The Great Backyard Bird Count Buck Lake near Hansville, WA Feb. 18, 2007
The GBBC ends today and it looks like another successful year. As of this morning, over 40,000 lists have been submitted containing 565 species and almost 6,000,000 birds. We did our little part on Sunday by submitting lists for three North Kitsap locations.
Our friend Jon came over from Mukilteo with his young daughter Mary. Nancy had some commitments that morning so Jon and I started counting in our backyard while Mary watched Clifford The Big Red Dog. The weather was nice enough that we were able to sit in one corner of the garden and watch the feeders. We had quite a bit of bird activity but I was disappointed that the flickers, downy woodpeckers and quail did not visit. The flicker was feeding earlier that morning but did not come in during our counting period. We counted for a full hour before heading back inside.
We had a quick snack and then drove out to Hansville and Point No Point. We drove to the Point No Point trail head and walked in rather then park right at the lighthouse. A nearby Pileated Woodpecker called just as we got out of the cars. The trail to the beach is very nice and looked like it could be a lot of fun later in the year. There was a lot of obvious woodpecker activity. We spent about 1 1/4 hours birding from the trail to the lighthouse and back again. The birds were a little thin but enough to make for a fun stop. We also had a chance to get the glasses on a sea lion as it was eating a salmon.
We left Point No Point and drove over to Buck Lake Park for another 45 minutes of birding. The water was very smooth and quite scenic. Again, not a great variety of birds but enough to make things interesting.
Here is a quick summary of our counts. Backyard
10 Juncos
2 Varied Thrush
24 Pine Siskins
2 Black-capped Chickadees
2 Chestnut-backed Chickadees
3 Bald Eagles
17 American Crows
Point No Point
3 Brant
8 Pigeon Guillemot
5 Glaucous-winged Gull
3 Red-breasted Merganser
2 Double-crested Cormorant
4 Horned Grebe
20 Red-necked Grebe
1 Song Sparrow
2 American Crow
2 Common Raven
12 Mallard
12 American Wigeon
8 Great Blue Heron
1 Winter Wren
10 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
2 Golden-crowned Kinglet
Buck Lake Park
32 American Robin
30 Starlings
5 Mallard
16 Bufflehead
4 Red-winged Blackbird
1 Bald Eagle
The calls of the Red-winged Blackbirds had me smiling quite a bit. They reminded me of the days when Jon and I were roommates while attending CWU in Ellensburg. It seemed that there were blackbirds on every fence and in every stand of cattails.
2/19/2007 6:45 PM
Jon wrote:
It was a good day doing the GBBC with you Scott. Mary had a grand time and the chocolate chip cookies were tasty. Let's do the GBBC again next year. Our next trip should be up to the Sammish flats to see the RTHs courting.
