Life on the Outer Coast

The great backyard bird count occupied much of my time Friday, February 15 through Monday February 18th. It was quite enjoyable to spend that much time chasing birds, hope to do it again some time relatively soon.
Friday morning I counted the channel birds, looked at the Path of Hope, the turnaround off of HPR and walked over to Alice Island.

Saturday walked up Indian River not too far past the first bridge and went out to Starrigavan and walked around the estuary loop.

Sunday tried to paddle around the island but turned around not too far past the Lighthouse because it was quite rough. Went on the town side of Morne island and around the Twins and back to the island.

Monday walked the Cross trail from Baranof street almost to the quarry road and back. Also briefly looked at John Browns beach.

I tallied all of the species I saw for the 4 days and came up with 47 comfortably identified species. Missed some species that I saw within the prior week e.g. Varied thrush, Northern Flicker and Western screech owl.

Common Loon – 1
Pacific Loon -3
Horned Grebe – 1 (Starrigavan)
Pelagic Cormorant - 53
Double-crested Cormorant – 34
Great Blue Heron – 4
Trumpeter Swan - 2 (Starrigavan)
Mallard - 35
American Wigeon - 1 (Starrigavan)
Northern Shoveler – 1 (Starrigavan)
Greater Scaup – 52
Harlequin Duck 25
Long-tailed Duck - 121
Black Scoter – 2
Surf Scoter – 1
White-winged Scoter - 9
Common Goldeneye - 1
Barrow's Goldeneye – 20
Bufflehead – 13
Common Merganser 46
Red-breasted Merganser 8
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 1
Bald Eagle – 16
Black Turnstone - 47
Surfbird – 16
Rock Sandpiper – 6
Thayer's Gull 125
Mew Gull - 16
Glaucous-winged Gull – 90
Thick-billed Murre – 1
Marbled Murrelet - 1
Rock Dove (I didn't count)
Red-breasted Sapsucker - 1
Northwestern Crow 29
Common Raven 51
Chestnut-backed Chickadee – 7
Winter Wren – 1
American Dipper – 2
Golden crowned kinglet 2
American Robin - 2
European Starling 34
Bohemian Waxwing – 7
Song Sparrow – 4
American Tree Sparrow 3
Dark-eyed Junco 12
Golden crowned kinglet 2
Common Redpoll - 44
Pine Siskin – 127

I'm sure I undercounted the redpolls and siskins. When I was leaving Indian River trail, a huge flock of birds flew over too fast to get a good count.
The bulk of the variety and numbers of birds were found in the channel and Starrigavan, next highest diversity was found on Alice island and the skiff/kayak trips. The Cross trail was very quiet, except for ravens and dogs (and me swearing).
The trip up Indian river was quite nice, the snow was still very deep off the trail, but the river was low enough that I walked up to the Pine Grosbeak tree in the river. There was a small hemlock on the bank mostly covered with Lobaria. Found a coho in a small pool, at least from the brief look I got, it seemed like one. It was a good time to review the stream mosses, the differences between Scouleria and Codriophorus acicularis was especially noticable for the slightly blind. Fontinalis was looking especially hair-like, kind of reminiscent of Ophelia in the stream. Didn't find the Hairy woodpecker on its tree, but the dippers were in the same reaches of the river. The bird in the upper (if I'm remembering correctly) was singing.

Ian and I both started out in the kayaks on Sunday morning. He was planning on towing Jeanne and Brians kayak back to Bamboroshni. Quite happy that he came along, especially since I couldn't pull my spray skirt over the rim. Not sure if it was because it was cold and inflexible or if I'm just a wimp. I'm thinking the latter, as it took alot of effort for Ian to accomplish the task.
I went around the lighthouse first, hoping to get as far as Bamdoroshni, but turned around before the cormorant island because of the washing machine -like conditions. I turned Ian back by the lighthouse, I'm glad that in a few things he still trusts my judgement. Maybe he just knows that since I'll push things far enough, that if I don't like the conditions, he wouldn't either.

Paddled around Morne island and the Twins, it was windy, but not too bad, certainly not on the agitation cycle of the western exposures. Found a group of surfbirds, black turnstones and rock sandpipers on an exposed rock before the turn around the Twins. In the flock were 3 or 4 much smaller sandpiper like birds, that looked alot like breeding spotted sandpipers. They had yellowish legs and bills, with spots along the chest and sides of the belly. They were much more delicate looking than the other birds. As it is very early for such a bird to be around, I wasn't comfortable reporting the birds, particularly without any evidence. I'll just have to keep my eyes open.

Looked for the western screech owl every night of the count, but no luck. It of course turned up in the commons on Tuesday night.

I've seen one or two marbled murrelets each morning this week on the trip to town, along with the usual pelagic cormorants, mergansers, and harlequins. Thursday morning there were 8 surf scoters and a pair of longtails as well.

Hear a song sparrow singing at Crescent harbor on Wednesday morning, way too early to think about spring.