6/28/2022   Orcas  (link to here)
Ricardo and Alicia flew in late last night. Richard drove to the airport to pick them up. This morning we all drove up to the Anacortes ferry terminal and caught the 12:45 ferry to Orcas Island for our seventh annual family reunion on Orcas. It may be our last because Tom and Kathy, who have graciously lent us their home every summer, are moving off-island and selling their house.
Ben and Sally and their children, and Daniel, came up three days ago to enjoy their own private getaway until we showed up. It sounded as though they'd been enjoying themselves. I think the kids particularly will miss Orcas.
Tom and Kathy will no doubt miss Orcas as well, which inspired Darchelle to commission a painting of Mountain Lake as a housewarming gift for their new home.

6/29/2022   Eastsound  (link to here)
Our big outing together on our first full day on the island was to meet in Eastsound at the Village Green Park and hang out at the playground watching the kids play while Ben took Ricardo (I think) on a flight around the islands. Alicia engaged (almost) everyone in a game of Dare Base in which Sally strained a hamstring then we all walked through the green space to the wedding chapel and back to our cars.
While on the wedding chapel grounds Darchelle managed to get a photo of each of the kids, except Daniel who by comparison isn't really a kid anymore. The lawns were very green and the flowers very red.
Alicia fixed posole for supper, a dish for which she is justifiably renowned, at least within the family. It did not disappoint.

6/30/2022   Mountain Lake  (link to here)
This afternoon we all went over to Mountain Lake, even Donna and I. We sat together at the edge of the parking lot overlooking the cool blue water and visited while Alicia and Darchelle (and Ricardo and Richard?) walked around the lake and Ben took the kids over to the dam. Donna and I had a good conversation but unfortunately I don't recall what we talked about. Sally joined us after a while too.

7/01/2022   Birdwatching  (link to here)
When the activity inside became too much for me I would retreat to the deck l+, sit in the sunshine and listen for birds. Activity was slow but diversity was good; my best list l+, yesterday, was 21 species. We birded some elsewhere too, down in Eastsound l+ two days ago, and over in Deer Harbor l+ on Sabbath while everyone was in church (in part because we suspected the sanctuary was not wheelchair accessible, though to be fair we didn't actually check). Altogether we accumulated a list of 53 species in six days on the island.

7/04/2022   Home again  (link to here)
We left the island yesterday but Ricardo and Alicia don't fly out until tomorrow so we have a couple of days altogether at home. They considered driving over to Walla Walla to attend Sally's Fourth of July party this afternoon but it felt like too much time on the road given that they'll be taking a redeye back East tomorrow evening, then be returning to work the next day.
Marc and Monica were particularly happy to have some time with Daniel and Alicia respectively. Ricardo and Alicia are celebrating their 25th anniversary so Monica fixed a delicious lunch of vegetarian burgers and colorful postres.

7/06/2022   Home (to ourselves) again  (link to here)
Darchelle is back at work and I am back on the computer and in seven days we head out to New Hampshire but in the meantime, we have a puffin to pursue.

7/11/2022   Puffins  (link to here)
It was a perfect day in virtually every respect. We were looking for puffins and we saw lots of them, but one puffin in particular was the real prize and we found it. Not everyone does; after our sighting no one else reported the rare Horned Puffin for almost two weeks. Without a doubt we were lucky, but our skipper Chris Long of Jolly Mon Charters + did a great job of approaching the birds without flushing them and maneuvering us into position to get good photos. Not only that but he carried me onto the boat and back onto the dock again. I don't think we could have managed that without his help.
Conditions were ideal for spotting birds - a warm sunny day with smooth water and light and variable winds - around Smith l+ and Minor l+ Islands, the two small gravel islands where the puffins breed out in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, five miles off the west shore of Whidbey Island. Having studied prior reports, we knew where to look but it was Liam's mom Elizabeth who found the Horned Puffin just a few minutes after we arrived at the big kelp bed on the north side of the islands. She did good; we were some distance away from the kelp where the puffins usually hang out and we could easily have missed it. Chris motored slowly closer and we were able to watch it at reasonably close range for several minutes before it flew off towards the west side of Smith Island and disappeared.
With the Horned Puffin listed and photographed, we all relaxed for the rest of our tour around the two islands. I had researched a bit of the history of Smith Island last year so I shared a few facts while Darchelle took photos, Liam kept the checklists and everyone looked for birds. We saw lots of them, especially gulls, cormorants and Pigeon Guillemots, in addition to our 15 Tufted Puffins and our one Horned Puffin. Back in Anacortes, we were still so excited about the puffin that we almost forgot to take a group photo.

7/13/2022   Flight to Boston  (link to here)
I wasn't exactly dreading the flight to New Hampshire but I certainly wasn't looking forward to it. I was pretty determined not to enjoy it and I didn't, but it actually wasn't that bad. It being a daytime flight, my legs didn't get twitchy. I didn't have to pee; I worry about that because I don't know what I would do if I had to go, given my inability to get to the restroom. My floppy head was not as much of a problem as last time either, thanks to the rubber band Darchelle used to strap it to the headrest. I had been worried that the Theraband arrangement might not work but it did. The transfers into the aisle chair and then into my seat did not damage my dignity too much. When we arrived in Boston, David waited with me while Darchelle retrieved the rental car, so she and I were able to communicate, at least until her phone went dead. The highlight of the almost 20-hour door to door trip was my lobster roll from Newick's +. It was delicious, though we were startled by the bill, and not in a good way. We probably won't return.
I sat in the window seat, thinking it might be easier for my head. It wasn't worth the difficulty of getting lifted across the other two seats so I took the aisle seat on the flight home. We recognized a few landmarks below us and Darchelle got a few photos before clouds obscured the view.

7/14/2022   Indigo Bunting  (link to here)
Darchelle and I spent much of the day on the front porch l+, sitting around the table in the front corner looking across the lawn at the road and across the field at Mount Washington. Across the lawn Mom's yellow and orange daylilies were blooming and around the field, Red-eyed Vireos and an Indigo Bunting were singing. Mom joined us for some of the time. Alice P came over from next door to say hi and once or twice someone walking by on the road stopped to visit for a few minutes. Rick pulled up in his white truck and came over to check on us since we'd not seen him the night before when we'd arrived. We talked about birds; Rick was pleased to hear that the Indigo Bunting had visited his feeders that morning because he had not seen it in a while.
The bunting has been one of my favorite birds ever since I made its acquaintance while painting the house in Jackson during the summer after my freshman year in college. My girlfriend Anne had introduced me to birdwatching that spring so when I returned to Jackson I embarked on learning the local birds. I was already familiar with a few of the more common and/or more glamorous species but I had no idea that the incredibly blue Indigo Bunting was one of them. I soon memorized its lilting song, and soon after that discovered that each of the several individual buntings around the neighborhood had its own unique variant. Our bunting, which occupied the edges of the field between us and the old White Mountain Inn, had one song which it sang consistently throughout June and July while the bunting up at Overlook had a different song and the bird down on the Valley Cross Road had still a third song. Those two birds were apparently our bunting's closest neighbors because once or twice that summer they showed up to challenge him and were quickly rebuffed.
Our Indigo Bunting returned for the next two or three summers then another one, with a different song, took over. I never succeeding in getting a photo of him. My first Indigo Bunting photo was of a male eating dandelion seeds near Taos New Mexico a year or two later. Both camera technology and bird calling technology have improved since then. This afternoon Darchelle used her phone to call the current occupant of the Indigo Bunting territory around our field and when he came promptly over, took his picture. That territory, by the way, is much older than the bird who now defends it, probably dating back to the 40's when the trees around the field grew up enough to interest Indigo Buntings. Like the old houses in town, it has since seen a long succession of owners, some of them likely descended from that first occupant and others probably not.
For supper we picked up takeout from the Red Fox. I ordered a Caesar salad with steak tips in honor of Eric since that is what he usually used to order. I think I drank a Tuckerman pale ale with dinner, again Eric's favorite. He died suddenly five years ago this week and I wish he hadn't. I think the past five years would have been transformative for him, a time of growth and finding his place in the family which I think would have been very satisfying. Instead he has been gone and we have been diminished by his absence.

7/15/2022   Black Bear  (link to here)
Again this visit Rick loaned us his house to stay in while he rented a room at the Eagle for the week. Again this visit I sat for a while most mornings by his living room window l+ keeping track of the birds coming and going at his feeders. This morning a bear came by as well, sniffed around under the feeders then ambled off into the woods again. He (aren't all bears male until proven otherwise?) moved slowly with his head down; I thought he looked depressed, which was interesting because during our visit last summer, a little bear came by several times and I thought he looked depressed too. Probably the same bear, a year older.
Roger prepared lamb stew and a delicious vegetable quiche for supper, which we ate on the porch while the sun prepared to set.

