July Pierce County Big Day

Bushtit Psaltriparus minimus seen near the end of today's birding.

Today Bruce Labar and I went birding to see how many species of birds we could find in Pierce County, WA. We have been attempting this each month so far this year, and hope to do one big day in the county each month. July is a time when it is relatively hard to find a high number of species in our area. This is primarily because most of our winter residents have not returned yet, and not many southbound migrants are passing through yet. Also the breeding birds have mostly mated, nested, and often fledged young. Therefore most of them are no longer singing territorial defense songs, making locating them more difficult. Still, we gave it a good try.

Harleguin Duck Histrionicus histrionicus seen in the rushing water of the river at Longmire on Mt. Rainier. These ducks breed near fast moving rivers where they feed on aquatic organisms by swimming upstream and going under the rapids to find prey.

We began the day on Ruston Way where we birded the Puget Park gulch just before dawn where we were unable to locate a Barred Owl. We got a few species on the bay, in Puyallup River at the 11th Street Bridge, and then headed east. We birded at Chamber's Lake and Area 10 and 15 on Joint Base Lewis McChord, then headed to Paradise at Mt. Rainier. After Paradise, we drove back down to Longmire, and finished the day looking for shorebirds and ducks in the Puyallup area. Actually the last species of the day was a House Finch in thee snag behind my condo parking lot.

This is the Harlequin Duck starting a dive underwater.

For me highlights of the day were:
-Red Crossbills calling from the little road where we get Hermit Warbler on Area 10.
-An unexpected Virginia Rail calling at Chamber's Lake.
-A Harlequin Duck swimming upstream and feeding in the fast moving rapids near Longmire. It is amazing how they can even swim in this crashing fast water.
-A Semi-palmated Sandpiper at Levee Pond.

Mt. Rainier from the parking lot at Paradise.

Our strategy was formulated around knowing that it was going to be really hot today, in the low 90's F by afternoon. To cope with this we birded the lowlands early for passerines, headed to the mountain, and looked for less secretive birds in the heat of the day.

We finished with 82 species, about what we expected, and as usual had a good time birding together.

Good birding. Steem on!