Month: April 2011

Spring migration is a popular draw on the Washington Coast, especially during the Shorebird Festival. The migration has just begun and won’t peak for a couple of weeks, but it’s still thrilling to see masses of shorebirds fill the sky as they move up and down the beach.

Like most birders, I have my own favorites one of them being this dramatically colored Black-Bellied Plover,

perhaps because it’s easy to identify. It’s a relatively large shorebird with dramatic colors during the breeding season. Unlike the sandpipers, it sprints from spot to spot picking up food rather than probing the sand.

The easily identified Dunlin

is another personal favorite. It’s only about a quarter the size of the Black-Bellied Plover, but its black chest when in breeding colors sets it apart from the huge variety of sandpipers.

I think this is a Sanderling,

just beginning to change into its breeding colors, but I’ll admit it might well be a Western Sandpiper, or even a Least Sandpiper. It would be helpful if all the birds donned their breeding colors at the same times, but apparently they have more important things to do than helping birders identify them.

Truthfully, I don’t worry much about identifying them. In fact, I seldom try until I get home and put them up on the screen. Leaving Bottle Beach, another birder asked me if I’d seen any Dowitchers, and I didn’t realize until that moment that I had and didn’t know if I’d taken any pictures of them until I got home and downloaded the shots.

It’s enough simply to be immersed in shorebirds, experiencing their delicate, infinite, beauty.

Wednesday had been predicted to be the best day of the week, so when the forecast didn’t change in the morning, I took a chance and drove to Tokeland and Ocean Shores hoping to catch the beginning of the Spring Migration of shore birds and ducks.

Much to my surprise, the highlight of the day came before I ever got to the beach while zipping down Highway 107. I glanced off the side of the road and noticed a large herd of Elk. I was going too fast to stop, but I turned around a mile or so down the road and drove back. Of course, once I stopped the herd started moving up the mountain, though a few looked back curiously:

As I was turning around to leave, I notice another large herd on the other side of the road. I felt blessed that I hadn’t found more of the herd in the middle of the road when I originally drove by.

So by 9:30 when I spotted number of Common Loons in Westport harbor, I’d really accomplished most of what I’d come to do. Though I’m always glad to see a loon like this Common Loon even in it’s non-breeding colors,

the real reason I come back is to see one in full breeding colors.

Just seeing these birds would have seemed more than worth the $44.00 I put in the gas tank, but the day had just begun and I was still waiting to see the Spring Migration.

For me, birdwatching, like photography, is just another way of paying attention, seeing things I should have seen in the past but didn’t.

I’m sure I didn’t know what a grebe was a few years ago, much less know the difference between a Horned Grebe and other kinds of grebes. Birding has put me in touch with nature in new ways.

I’ve been watching the Horned Grebes in Port Orchard closely lately, like this one I shot in the middle of March,

and watching for the dramatic changes they undergo as they take on their breeding colors. Sunday, at least a few of them had completed their transformation,

making it clear why they are named Horned Grebes.

I was actually a little shocked when I looked through the lens and saw

the red eyes shining through the grebe’s ‘horn,” a rather intimidating sight.

Birding has made me much more aware of the seasons. I can almost set my calendar by the birds I see and the color of their feathers.

Most of all, though, birding provides me with another way of seeing the beauty that pervades our world when we just take the time to see it.