7/16/2022   Auto Road  (link to here)
Today we drove up the Auto Road to the summit of Mount Washington, climbing through the sequence of plant communities - mixed hardwood forest, mixed spruce, birch and fir, more or less pure Balsam Fir, Balsam Fir krumholz and finally the lichens, forbs and grasses of the alpine fell fields. It is a sequence familiar from years of hiking in the Presidential Range but neither Mom nor I can do those hikes anymore. Her last walk in the alpine zone was a cautious stroll from the Auto Road over to the lip of Huntington's Ravine to see the alpine flowers back in June 2014, several days before her 87th birthday. My last hike on Washington was four years later when Darchelle and I attempted Nelson Crag but turned back because my paralyzed arms prevented me from safely scrambling over boulders in the trail. So now we drive up.
Darchelle and I were looking for more than a good view on Washington today. Our friends Andy and Ellen are coming to Mount Washington in about two weeks to look for a Bicknell's Thrush, a bird which breeds only above 4000 feet in the mountains of the northeastern US. The only road which traverses their breeding habitat is the Mt Washington Auto Road and since Andy can't hike the rough trails of the White Mountains, that's where they would be looking. They have helped us find a lot of birds over the years so we wanted to help them find the thrush. A photo would be nice too.
We found it just above the 5 mile marker in a dense stand of stunted fir and birch right along the road. We tried playing the song but had better luck with the call; one flew in across the road from us and both Mom and I saw it. I'm not sure how excited Mom was about the birdwatching aspect of our drive up the mountain. We stopped at least half a dozen times l+ to play different recordings in hopes of coaxing birds out of the woods, with limited success. Mom and I sat in the car while Darchelle hopped out to play and scout. I asked Mom several times if she was enjoying the drive and she claimed that she was, though without much enthusiasm. She probably would have enjoyed the outing more if we had brought some lunch. When Sarah came up for dinner and asked Mom what she done that day Mom announced in a low voice "I went birdwatching."
Daniel and Caroline arrived yesterday evening and climbed Mount Washington this morning with David, taking advantage of our offer to drive them back down again. We spotted them from the Auto Road a mile and half away eating lunch on Lion's Head. We met them about an hour later in a parking lot at the summit. Caroline asked, only half joking, if climbing the mountain had been a test and Daniel acknowledged, perhaps truthfully, that it had, but that she had definitely passed. It was a sweet moment, but also sad for us because Darchelle and I did not climb Washington together back when we could have done it.
Daniel fixed supper, with help I think from David and Caroline. For everyone else (except the vegetarians Darchelle and David) he prepared salmon in paper. I didn't get to try the salmon but the scallops he cooked for me instead were among the best I've ever had, sautéed perfectly in butter and lemon juice and served with sliced potatoes sautéed in the scallop pan drippings.
After supper Caroline presented me with a gift, a small painting of an Indigo Bunting, beautifully colored and nicely observed, as my college art teacher would have said. I believe she commissioned a friend of hers to paint it.

7/17/2022   Lobsters  (link to here)
Again I spent most of the day sitting on the front porch, visited at times with Mom and David, Kirsten, Sarah and Roger. Or was that yesterday? Darchelle took the photo of the dark phase Broad-winged Hawk over the house after setting the camera to the Sports option under the Scene mode as Roger had suggested. David caught the hummingbird hovering by the feeder. The hummingbird feeder on the front porch was empty when we arrived but the hummingbird was still stopping by several times a day to check it, so I asked Rick if he would fill it up. Since then we've had three or four hummingbirds visiting, one at a time.
The kids picked up lobsters at Northland Lobster Co on the way down to Eaton to pick blueberries, boiled them up for dinner and served them with corn on the cob and green salad. Caroline baked a blueberry cobbler for dessert. Sarah and Daniel teamed up to pick the meat out of my lobster for me. It was delicious but took me so long to eat it that I never got to the cobbler.
Perhaps it was this evening that we all sat in the PT room and watched "Crazy Rich Asians". Darchelle and I had watched it before but I enjoyed it more the second time.

7/18/2022   Rainy Day  (link to here)
Rainy day today, so we stayed inside. I don't remember what we did all day. Daniel and Caroline stayed up until 1 AM making stock out of the lobster shells. They simmered the stock all night then made Bouillabaisse out of it for supper tonight. We ate in the dining room. The shellfish soup was rich and delicious, but the Mushroom Risotto that Daniel fixed for David and Darchelle was equally good. Dinners by Daniel were definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me.

7/19/2022   Warblers  (link to here)
Darchelle's bird photos, including this set of warbler photos taken along the road down to Sarah and Roger's house, were another highlight of the trip for me. Their road is a bit overgrown; leaves caressed the car on both sides as we drove down, providing cover for the birds and allowing them to approach within a few feet of us when we played recordings of their songs. Only the Black-throated Blue was singing unprompted and even then infrequently, but the other two shared their songs with us a few times after we provoked them.
Darchelle and I joined Sarah and Roger on their back deck l+ for coffee this morning before handing up to the house to park on the front porch + for the afternoon. We watched the Phoebes flycatching around the greenhouses and the Cardinal posing in the garden and Roger pointed out the Kestrel on his perch in a cottonwood across the field.
In their wandering around Brookside Farm, Daniel, David and Caroline took photos of the property inside and out, then shared them with Darchelle. Since I can't get around very easily, I appreciated being able to look around through their photos, some of which are posted in this account.
Daniel and Caroline leave tomorrow. Perhaps in memory of Grandpa, Daniel and David grilled burgers on the front porch for supper. Hamburgers being simpler than Daniel's other dinners, we ate by daylight for a change. Caroline fed me while Darchelle was inside. I appreciated that too.

7/20/2022   New Hampshire  (link to here)
Mom's blueberries have been ripening up ever since we arrived and are producing at least several cups of berries every morning at this point. Daniel and Caroline put them into pancakes this morning and we ate them on the front porch with maple syrup. Another family tradition.
I may not remember much else about the day but I do remember that Roger fixed a delicious beef stew for supper. I think he may have simmered it a long time because the liquid was concentrated into a rich gravy, very flavorful.

7/21/2022   New Hampshire  (link to here)
It is our last day but Darchelle packed up last night so we had time to look for birds down in the lower field l+ before meeting everyone on the front porch for the last time. Maybe for the last last time, who knows, but we didn't talk about that.
Rick and Jed both stopped by and hung out for a while on the front porch with us. Rick had picked a big basket of cucumbers from his garden patch in the field but none of us needed cucumbers. We sat and talked for an hour so before we had to leave. It was a leisurely parting and I don't recall that anyone had tears.

