Category: Washington Coast

After I sent my picture of a Wilson’s Phalarope to Ruth to positively identify it, she showed me the pictures she’d gotten of a Red-Necked Phalarope at Ocean Shores. Needless to say, the next clear day I headed to Ocean Shores to add that bird to my collection.

I started by making a quick stop at the sewage pond to see what was there. I noticed a small little bird floating in the front pond that I didn’t recognize. As I watched it through the camera lens, I finally realized it was the bird that I had come to find:

The Red-Necked Phalarope is only about half the size of the Wilson’s Phalarope, and this phalarope spent the entire time I was there floating on the pond picking food up instead of wading like the Wilson’s I’d noticed the week before.

Later I headed over to one of the ponds and marshes down the beach. If I’d known how many phalaropes there were going to be there, I certainly wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to get a good picture of the the Red-Necked Phalarope at the sewage pond.

However, knowing I had already gotten some good pictures of the phalarope just floating gave me the opportunity to try to get shots in a less common pose, like this one just taking-off,

and the patience to wait for this particularly striking one to stop preening long enough that I could get a shot that also included its head.

I’d been photographing the phalaropes for quite awhile when this a whole flock of birds suddenly swooped in—just as my compact card filled up— so I only managed to get one shot. At first I thought they were Bonaparte Gulls, but when I was studying my Audubon Guide, I realized they were actually male Red-necked Phalaropes.

Or, maybe not, my friend John emailed me stating that he thinks, judging from Sibley’s, that they look more like Bonaparte Gulls than male phalaropes. Since I’ve never seen a Red-necked Phalarope before Thursday, much less a male phalarope, there’s every possibility that my first guess was right and the second one was wrong. If they are Bonaparte Gulls, I wonder why there are no adults in full breeding plumage, like the flock I saw recently in Malheur. Still, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Although I was elated to see the Wilson’s Phalarope in the morning, I rushed to get out of there because I wasn’t going to miss the chance to bird Bottle Beach under perfect conditions. As usual, I was way too early, there long before anyone else showed up, which was fine with me because I enjoy the beauty and quiet.

I was also very happy when birds began to show up. First came the Black-bellied Plovers, way out before the tide had come half way in.

I started snapping shots early one when they were a quarter mile away, afraid that like last year they would never come very close. I was hoping my 500mm lens with a doubler would give me some decent shots. I ended up deleting all those early shots because they ended up coming quite close, particularly before other photographers joined me.

I also got even better shots of the Ruddy Turnstones

that I’d seen for the first time ever the week before.

And the beach was full of Red Knots,

one of the prettiest shorebirds.

But, as before, the real highlight of the shoot wasn’t a particular bird, no matter how pretty it might be; no the real highlight is being surrounded by thousands of birds, mostly hard-to-identify “peeps,”

who pay absolutely no attention to you unless you do something foolish to frighten them.

Although you begin the shoot pointing your lens toward the bay, by the end of the shoot it doesn’t matter which way you point it — there are birds everywhere. It’s a feeling I seldom experience, but am always enraptured when I do.

When I was at Nisqually I mentioned that I wanted to see a Snipe, one of the few birds in my book on Puget Sound birds that I still haven’t seen after five years of birding. A volunteer suggested that she’d often seen them at John’s River, south of Aberdeen. Since I was planning on going to the coast this week anyway, I decided to go down early the next day to look for snipes.

Needless to say, I didn’t see a single one at John’s River on Thursday.

But that was okay, because I ended up seeing the best birds of the day there. For instance, I haven’t seen a Common Yellowthroat

since they closed the five-mile loop at Nisqually. Nor have I been this close to a Yellowlegs since they closed the loop.

Most of all, I’ve never seen a Wilson’s Phalarope

since they’re extremely rare here in the Pacific Northwest. And, although it was quite shy, it seemed perfectly willing to wade around the far side of the pond as I snapped pictures for the next thirty plus minutes.

It was one of those “aha” moments that makes the long walks and the waiting worthwhile. The sheer beauty of the bird and its totally unexpected appearance made this the kind of magical moment I’ll remember, the big one that didn’t get away.