Life on the Outer Coast

The wet snow of Friday and very early Saturday has been frozen by a drastic temperature drop this afternoon and evening. I could hear the drips this morning laying in bed and walked to dance class in wet snow, by the time I walked back the wind was already up and the temperature was dropping. When I went home around 3:30 or so, the temperature was around 27 and there were white caps. The spray froze when it hit the windshield of the boat. Not terribly easy to see. The lines were wet when I tied up in town this morning, so were frozen solid when I was trying to leave. It took several minutes to untie each line. Nothing like repeated wiggling to generate a little heat.

It was a nice 24 hours for birds. Last evening coming home I saw the island western screech owl in a red alder in the commons. It stayed put for several minutes while I looked at it. I hadn't seen it for a few weeks, so it was nice to see that it was still around. I assume that it is the same individual. A Northern flicker was in Litman's yard this morning.
Walking back to Crescent harbor I got several glimpses of what I assume were red polls near the park entrance. Never did get a good look at them. They were too big for siskins, but somewhat similar in coloring.
Decided to visit the Moller park feeder as I hadn't been there for awhile and maybe some interesting songbird followed the flocks to the abundant food. It was a cold walk down from the ball field to the survivors walk. There were abundant juncos, both slate and oregon, siskins, a song & a tree sparrow and a few starlings. The tree sparrow was in the salmonberries by the informal looking parking lot across from the feeder. I hadn't noticed how yellow it's beak was on previous sightings. I'm pretty sure I've seen (or at least recognized) more tree sparrows this year than ever before.
Saturday was a rather busy day in the neighborhood, lots of kids, four wheelers and cars, the birds were still rather thick and kept flying toward me when ever a vehicle or kid happened by. I guess that I was the lesser of two evils. I stayed as long as I was warm, kind of hoping for a hawk so I could look at the eyes... fortunately for the songbirds, I didn't get my rather heartless wish.
Did a few errands then continued on my slacker pursuit of birds. Decided it was today or maybe never to visit the Anna's hummingbird. Very glad that I did. Sat with Pam and Mike in the living room and watched the feeder for about an hour. The male Anna's showed up pretty fast after I arrived. It was considerably larger than the rufous hummers that I have in my garden during the summer. Now I'm sure that I haven't seen an Anna's on Galankin. Both the size and the markings are distinct enough that even on a quick glance it would have been obviously different. It visited the feeder several times, but mostly it sat on a hemlock branch across from the window. It was rather interesting to watch it turn its head back and forth rather incessantly. I don't think I've seen this behavior before. We assumed that it was watching for predators. The violet of the throat would flash on each back and forth. It was mesmerizing watching this tiny creature flashing against the background of the hemlock branches. Kind of amazing that it has been keeeping warm enough, even though it is getting plenty of food to generate its own heat. Can't imagine that it hasn't found some warm place to spend the night. I hope that it has one tonight.
I stood up to leave as I didn't want to wear out my welcome and the hummingbird had abandoned its branch. Decided to see if the bird was on the elderberry below the deck, it was there, and it was chasing another male Anna's away. They chased down toward Sawmill creek. Maybe it was watching/guarding its territory instead of lookiing for predators? Pam and Mike had no idea that there were two birds around, maybe there are more? Given that they said that there are often up to 50 humminbirds around the house in the summer, certainly there could be a few that aren't wired to migrate.
Given that it is 17 F tonight, I hope the birds have warm haven. We joked about putting out a heat light for the bird, might have been a good idea.

Finished another 15 descriptions.