7/23/2022   Sequim  (link to here)
For several weeks now we have been seeing occasional reports of a Pacific Golden Plover in Sequim Bay so we decided to run over there for the day and try to find it. I anticipated that if we caught the 8:50 ferry from Edmonds, we would arrive at Dungeness Landing around 11AM at which point the tide would be half in, perfect for finding the plover close to shore. If we missed it we would have another chance as the tide went out later in the afternoon, or so we thought.
Despite an early start, we arrived in Edmonds about 10 minutes too late to make it onto the 8:50 ferry so we had to wait another two hours for the next one. We, at least I, might have given up and gone home except that we were trapped in the inside lane in the ferry line, which turned out to be a good thing. When we boarded the boat we ended up with a window seat, as I call it, parked in the outermost lane on the starboard side of the boat giving me a view out over the water. Space is too tight on the ferry to get the wheelchair out so I always appreciate a window seat. Having spent much of our ferry waiting time trying to refine our camera setup for flying birds, we were eager to try it out so Darchelle took photos while I watched out my window. It is rare to see anything unusual on that crossing (though I did photograph a Parasitic Jaeger once and another time we spotted Orcas) but hope persists.
I first noticed the bird flying north low over the water perhaps 80 yards distant across the bow of the ferry. To my naked eye, it appeared larger and paler than any of the three common alcids (Rhinoceros Auklet, Common Murre and Pigeon Guillemot) with longer wings and slower wingbeats. I could not pick out the dark upper parts and white underparts; it just looked gray to me but I suspected that it might be a Manx Shearwater, a bird so rare that we have not seen one since 2015. I shouted to Darchelle to get photos of a bird flying left to right at 2 o'clock low over the water. She spotted it right away, noted the long narrow dark wings as it briefly banked towards us, then immediately took a series of photos. In reviewing them on the camera LCD, we failed to notice that she had picked up the bird in the lower left corner of the screen, so given our brief and distant look, we decided not to report it.
Rendering that decision more painful Darchelle checked the King County rare bird chat at a red light after we disembarked the ferry and discovered that Raphael F had reported a Manx Shearwater + flying south off Discovery Park about five hours earlier. His photos looked very much like my naked-eye view of our bird. Examining our photos on the computer two days later, I was delighted to discover that Darchelle had in fact captured several images of the rare shearwater I was also pleased that my initial impression of the bird as a Manx turned out to be correct.
Leaving Kingston we were disappointed not to be able to confirm the shearwater but we remained optimistic that we would be able to find the plover. When we arrived at Dungeness Landing though, we discovered that the tide was already too high. The mud flats were underwater and the plovers were all roosting on a distant gravel bar out in the bay. Consulting a tide chart, we realized that the second low tide we been counting on was not going to happen; at its lowest late that afternoon the water would drop only eight inches below the high tide mark. I hadn't known that was even possible!
In Darchelle's mind there was only one thing to do - spend the night and look for the plover in the morning. In my mind there was only one thing to do - go home and try again some other day. Plovers would be migrating south from August until October, so we would have other opportunities. Although not without some grumpiness, I agreed to what was in Darchelle's mind. The Olympic View and several other motels Darchelle called were full but we found a room at the Sundowner where the Indian proprietors remembered us sympathetically and even shared their dinner with us after Darchelle commented on the inviting fragrance of Indian cooking in the office as she was checking in. The food was indeed delicious, dosas, a vegetable soup, potato masala with onions and a colorful red chutney, each uniquely seasoned with unidentifiable spices.
In the morning the tide was low but the Pacific Golden Plover did not show up either in Darchelle's scope views or in any of the 800 or so photos she took of the birds out on the mudflats.

8/04/2022   Ruff Chase  (link to here)
As we enter the fall shorebird season we are looking for seven more species to add to our list for the year. Ordered by how likely we are to find them, they are: Last year we got all seven. I had never done that before and do not expect to repeat that feat this year either, but if we don't, it won't be for lack of trying. In that spirit, we embarked on our first fall shorebird chase today, that is if we don't count the trip to Sequim last month.
A Ruff was reported yesterday afternoon at Sandy Point in Whatcom County. By the time we noticed the Alert from eBird it was too late to drive up there so we went first thing this morning but the bird was gone. It was some consolation that even if we had driven up there yesterday afternoon we would have missed it; it apparently had moved on prior to 5 PM. We spent much of this morning searching the Back Bay l+ for it just in case. Actually Darchelle searched while I sat in my wheelchair overlooking the mudflat and visited with Maxine who'd already completed her own search by the time we showed up.
Maxine went home but we wanted to keep looking along the shore further to the east so we drove around trying access roads and ended up at a freshwater marsh l+ on Lummi Flats where Darchelle found quite a few Yellowlegs while I sat in the car following her progress. From there it was just a short hop up onto the dikes bounding the mudflats l+ so we scanned those as well. Lots of habitat but not many birds. Darchelle did get some good photos though so I've been enjoying watching the shorebirds on my computer.
The peach cobbler actually dates back a few days. Darchelle used a lavender scone mix for the topping and the combination of peaches and lavender took a little getting used at first but there were no leftovers.

8/07/2022   Gosh No!  (link to here)
We are not alone in looking for a Northern Goshawk this year. Andy and Ellen are trying to get one too. Yesterday afternoon Andy called us and said he believed he was at that moment hearing one near Rimrock Lake but he could not spot it in the dense canopy, so he and Ellen were going to return this morning to try to see it. We waited by the phone this morning, ready to drop everything and head out there if they called. At 9:30 AM Ellen texted a photo of a recently-fledged large Accipiter. We probably should have inspected her photo a little more critically, probably should have paid more attention to the relatively thin streaking on the white background of the breast and belly, but instead we jumped in the car and took off.
They were waiting for us when we pulled up three and a half hours later. From the road (FR 552 2.1 miles up from FR 1210 0.5 miles up from the Tieton River Road) we heard the bird calling and as Andy had reported, it sounded like someone blowing on a blade of grass. A thin blade - the call was higher-pitched than I had anticipated. That was the second clue that our bird was a Cooper's Hawk, not a Goshawk. The lack of a prominent supercilium was a third clue. I wanted the bird to be a Goshawk so I wasn't playing much attention to clues but Darchelle was starting to get pretty uncomfortable with calling it a Gos. I should know by now to pay attention when Darchelle is uncomfortable. The next day Andy forwarded us an email from a friend of his who confirmed Darchelle's suspicions. It turns out that we overlooked a fourth and definitive clue - on a Goshawk the dark bands on the tail are outlined in white. On a Cooper's Hawk they are not.

8/08/2022   Rowan  (link to here)
My nephew Rowan turned up in the New York Times today, in the context of a review of the bakery for which they have been perfecting products for the past 6 months. It has now opened to positive reviews and we are feeling very positive about that.

8/12/2022   Gosh Yes!  (link to here)
About a week ago Deb E reported a Northern Goshawk northeast of Ellensburg in Kittitas County. Her photos showing pale borders on the dark bands of the tail confirmed the ID. With Deb's help we figured we could probably find that bird but while I have met her a few times in the past, I didn't feel that I knew her well enough to ask. Andy thought he might know someone who did, so at a Yakima Audubon meeting two days ago he inquired and a day later via an email from Scott D we had arranged to meet Deb and follow her to the spot where she had seen the bird.
We took Ellen's car after dropping ours off at the auto glass shop in Yakima to get our windshield replaced. A tire chain link from a westbound semi on Snoqualmie Pass flew over the divider and struck the upper left corner of our windshield as we were heading eastbound towards the Waterville Plateau last December. The ding was too big to fix but the crack was only a few inches long so we agreed to let it grow, which it did. When the crack began to reach over to my side of the windshield, Andy couldn't tolerate it anymore and persuaded us to get it fixed, suggesting that we could spend the night with them and have the windshield done in Yakima while we chased the Goshawk. So we did.
We didn't find the bird right away. We followed Deb to the spot where she had seen the Goshawk nine days earlier and waited in the shade of a Douglas Fir for the bird to show up again but it didn't. Andy and Darchelle wandered off in different directions to see if they could find it. I sat in my wheelchair in the sunshine and talked with Deb about hunting and her work for the Department of Fish and Wildlife, where she was one of the first female game wardens. She had lots of stories.
We found the Goshawk on the way back down. We stopped again in the place where Deb had seen it. Andy put his seat back to take a nap while Darchelle hopped out to listen for the bird. I sat in the front seat with the window open and watched her. When she started jumping up and down and waving her arms I knew she had the real thing. She doesn't do that for Turkey Vultures and Red-tails. As she approached the car she shouted "I heard it!" and immediately after that I heard it too, a clear descending scream longer and lower in pitch than the Cooper's Hawk calls we heard last week. We had our Goshawk!
Well, almost. I was willing to count it without seeing it but I wanted someone to see it and verify the ID. After some discussion, Andy and Darchelle agreed on the direction of the calls and Darchelle headed into the woods while Andy and I waited in the car. Deb had gone into the woods in the other direction but returned when she heard the excitement and she went off in search of Darchelle. Soon after that we heard the "kee kee kee kee" of an adult Goshawk and assumed that Darchelle and Deb, having failed to locate the bird, had decided to play a recording. Andy and I waited some more.
Andy's phone rang and it was Darchelle, asking if Andy wanted to come see the bird. "You have it?" Andy asked, slightly incredulous. "Where are you?" Andy decided that he could handle the 100 yards or so through the woods to Darchelle. I watched him disappear. His route, though not difficult, was not really wheelchair accessible. After another 15 minutes or so everyone returned. They had not played any recordings so it was definitely the young Goshawk which I had heard. I had great views too, once we got home and I worked with Darchelle's photos on the computer.

