Any day I see a Rhinoceros Auklet is by definition great. I mean, check out those whiskers and eyebrows. Jump in!
This Glaucous-winged Gull juvenile shadowed its parent, crying for food.
It cried nonstop. (Interior monologue: “Why did I ever lay that egg?”) No need to get closer. This constant cry meant it was time for us to get away!
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* Want to know more about the Edmonds Fishing Pier and environs? BrownsBay published a Bucket on Jan. 4th about it: www.dailykos.com/...)
* Life Histories of North American Birds, by Arthur Cleveland Bent, is a 21-volume set, compiled from 1919 through 1968, which I prize. It’s filled with behavioral information gathered from primary sources. If you’re interested in birds but haven’t investigated it, here’s a look:
