Beaks and Bills
by Joe Meche
Throughout the colder, wetter months I’ll admit to spending time thinking about warmer days and distant ports of call. My usual routine is to consider the east side of the mountains where spring birds generally arrive a bit earlier than on the wetter, west side. Past trips have been solo endeavors to exotic places like Soap Lake for shorebirds like American avocets, and then farther south to Bickleton

photo: Joe Meche
American avocet
and Umptanum Road for bluebirds. Those trips were moderately successful but for this year things will be slightly different. A winter trip to San Francisco is in the offing where birding is not high on the list of activities but I’ll be on the lookout nonetheless. A trip toward the end of May, however, is all about birds. We’re booked for three nights at the Field Station at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon.
Malheur is one of the preeminent birding hotspots in the West during spring and early summer. I always list it in my personal Top Ten when it comes to favorite places to spend time birding. At approximately 4,000’ above sea level the refuge is basically high-desert habitat. These sagebrush-covered flats are punctuated by a few lakes and ponds as well as the occasional island of trees that birds like great horned owls prefer for nesting. The nights are dark for stargazing as well and a bit on the chilly side. Setting up a base camp at the field station affords flexibility to roam freely about the refuge during the day. Following through on a successful trip in 2024, our return from Malheur will more than likely take us up the Oregon coast to Cannon Beach where tufted puffins and common murres will be nesting on Haystack Rock.
At the risk of getting too far ahead myself, I have to backtrack to our own backyard and assure everyone that I’m still here and so are the birds. In fact, on the first Saturday of January I completed the fourth leg of the Puget Sound Seabird Survey for the Puget Sound Bird Observatory (PSBO). This winter seabird survey has 175 sites covering the southern Salish Sea from the Canadian border to south Puget Sound. It was initially started by the former Seattle Audubon Society in 2007 and was taken over by PSBO in 2022. Similar in some ways to the traditional Christmas Bird Count (CBC), this wide-ranging survey provides comprehensive data on where birds are spending the winter months.
All three of my territories are at Semiahmoo so it’s like a homecoming of sorts for me. After four surveys since October, however, I and many others are expressing concerns over the low numbers of birds that we’re seeing. Th e same observation was apparent on the last CBC in December, but stay tuned since the overall compilation is still underway.
On my Saturday survey the usual suspects were on hand, along with the uncommon-torare yellow billed loon which I saw before I stepped out of my vehicle. I observed it on the previous survey in December so it has apparently found the area suitable for wintering. While we’ve enjoyed this opportunity to visit with a rarity, noticeably missing from the scene are the long-tailed ducks. These Arctic migrants have been a major attraction leading right up to and including the Wings Over Water festival in March. There’s still hope that they show up for the festival, at least.
After spending time at my three designated locations on the spit, I stayed out for a while despite the incoming rain that seems to be in big supply so far this year. On my ramblings along the spit I located two pairs of the inimitable black oystercatchers, a species that seems to be increasing at the spit and other locations in the northern reaches of Puget Sound. While the oystercatchers patrolled the shorelines I observed good-sized flocks of greater scaup, surf and whitewinged scoters, both goldeneye species, and buffleheads. All of these were good birds but the overall numbers were still lower than in previous years. Alas, they were also outside of my three survey territories.
Perhaps when all the data is collected and analyzed we might find that the birds were simply elsewhere within the larger survey area. Of course there’s the ongoing concern about climate change and how it seems to be having adverse effects on wildlife in general, and especially on birds and their traditional migratory and wintering habits. All we can do, again, is to stay tuned. Scientific analysis takes time but it’s difficult to deny or measure what you feel in your gut!!
The highlight of my day was inland and not part of the survey. Whenever I spend time afield from Birch Bay north to Blaine and Semiahmoo, I always return home via Grandview Road, specifically the area where it intersects with Blaine Road near the main entrance to the BP refinery northwest of Ferndale. A regular visitor to this general area has been a magnificent, leucistic red-tailed hawk. I first photographed this unique bird in December of 2011 and it’s a joy to see that it’s still with us.

photo: Joe Meche
Leucistic red-tailed hawk
Leucism is a genetic mutation that causes partial or total loss of the pigmentation that gives animals their distinctive coloration. The result is white, pale, or patchy coloring that stands out conspicuously from what we normally expect to see. We’ve observed a number of smaller leucistic birds but the phenomenon really stands out on a bird as large as a hawk. Red-tailed hawks are known to live as long as twenty years in the wild and this particular hawk is pushing fourteen or more, so we hope that it’s around for a while longer. It’s one of the more thrilling encounters while you’re out birding, especially if you’re not aware of what you’re seeing at first.
All in all, the winter months are proceeding accordingly to this point. It’s always difficult these days to know if it’s El Nino or La Nina that might be affecting our weather patterns. Whichever it might be, dress appropriately and get out every chance you can to observe and appreciate the birds around us. The next four years could be crucial years for conservation and wildlife in general so stay informed and be prepared to resist as necessary on all fronts/ Most of all, take care of yourselves.
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Joe Meche is a past president of the North Cascades Audubon Society and was a member of the board of directors for 20 years. He has been watching birds for more than 60 years and photographing birds and landscapes for more than 40 years. He has written over 200 columns for Whatcom Watch.