8/13/2022   Shorebirds  (link to here)
After another night with Andy and Ellen and a leisurely visit over coffee and breakfast in the morning, Darchelle and I drove east to Potholes Reservoir to look for migrating sandpipers. We inspected lots of them in the bright sunshine at Perch Point l+ and found our first Baird's Sandpipers of the season but not the Stilt Sandpiper we'd been hoping for. It is not a bad place to bird from the car since we were able to drive right up to the edge of several of the small ponds. The area consists mostly of firmly packed gravel and cobbles, as if a river ran through it at one time, but many of the ponds now feature margins of algae-encrusted mud. That mud is softer than it looks; we almost got stuck in it. I sat in the car while Darchelle scoped the pond edges and took photos of sandpipers near and far. Even with photos we had difficulty identifying some of them at first; we seem to have to relearn them every fall, but eventually we got all the little ones named - Western, Least, Semipalmated, Baird's or Spotted - along with the handful of larger species - Killdeer, Dowitchers and Yellowlegs - also present.
We had intended to visit several different locations around Potholes Reservoir but spent so much time at Perch Point that we had time for only one more stop, Lind Coulee l+. No Stilt Sandpiper there either. We listened to some more of A Fatal Grace, our fifth Louise Penny novel, on the way home.

8/14/2022   Bar-tailed Godwit  (link to here)
A relatively rare Bar-tailed Godwit has in the past few years hung out with the Marbled Godwits at the Westport Marina l+ for several months in the fall. This year one showed up about a week ago. Today was our first opportunity to go look for it so we did; although we probably did not need to go chase it today, we did not want to risk missing at.
It was neither easy to find nor easy to identify among the 500 Marbled Godwits, particularly since an aggressive young Peregrine kept the flock on the move. Darchelle, and Ed and Delia, thought they spotted the Bar-tailed on several occasions but I was never able to pick it out from the flock and was not confident that they had succeeded in doing so either. I wanted a photo so Darchelle took lots of photos. Eventually she found the bird half-hidden behind a post on the float at the south and of the marina and was able to confirm the ID with a photo. By that point I had given up trying to see it myself and was sitting in the car while they scoped from Float 21. I might have been able to distinguish it through binoculars (Darchelle holds them up to my eyes) or I might not have been to pick it out. It didn't matter. Back home, after hours studying the photos, I found it in several of them, including a photo of the flock landing on the beach below the pedestrian walkway. I had been watching the flock at that point, so I had seen the bird. Not the first time + I have mined a photo for a Westport Bar-tailed Godwit...

8/17/2022   Booby  (link to here)
Last night we discussed sitting out on the front porch together with coffee and croissant for breakfast, something we have not done all summer. We also discussed the option of a leisurely morning in bed if we so desired. That all changed when at 9:34AM Darchelle noticed an alert on her phone from the King County rare bird chat group which had been sent out 22 minutes earlier announcing that a very rare Nazca Booby was at that moment sitting on a barge and tugboat combination steaming north past West Point. Within minutes birdwatchers at several spots along the shore of Puget Sound north of West Point had spotted the barge and confirmed that its exotic passenger was still on board.
We bolted out of bed and within 10 minutes were northbound ourselves, heading for Edmonds where we anticipated that the barge would shortly pass by. We were correct, but on our way to the Edmonds waterfront we had received a report that the Booby had departed the barge and had flown north at least a mile ahead of it along the far side of the Sound, out of range of our scope. We did see the barge but, knowing that the Booby had left, did not bother to inspect it. That was too bad; at that very moment the Booby was sitting in plain, if distant, sight on the prow of the tugboat. We never found out if the misleading report was erroneous or if the Booby had turned around and come back to the boat unobserved by the reporter. In any case we missed it.
Instead, believing the Booby had flown northward, we caught the Kingston ferry and drove north about 10 miles to Point No Point l+. I sat in my wheelchair on the lighthouse lawn near the gap in the breakwater which affords access to the sandy point while Darchelle scoped the channel. I watched people come and go along with an occasional gull while Darchelle strained to pick out a possible Booby. She might have succeeded; in the hazy distance she spotted a large white seabird with black in the wings which plunged into the water like a tern. Unfortunately it did not reappear, and two hours later it was reliably reported aboard the barge again about 25 miles to the north. She decided not to post her sighting to eBird since I had not seen it.
We each took our failure hard in our own way. I was down much of the remainder of the day and she kept rehearsing the events of the morning and what we could have done differently. I don't think we even had anything special for supper.

8/20/2022   Home again  (link to here)
In other news, I celebrated my 68th birthday recently with a modest party and a gift or two, I think. I didn't write down anything at the time so have characteristically forgotten it all, but I can infer from the photos that the weather was hot. David joined the party and gave me a Tunnel Vision Marathon T-shirt, and a good-looking one at that. He did the design. I'm wearing it in the photo with David N, who flew out for a visit before heading over to Walla Walla to deposit his daughter at college. It was a good visit with good conversations, though what they were about, I no longer recall.

8/25/2022   Stilt Sandpiper  (link to here)
We dedicated two full days to an effort to find a Stilt Sandpiper on the west side after failing to find one at Perch Point on the 13th. Yesterday Ed and Delia joined us, along with Liam, on a trip across the Sound to Three Crabs l+ and Dungeness Landing l+. It was not a shorebird-rich experience.
Today Liam helped us hit up Hayton Reserve l+, Crockett Lake l+, Bos Lake l+, Lummi Flats l+ and Channel Drive l+. Thanks to Liam's spotting and identification skills we found 13 different species of shorebirds but not the two that we were looking for. Darchelle took over 1700 photos, a small selection of which are displayed here.

8/27/2022   Walla Walla  (link to here)
Richard had a big birthday this weekend and his daughters put together a weekend of celebration. We drove over Friday afternoon while Alicia finalized the order for custom T-shirts and Sally prepared to host the birthday lunch. Signs were posted around town advertising another party at the track on Sunday morning. It was a good time.
We were finishing up lunch with the family out on Sally's back deck when Darchelle received a text from Liam reporting that a Blackpoll Warbler had just been seen 2 hours away at Steptoe Butte. Abandoning the rest of my lunch we bolted out to the car and raced north to Steptoe. Mason Marron and three others had seen the bird + 3.1 miles up the Steptoe Butte SP Road and had marked the coordinates of the bush where they had seen and photographed it. After an hour of searching the immediate area l+ and finding other warblers and flycatchers, but not the blackpoll, I noticed several more birds flitting about in a large elderberry and adjacent mountain maple about 20 feet below the road m+. I saw only a silhouette, including the bird hovering momentarily below a maple leaf, but Darchelle was able to find it through her binoculars as it perched and foraged in the interior of the elderberry. She described the field box to me but I did not want to post it on eBird until we could view Mason's photos and verify that it was the same bird, so we posted it as Warbler sp. as follows:
Back home three days later we updated our eBird checklist, adding the Blackpoll Warbler with the following description:
Although I did not mention it in the checklist, about 15 minutes after Darchelle's sighting I watched a small yellow, gray and white bird fly into a bush about 70 feet below me, dart rapidly through the bush then fly up to the elderberry which we had first seen the Blackpoll. At 70 feet without optics I couldn't be sure but I believe it was the warbler. That was about the last gasp of bird activity at the site.
For me it was not a satisfying sighting but after a few days, and after writing up our report, I feel better about it. Darchelle's description in the circumstances was sufficient to rule out other species and I observed the same bird. BVD, but it will do.

8/29/2022   Little Stint  (link to here)
We dashed off from Walla Walla Sunday afternoon to check out a report of a Stilt Sandpiper at the Hatton Coulee Rest Area l+ along Highway 395 about a half-hour north of Tri-Cities. It was gone by the time we got there, but on the way up we drove right by several others at Casey Pond along Highway 12. We actually did stop at Casey Pond but at the wrong one. As the proverb says, "A miss is as good as a mile", but in this case we were only a half mile away from the bird we wanted; we just didn't find out about it until 7:30PM that evening. Hoping it would be there in the morning, we backtracked to the always dingy but surprisingly comfortable Airport Motel for the night and arrived in time to pick up dinner from the Desert Heat +. Once again, the Chile Relleno did not disappoint.
We set out from the Airport Motel first thing in the morning to a rousing chorus of squeals and roars from nearby trains, planes and tractor-trailer trucks. Proceeding directly to Highway 12 milepost 300, we parked illegally by the guardrail and searched the only Casey Pond with exposed mud for the several Stilt Sandpipers Mike and Mary Lynn had reported the previous evening. We found no promising candidates there in three passes so drove directly up to Othello to discover the non-Little Stint.
The Little Stint wasn't a miss, simply a misidentification.
On our swing up through the Columbia Basin in search of a Stilt Sandpiper Monday we stopped briefly at Para Ponds just north of Othello after noticing a few peeps along the shore of the smaller pond. Darchelle hopped out of the car and took photos. She noted that one of the small sandpipers was usually orange but, concerned about our precarious position on the narrow shoulder, I did not notice her comment so after a few minutes we continued on up to Potholes State Park. Reviewing her photos the next day, the bright rufous sandpiper caught my eye and it didn't take long to conclude that it was probably a very rare Little Stint. I sent photos to a handful of fellow birders and they mostly agreed with me, but the one who did not agree was the one who counted. I ended up posting a single juvenile Least Sandpiper with the following description on our checklist l+.
Continuing through the Columbia NWR we had no more success at the state park or the nearby WDFW fishing access where a friendly WDFW employee urged us not to get stuck if we chose to drive on the exposed mudflats.
We did not have luck at Lind Coulee l+ either. We thought that Darchelle had finally located our first-of-year Stilt Sandpiper among a small group of Greater Yellowlegs in the shallow waters of the upper coulee. From her photos at the time I was not sure if the white dot they showed was really the bird we sought. It was though, until a week later when I posted photos to the eBird checklist and our bird was re-identified as a Wilson's Phalarope. That would explain why the bill persistently looked too straight and thin.
Hedging our bets we stopped by Perch Point on our way up to the freeway but all the ponds were dry. I have never seen Potholes Reservoir so low. We listened to our latest Louise Penny mystery, The Cruelest Month, most of the way home.
I found the Stilt Sandpiper search quite unsatisfying. As usual, I sat in the car while Darchelle peered at distant shorebirds through the scope. It was my choice to sit in the car rather than take the trouble to get out into the wheelchair, but still not very satisfying. Of course had we found the bird, I probably would not be complaining about the search for it.
We wrapped up August with 32 checklists for the month, 341 species in Washington for the year and 51250 total miles on the car since we purchased it 16 months ago.

9/01/2022   Golden Plover  (link to here)
I glimpsed a golden plover as it flew overhead in a flock of what turned out to be Black-bellied Plovers at the Oyhut Game Range l+ in Ocean Shores this afternoon. Unfortunately it was not the Pacific Golden Plover we were looking for but rather the less common American Golden Plover which has been hanging out at the Game Range with up to half a dozen Pacific Golden Plovers for the past week or two.
We had detoured out to Ocean Shores on our way to Westport for our long-awaited pelagic trip tomorrow, not so much to actually see the plovers as to scout out the Tonquin access trail to the refuge to see if we could use it to get a vantage point from which I could perhaps see the plovers from my wheelchair. The usual route over there involves traversing 100 yards of soft sand followed by a half-mile walk on a relatively steep beach. I assumed there was no way we could manage that but hoped that the Tonquin Avenue route might work. It did. From the parking area, 150 yards of pea gravel road led to 80 feet of sandy singletrack which, after a challenging detour around a large hunk of driftwood, deposited us at the edge of a broad sweep of sand which replaced the eastern half of the game range mudflat during one of last winter's storms.
Faced with 50 yards of soft sand between us and the eastern edge of the remaining mudflat where we believed the plovers would be foraging, we parked my wheelchair facing west into the sun while Darchelle went off to locate the birds and get photos. Our hope was that the shorebirds would at some point flush and fly over me. If she could verify that our target plovers were among them, I could count the Pacific Golden Plover on my year list. It almost worked. The plovers flew over and I saw them, and even heard the golden plover calling. The American Golden Plover, that is. I thought I might have heard Pacific Golden Plover calls as well, but concluded that I was mistaken when none of them turned up in Darchelle's photos.
A kind local man named Terry T with his friend Jolene wheeled me all the way back to the parking lot.
Delayed by our adventures, we were late arriving at Jeff and Roe's house in Westport where we would be staying for two nights with Ed and Delia and Ben and Sally and kids. They were all out for a walk when we arrived so our late arrival was okay, though it meant we had a short night before our long day on the water, but that turned out okay too.

9/02/2022   Pelagic Magic II  (link to here)
After last year's pelagic trip, as good as it was, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do another even if my deteriorating condition allowed it. I had been almost miserably cold all day long; I had required nearly continual assistance to hold my head up and my chair down and I simply could not engage in pelagic birding the way I had in the past - standing up front, spotting birds, calling them out and and getting photos. Back in July though, recognizing that we were in a position to shatter our state big year personal best from last year, we decided we had to do another pelagic trip to pick up the 10 to 15 species we could see no other way. Good decision - it was so much easier this year and we had even more success with the birds this year than last, seeing all but one of our possible targets.
We left the marina around 6:30 AM while it was still dark and a bit foggy. Like last year, our spotters were Bill Tweit, Gene Revelas and Bruce LaBar. They did not start counting birds until we passed the outer end of the jetty. Technically we were still crossing the bar at that point but the swell was so low but we barely noticed. Conditions were very good, just an occasional bit of fog under mostly overcast skies with light wind and wind waves around a foot, sometimes a bit higher but usually a little lower. Good for spotting birds but activity was spotty for the first hour or so.
During the next 2 1/2 hours, on the second leg of our trip l+, covering the continental shelf from the outermost navigation buoy off the jetty to the edge of the shelf, we encountered 13 new year birds although I personally missed two or three of them - a Pomarine Jeager which few people saw, a Cassin's Auklet on the wrong side of the boat and a couple of Red Phalaropes up front, which I might have glimpsed. Fortunately I saw the latter two species, close to the boat but briefly, on the third leg of our trip l+, out on the deep water Gray's Canyon.
Pomarine Jeagers are usually common offshore in the fall so I was concerned when after five hours, I still had not seen one but on the fourth leg of our trip l+, back across the continental shelf towards shore, Liam spotted one in the distance which I was able to see, although at far too great a distance to identify without optics. I would not have been able to identify the Long-tailed Jeager either, and for the same reason, but otherwise I had good views of all of our other new species.
Back in the Marina, Sally persuaded all of us to pose for a photo before disembarking. I think I have all the names correct but I'm not 100% sure. As Darchelle and I had hoped, it was a great group with a real sense of camaraderie and shared purpose - that being to see the birds and to help me see them. Spotters Bill and Bruce were particularly helpful in that regard but I am also grateful to Liam for that Pomarine Jeager. My brother-in-law Ben carried me onto and off of the boat and checked on me frequently during the trip, as did Mary and Delia, which freed up Darchelle to take photos. She knows how much I appreciate those so was disappointed that so many were out of focus. The constant motion of both the boat and the birds, combined with the relatively low light levels for most of the day, made the photography difficult but she nonetheless succeeded in getting decent photos of 10 of our 15 new birds for the year. Not bad!

9/03/2022   Pacific Golden Plover #355  (link to here)
Now that the pelagic trip is done our year bird count stands at 354, 17 species ahead of where we were last year at this point. We only need five more to exceed last year's total of 360; that shouldn't be too difficult. I'd love to get 16 more to make it to 370 but that seems unlikely, even if we get a good harvest of late fall vagrants. Just for fun, I think I'll keep track of how much time we spend on each of the remaining species we pick up this year, starting today with the Pacific Golden Plover. We spent about 4 hours today on that bird and 4 hours on the 1st of September as well, but that doesn't include the 20 or so hours we spent driving and scoping in search of that bird in August, so about 30 hours total.
I wasn't excited about going over to the Game Range again today, so I suggested to Darchelle that we let Ed and Delia go on over there ahead of us while we drove Grayland Beach l+ to look for a Buff-breasted Sandpiper. They come through about now and though our chances of finding one on the beach would be slim, we probably wouldn't even be able to get to any other location where the bird might show up.
The beach was magical or mystical or something like that with fog drifting in off the water and breaking up over the sand to reveal sunshine and blue sky overhead, then closing in again to obscure vehicles and birds alike in dense gray mist. Birds, most notably a Common Tern, appeared out of the fog and disappeared back into it. We found lots of gulls and Sanderlings but nothing remotely buffy except for a few Whimbrels.
We exited the beach at North Cove using an access road from which we were turned back by soft sand when we tried it last year. Feeling worn out by the activity of the previous couple of days, I wanted to go home and had a bit of a temper tantrum when Darchelle urged that we head over to the Game Range first. We decided to look through her photos from the 1st to see if we already had a Pacific Golden Plover. She doubted that we'd seen one but I had not looked through her photos yet so I wasn't sure. When I could not find one, and when Ed and Delia reported that they were looking at several right now at the Game Range, I agreed to give it a try. I doubted I would be able to get close enough to see the birds well but at least Darchelle would be able to get some photos.
Once again things turned out better than I expected. Ed and Delia were still watching the plovers when Darchelle and I arrived. They walked over to meet us where the trail opens up to the sand flat and helped Darchelle muscle the chair around the obstructing driftwood, then Ed and Darchelle hauled me backwards across the soft sand to the firm dry mud bordering the Game Range l+ mud flat.
Ed and Delia had been scoping the plovers from a respectful distance but being respectful did not allow me to distinguish the plovers without optics so I opted to approach as closely as I could without chasing off the birds. I found sitting close to the birds much more satisfying than sitting far away and the birds did not seem to mind. They were more preoccupied with pulling pink worms out of the mud, though they were occasionally distracted by attempting to prevent their fellow plovers from doing likewise. The golden plovers with their rounded heads and large eyes look like gentle creatures but before we arrived Ed and Delia had observed one of them actually pick up a smaller Semipalmated Plover by the scruff of the neck and shake it before releasing the terrified little bird unharmed, I hope.
We watched the plovers and their kin, mostly Western Sandpipers, filter into the game range as the rising tide rendered their oceanfront beach habitat unavailable. Once on the mud flat, the sandpipers mostly rested while the plovers mostly foraged. We mostly celebrated the great views we had of the relatively uncommon Pacific Golden Plovers.

9/06/2022   Buff-breasted Sandpiper #356  (link to here)
David and KC came over for supper yesterday evening and spent the night. KC fixed us omelettes filled with raw green pepper and onion for breakfast this morning. They were very tasty. We were sitting around the kitchen bar counter talking about popular names in Taiwan and what David and KC like to do on weekends at home (hike and play games with friends) when Darchelle came down from her upstairs office for a break and announced that a Buff-breasted Sandpiper had just been reported out at Ocean Shores. One or two Buff-breasted Sandpipers show up in the state every fall, usually for only a day or two so and usually in places where a wheelchair can't go so we did not even have it on our list of possible targets. This one we suspected we might be able to get to so we abandoned our houseguests and hit the road.
The Buff-breasted Sandpiper turned out to be a relatively easy year bird, requiring just 6 hours for the drive to the Oyhut Game Range l+ and back home again and about 3 hours to wheel out there, find the bird and socialize. Adding an hour for driving the beach last Saturday in search of this bird yields a total of 10 hours.
Once we made it out the Tonquin access trail, Suzanne H, a local woman out for a walk on the beach, helped Darchelle drag me across the 50 yards of soft sand to the edge of the mud flat where the dried mud was firm enough to support my chair. We wheeled along the shore to the Salicornia bed at the southwest corner of the mud flat where Darchelle parked me while she searched the dune grass where I thought the bird might be hiding.
Elizabeth and Liam showed up about then as we had expected; they had been on their way home to Olympia after three days of searching for vagrants in the Columbia basin when Liam had seen the sandpiper report and prevailed upon his mom to detour out to Ocean Shores to join us. I suggested that Liam and Darchelle search the Salicornia while Elizabeth and I watched. Around that time, a bunch of folks from the pelagic trip that morning also showed up and after a bit of futile scoping, also set out to search the Salicornia. While everyone searched, the Buff-breasted Sandpiper popped up out of the pickleweed and flew right by Elizabeth and me, landing out in the mud flat briefly before returning to the Salicornia for photos.
When we'd first arrived at the mudflat we had not found any shorebirds at all and soon discovered the reason - a Peregrine sitting out in the middle of the mud plucking prey which photos revealed to be an American crow. That accounted for the raucous calling which we'd heard when we'd pulled into the parking lot. It was the first time I've ever known a Peregrine to eat crow.
On the way home we started a new Louise Penny mystery, the fourth in her Inspector Gamache series - A Rule Against Murder. We behaved ourselves and stopped listening once we got home.

9/08/2022   ALS Clinic  (link to here)

9/09/2022   Spruce Grouse #357  (link to here)
We put in 20 hours on this chase - 12 of them driving to and from the northeast corner of the state and the remainder bumping slowly along rough gravel roads in suitable habitat - but we got our bird! In the interest of full disclosure, we also devoted another 10 hours on 24 June to searching for Sprucies. We ran into eight of them in three groups along 2 1/2 miles of NF-200 l+ below the Bear Pasture Trailhead m+, between sunset and moonrise. That was a new area for us; we were attempting to get up to Salmo Pass (just 3 miles to the northeast of the Bear Pasture Trailhead, as it turned out) but the road was closed about four miles up due to a new and growing forest fire ignited by lightning a day or two earlier. We turned left at the closure onto a rough side road (Cascade Creek Road) and followed it up a couple of miles through unpromising pine and fir forest before turning right onto a somewhat better gravel road (Highline Road/NF-2212 according to Google). For the next several miles the habitat did not improve but we kept on going because we didn't know what else to do, then we began to see the tall slender spires of Subalpine Fir and soon after that, the cone-laden tops of Engleman spruces - Spruce Grouse habitat! It was probably another eight miles to the trailhead, the last few of them quite rough, but though the habitat looked adequate, we saw no grouse.
They did not come out until sunset, as we were retracing our route back down the mountain. They were not hard to find then. We did not see the first two well; they flushed up into dense alder brush when I wasn't paying attention. We could not miss the next two; they were right in the middle of the road. After posing for photos they flew up into a spruce, followed shortly by three more rocketing out of the alder brush. The final bird was peeking shyly out of the grass in front of us, illuminated by our headlights.
We began the day with an early trip up to Bunchgrass Meadows l+ where we actually expected to find the family of Spruce Grouse which Mason had reported a few days ago at the unofficial camping area about 13 miles up the Harvey Creek Road. We found huckleberry pickers instead, a hardscrabble lot but friendly enough. Thinking to buy a few, I asked how much they get for them and they said $50-$80 per gallon. I considered offering $20 for a quart but asked about grouse instead. The man we talked to said he had seen them yesterday but advised that if we really wanted to find grouse we should go up Dry Canyon Road and take the hard right at the chicken foot. He had seen so many up there, he told us, he couldn't decide which one to shoot, though he swallowed the bit about shooting when he realized we were birdwatchers. We did take his advice but missed the chicken foot on our first attempt and were blocked by a blowdown before we made it very far on our second.
We had hoped to try for Boreal Owl at Salmo Pass so in anticipation of a late descent from the mountain we had booked both last night and tonight at the Riverview Motel in Ione. We have not stayed there on our last several visits because they always seemed to be fully booked but chose it this time over our recent standby the Box Canyon Resort Motel because we remembered it as being a little nicer. I was little disappointed this time though, not because the Riverview has declined but because I have. I had a hard time moving in bed because of the weight of the heavy duvet, and I found the toilet, though easy to access, uncomfortably low. Nonetheless I was grateful to be able to return for an afternoon nap between Bunchgrass and Bear Pasture and even more grateful to get back tonight after a long day in the car.

9/11/2022   Washtucna I and II  (link to here)
The town of Washtucna m+ and the 1.5 acre green space of Bassett Park on its southwest edge are among the best places in the state to find Eastern warblers and other rare migrants during the month of September. When a Magnolia Warbler was reported there on the 9th we drove down there as soon as we could, arriving yesterday morning after a three-hour drive from Ione. We found birdwatchers already on-site at Bassett Park l+ so we immediately joined them and parked ourselves in front of a large bush, Red-stem Dogwood I think, overlooking a small ditch with standing water. I stayed there for almost four hours. Nancy and Bill were there too, but they and the other birders were mostly behind me so I didn't participate much in the conversation.
At first I remained at a respectable distance with the other birdwatchers but found my inability to identify the birds at that distance frustrating. With the permission of the other birders, I had Darchelle move me over by a small red maple tree just 10 feet or so from the "Magic Bush", and from that vantage point I was able to identify almost everything that showed up. The birds seemed undeterred by my close presence so after a while the other birders joined me. It was a great show. We had delightful views of seven species of warblers as they bathed, preened, chased insects and flitted around the bush. Darchelle took lots of photos.
That was yesterday. In the afternoon we returned to Slavin Ranch l+ near Spokane to search again for the Stilt Sandpiper which we had missed two evenings earlier. We think it was gone this time; at any rate we did not find it. While Darchelle was out looking for it, a man named Doug Brant came by the overlook where I was parked in my wheelchair. We got to talking and after he mentioned Spangle and Rosario in two successive sentences I correctly deduced that he was probably Adventist. He teaches guitar part-time at Upper Columbia and works part-time in home health and he drives a mean off-road wheelchair. We enjoyed our visit and I think he did too. About four months later I was shocked and grieved to learn that Doug had been murdered on December 4 + while caring for a patient in her home in Spokane. He was gracious and kind to us and we had looked forward to seeing him again at some point.
We spent the night at the Empire Motel + in Ritzville, modestly priced and modestly appointed with a very tight bathroom and a very short toilet, but the bed was comfortable and the drive to Washtucna only 28 miles.
After a brief tour of Ritzville l+ looking for migrants we returned to Bassett Park l+ for another four hour stint. I parked by the maple tree right off the bat and had the privilege of calling out not one but two rare warblers as they came in to visit the bush. Darchelle was not with me when the Chestnut-sided Warbler showed up but it stuck around and the next day Christopher L got some nice photos which are in his checklist +. She also missed the Red-eyed vireo yesterday but Nancy L captured a photo of that one which I think reveals that she was right and I was wrong about its identity. As she thought, it is a Warbling Vireo.
We wrapped up A Rule Against Murder just as we pulled into the driveway this evening.

9/12/2022   Stilt Sandpiper  (link to here)
Having devoted more than 40 hours spread over 7 of the past 30 days to searching for a Stilt Sandpiper, we added insult to injury by committing another 12 hours today to the effort, only to miss once again by one day. It was there yesterday but apparently gone today.
The drive to Zylstra Lake Preserve l+ east of Friday Harbor on San Juan Island took 4 hours in each direction, including the ferry, and we spent another 4 hours looking for the bird. It was a pleasant outing, comfortably warm in the sunshine with a light breeze. The lake sits amidst rolling fields of straw-colored grass and woodlots of the craggy-looking mature Douglas Fir typical of the islands. A few houses and barns are visible in the area but the lake is sufficiently distant from nearby roads that man-made sounds are subdued. Darchelle wheeled me a little over 1/2 mile down a fairly smooth double track to get to the location from which we hoped to scope the bird. From my wheelchair I could not identify most of the ducks nor pick out shorebirds along the far side of the lake but conveniently, some of the latter landed right in front of me from time to time. Pectorals, some Westerns and Least, a few Yellowlegs, but no Stilt.

9/14/2022   West Point  (link to here)
We drove out to West Point l+ in hopes of spotting a Parasitic Jaeger, which are moving south through the Sound right now. We did not see a jaeger but Raphael and Jordan pointed out a small pale tern to us which they believe was an Arctic Tern, a much more difficult bird for us to get. Darchelle followed it in the scope while I was able to catch a brief glimpse before it flew out of sight behind a clump of grass. It was a distant bird at best and we don't yet know if it will be confirmed.
Two other rare birds turned up while we were out there, a Horned Lark and a Lark Sparrow, both common in the state but not in Seattle. Darchelle got photos; I got decent looks.

9/15/2022   Hart's Pass  (link to here)
This trip to Hart's Pass and Slate Peak has been in the plans several weeks now. We wanted to get up there, at 7150' the highest point in the state reachable by motor vehicle, to try for Boreal Owl and White-tailed Ptarmigan before snow closes access to the high country, which has happened as early as mid-September in past years. Both would be new for the year.. Darchelle booked two nights at our favorite place to stay in Washington, the Mazama Ranch House so we were committed. Clouds were building up over the North Cascades as we drove over Wednesday afternoon and rain was closing in when we arrived in Mazama, but we decided to head up to try for our birds anyhow. Pulling in to the Mazama store for gas, we read the big sign on the door: "Hart's Pass Road is Closed". About that time, the downpour began.
We waited it out in the parking lot of the Mazama Ranch House and considered our options. We could try to cancel our second night and either head home or try returning to Washtucna to look for another rare warbler, or we could stay an extra night because the road was supposed to open the day after tomorrow. Maybe it would open early. In the morning Darchelle asked around and learned that the road would probably be open between 12 and 1 while the workers took a lunch break, then again after 6PM when they went home. In any case, we could not go home ourselves because Highway 20 was closed by a mudslide. We started up early and found a barricade across the road at mile 8, where it starts up the hill. After some discussion, Darchelle moved the barricade out of the road, drove through and put the barricade back in place again. The worst they could do would be to yell at us.
We found the work crew grilling burgers on the tailgate of a pickup truck a few miles above Dead Horse Point. That's the scary place where the single lane road rounds a couple of corners with a cliff above and a bigger cliff below and old rock slides partly blocking the track, but they had obviously been working on it. Though still a little rough, it was pretty much two lanes wide and barely scary at all. No one yelled at us. They had apparently forgotten about the barricade. They seemed quite pleased when we told them how much better the road was at Dead Horse Point and how impressed we were that they had managed to get around those corners with the big bulldozer they were using. "Yeah, I decided to use the big one for this job", the man told us.
"Tell them how it got the name Dead Horse Point" his buddy suggested, but we had already moved on to Spruce Grouse and Ptarmigan and the Lynx we saw last fall on the road. Continuing up towards Hart's Pass l+ we recognized the Lynx spot, we think, and a mile or so above it spotted a grouse-like object in the road. Probably a rock, we thought, until it moved, then it became the Spruce Grouse. Darchelle hopped out for photos and while she was peering into the bushes after it, one of the construction workers, along with his wife, drove up behind us. We pointed out the grouse and they too stopped for photos, intrigued by the mama grouse with her two young.
We spent the afternoon up at Slate Peak l+, and the evening as well until dusk when we drove back down to Hart's Pass to look for Boreal Owls. I sat outside in my wheelchair at the edge of the parking area looking and listening for ptarmigan while Darchelle walked up over the top and partway down the other side. I'm still not sure exactly where she went but we had reason for optimism; a hunter had told us that he'd seen a family of them on the far side of the basin early that morning. While she was out, periodically playing recordings of ptarmigan calls, she thought she heard them clucking but was unable to see them. I didn't hear any; I couldn't even hear her playing the calls once she got up on top.
We spent the hour before sunset scouting the roads around Hart's Pass for suitable owl habitat then returned to the Slate Peak parking area to catch the evening Ptarmigan chorus. I stayed in the car because I was cold and did not believe that we would be able to hear the chorus even if the Ptarmigan cooperated. Darchelle, with greater faith than mine, sat next to the car and played the recordings. She heard the chorus, a combination of clucking and churring notes similar to this recording +. Sitting in the car with the windows open, I heard clucking notes and agreed with Darchelle that they were Ptarmigan. Other birders over the next several days both heard and saw Ptarmigan in the same area, corroborating our sighting.
The Boreal Owls were not much more cooperative. We heard a few "skiew" notes in response to playback along the mile or so of road both above and below the pass. We also heard faint "wieer" notes, high-pitched and thin, which we believe were begging calls based on a single recording on Xeno-canto. We tried to record them but they didn't come through. Hopefully we will have an opportunity to try again before snow falls.

9/17/2022   Parasitic Jaeger #361  (link to here)
Point No Point l+ is the easiest place I know to find a Parasitic Jaeger in September, and we found at least two of them there today (8 hours total effort). Darchelle even got a distant photo. I waited in the car while she went looking out around the point but she did not find any jaegers. Meanwhile one flew in close enough to the beach that I was able to distinguish it from the more common Heerman's Gulls, but I couldn't tell her about it until she returned to the car about 45 minutes later. Fortunately another one flew by. That was the second of the two birds which we had hoped to see on the pelagic trip but had missed. The first was the Arctic Tern, still not confirmed but hopefully soon will be, which we saw (barely, in my case) at West Point three days ago.
Writing this now, two weeks later, I don't remember why we were so eager to get back to Washtucna, but it proved to be excellent timing. The night of September 17-18 + turned out to be the biggest night of the fall migration for Adams County. We returned home from Point No Point for an hour or so to pack up and eat a little something then made the four-hour drive over to Ritzville to stay at the Empire Motel again.

9/18/2022   Washtucna III  (link to here)
Although we found no new birds for the year, we had a very satisfying day of watching the "magic bush" at Bassett Park l+ in Washtucna today. I had nice close-up views from my spot under the maple tree and Darchelle took lots of photos. The bush was alive with Ruby-crowned Kinglets all day long but we had a nice mix of other species including five sparrows and eight warblers.
The rarest bird of the day was not actually in the park; it was a first county record Band-tailed Pigeon a few blocks away. Darchelle went to see it but I didn't feel like making the trek in my wheelchair so I stayed put. For me the highlight of the day was the Northern Waterthrush which foraged back and forth along the ditch, often in plain sight.
Of the warblers, Orange-crowned was the most numerous and perhaps also the most variable, at times difficult to distinguish from the immature female MacGillivray's. I think I have correctly identified the three individuals pictured above.

9/21/2022   Home  (link to here)
The plan had been to return home Sunday evening after our day at Bassett Park but as luck would have it, a very rare Black-tailed Gull was reported that afternoon + on the Walla Walla River Delta. Darchelle did not want to take a chance on missing it, which I was perfectly happy to do, especially when I learned that it was a subadult bird almost indistinguishable from the corresponding-age California Gull, and that our view, if any, would be through the scope at a distance of about 1000 feet. Bill and Nancy were on their way over there and Bill would take his kayak out to try for better photos, so there was a chance we would be able to get a definite ID. Andy and Ellen were also on their way; Black-tailed Gull is not among the 715 or so birds which they have seen in North America this year.
It still isn't. Just about the time we were converging on the bird, a mere three hours after Mike and MerryLynn first reported it, the Walla Walla College birders announced that the gull had departed, heading northeast over the highway. That was exactly where we were at the time; it might have flown right over us. After a fruitless search at the fly-infested Blood Ponds with Bill and Nancy, we retreated to our room at the Airport Motel to feast on Mexican food from the Desert Heat. My relleno was not as good as usual. I think maybe the oil in the fryer needed changing.
We met Andy and Ellen at the overlook in the morning. The gull might have been back on the Delta, or it might not have been. We couldn't tell. Although the Walla Walla College birders kept it on their lists, Mike and MerryLynn did not, and it was never confirmed.

9/23/2022   Sharp-tailed Sandpiper  (link to here)
Another tough sandpiper. We just finished devoting 18 hours over the past two days to the search for a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, inspired by several recent reports which have now, except for one of them, apparently been ruled erroneous. That is not too surprising; colorful juvenile Pectoral Sandpipers are often misidentified as Sharp-tailed. We found a fair number of the former and none of the latter, but I got out of the car on multiple occasions and Darchelle got some good photos.
Our first stop yesterday was the restored salt marsh and mudflat at Eide Road l+ west of Stanwood. The tide was low and lots of mud was exposed. Shorebirds were relatively few on the open mud but out by the end of the dike we found several larger species among whom a Sharp-tailed or Stilt might have been hanging out, but wasn't.
Our next stop was Hayton Reserve west of Conway but we did not stay long. Marv B was standing on the dike so we asked him if he had seen any Sharp-tailed Sandpipers there at Hayton. No, he told us, but there was one a couple of hours earlier at Channel Drive. We drove over there immediately but found only ducks and Pectorals. Disappointed, we did not even do a checklist. That, and one or two earlier reports at the same location, were the ones that proved to be erroneous.
Before returning home we drove through the Samish Flats but they were dry and devoid of shorebirds. On the way home we did not stop at the cheap gas station at exit 210 where gas was $3.99 a gallon.
A few minutes before sunset Darchelle received an alert from the King County Rare Bird WhatsApp group. Dave S had spotted a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper from the bike path along the highway 520 bridge. He's an eBird reviewer so we deemed his report reliable but we couldn't get there before dark so we went out this morning instead. The sandpiper was gone, naturally, but Darchelle got a few nice photos of birds around the Foster Island l+ mud flat where the sandpaper had been. It took us a while to figure out how to get on the bike path but once we did the wheeling was easy, as you might expect.
Unaware at this point that the Channel Drive l+ Sharp-tailed was not, we drove back up there. This time Darchelle found a way to get close to the north channel where the sandpipers hang out. I watched from the bank while she explored and took photos, mostly of Pectoral Sandpipers and Yellowlegs. One or two of the former looked tantalizingly similar to a Sharp-tailed, at least in the right light. Heading south again we bought corn, coffee and bread at Snow Goose Produce +. The corn was tender and sweet, a special treat, and the Ethiopian coffee was as close as any we've found to the coffee we had at the lodge in Livingston, that is to say it was special.
BTW, we did stop on the way north at the gas station at exit 210, where the price today was $4.31 per gallon.

9/24/2022   Washtucna IV  (link to here)
Today was not a great day to visit Bassett Park l+. According to BirdCast +, migration numbers over the past few days for Adams County have been much lower than average but we drove over there early this morning anyhow because a Rose-breasted Grosbeak was reported there yesterday afternoon. I believe we actually saw and heard the grosbeak but not well enough to count it. I was not paying attention when it came down to the bathing spot. Darchelle had a brief view of a large pale bill and a white patch on a black wing before a Sharp-shinned Hawk flew into the back side of the bush and flushed all the birds. I caught only the briefest of glimpses of the presumed grosbeak as it flew with goldfinches and kinglets up into a sycamore tree but I clearly heard the four short, loud, high-pitched and somewhat squeaky alarm calls it made on the way. Darchelle heard the calls as well but oddly enough, Bill and Nancy did not. After listening to Xeno-canto I added the grosbeak to our list as Grosbeak sp because I did not think our sighting would pass review and didn't believe either of us could defend it based we individually had seen.
After asking Bill T about it a month later, I decided to change our ID to Rose-breasted Grosbeak with the following description: Bill is an eBird reviewer and suggested that based on our combined experience of the bird, it would probably be approved.

9/25/2022   Sharp-tailed Sandpiper #364  (link to here)
After yesterday's early morning dash over to Washtucna and equally urgent return for the Stilt Sandpiper in Kent, we were indulging ourselves with a leisurely morning over coffee and croissants in our comfortable kitchen when a WhatsApp message on Darchelle's phone announced that a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper was currently being viewed at Montlake Fill less than three miles from home. Thirty minutes later on the Yesler Swamp l+ boardwalk Greg H and Darchelle hoisted me onto my feet and held my head in position to peer through Greg's scope and see the bird. I could not have told you which bird it was but they assured me that the bird standing under a little teepee of dried cattail stems was the one. Five minutes later it flew away. It did not go far, just across the water to Foster Island l+, where we followed it and got photos. Its rarity, combined with its affinity for the mud flat over there, indicates that it is probably the same individual which we failed to find there two evenings ago. Total time invested in finding our Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, about 20 hours. Not bad!
Someone or something alerted Darchelle just then that a White Wagtail had been discovered at the Blood Ponds near Tri-Cities. We did not even go home to get food. Darchelle had packed the power cord for the ventilator so we could spend the night if we needed to. We arrived at the Blood Ponds l+ four hours later but the wagtail had not been seen since the original sighting. We had known that, having been in touch with Bill and Nancy who had been searching for it. They had given up but Andy and Ellen were still there along with Kerry of Kerry's pond fame and Stan and Lori, whom we had met somewhere before. We persisted in the search until sunset then joined the others at the Desert Heat Restaurant + in Pasco. We often order takeout from them to eat in our room at the Airport Motel but this time we ate in, only the second time we've eaten dinner in a restaurant since the pandemic began almost three years ago. The place was almost empty so we weren't too worried and it was a real pleasure to eat out with friends again.
Speaking of the Airport Motel, I tried to write a review on Google but couldn't post it so I am including it here instead. Also worth noting, the toilet in room 47 is very low. Room 48 is better I think, but on this visit 48 was taken by the time we checked in.

9/26/2022   Washtucna V  (link to here)
Not wanting to waste a visit to the Eastside, we drove up to Washtucna this morning but things were pretty quiet in Bassett Park l+. According to BirdCast + the migration last night was about average after the second-largest overnight movement of the season the night before. Another birder corroborated that finding, telling us that the park had been much busier yesterday. There were still quite a few Ruby-crowned Kinglets around, along with a few warblers, but apparently not like the day before.

9/30/2022   September Wrap-up  (link to here)
After perusing gulls at West Point this morning we drove up to Whidbey Island to look for an unreported Ruff at Crockett Lake and Boss Lake. I sat in the car with a radio in my lap while Darchelle traipsed across the saltmarsh reporting back to me on the few birds that she found. At the far edge of the marsh she ventured out on the dried and cracked mud for a closer photo of some ducks and suddenly found herself knee-deep in black muck. "I'm in trouble", she radioed. "I am stuck up to my knees in mud. Pray for me!" I could see her, or at least her top half, and for several tense minutes I watched as she struggled to extricate her feet from the goo. By sitting down she was able to use both hands to free first one foot than the other, then crawl to safety. One boot had come off but she was able to retrieve it too, along with the camera and binoculars she'd been carrying. Fortunately she had a change of pants in the car.
We end the month and the third quarter of the year with 364 birds in Washington state this year and 511 complete checklists, 24 more birds and 42 more complete checklists than we had at the end of August. The car has almost 56,000 miles on it, nearly 5,000 of them added during September. We spent 10 nights out of town and ate out once. It is been a big month. We managed to record 177 species in September, 35 more than last month and more than twice as many as we did during July. The pace is picking up, but it may be about to slow down again. Over the remaining three months of the year we have only four birds which we can reasonably expect to see, and even those are difficult. Black-legged Kittiwake, Palm Warbler, Tropical Kingbird and Leach's Storm Petrel are species which we saw only once each last year. On the other hand we are likely to encounter at least a couple of vagrants so I am optimistic that we can reach 370 for the year.