2015 was a very eventful year for me. I retired at the end of August, my Dad passed in August, and I had both lots of time to travel and tried to accumulate a Pierce County year list. Here were some of the birding highlights: Pierce County: I got to know Bruce Labar much better Read More…
Author: Ed
Thoughts About My Trip to Nicaragua
I got home at 3 AM this morning after spending 9 days in San Juan del Sur, Rivas, Nicaragua primarily visiting my step-brother Keith with Kay and my daughter Jean. I had a few chances to get out in local areas birding and really had a hard time finding birds. This was in part due Read More…
Bolsa Chica
Kay and I had a free hour this morning on our family SoCal trip and visited the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Orange County. This is always a treat, with close up views of birds we don’t get to see often in WA. Probably my favorite part of the walk was seeing the fish-eaters crowd into Read More…
3-Crabs Brown Booby and Tropical Kingbird
Today Ken Brown and I headed for Clallum county to find the Brown Booby that has been seen there for the last week or so. We also hoped that the usual “Olympic rain shadow” effect would favor us with dry weather while it rained here in Pierce and Kitsap counties. We also hoped to find Read More…
Wrapping Up SE Arizona
Today was getaway day for Bruce and me from SE AZ and we made it a pleasant day of birding prior to our flight. Tucson does it right with their waste-water treatment. The Sweetwater Wetlands is a wonderful nature area associated with the STPs there. The wastewater is treated, filtered through an elaborate series of Read More…
A Rotarian at Kiwanis Park, Mesa,AZ
Today was a beautiful day in AZ. We had our 6 AM breakfast at the hotel, then off to Florida Canyon-lower to look for Black-capped gnatcatcher and Rufous-capped warbler. The BCGN are year round residents and we found them pretty easily once the sun came up and got things moving. Prior we found a pair Read More…
Day 3 AZ: No Lifers but a Great Day Afield
Today was another beautiful day, temps in the low 70’s with gusty 15 mph winds in the AM, less by PM. Our targets today were Montezuma Quail and Rufuous-capped warbler at Hunter Canyon and Plain-capped Starthroat at the Mendoza Alley stakeout in Patagonia. 0-3 on these but had a great day anyway. Hunter Canyon was Read More…
First 33 Hours in Cochise County, AZ
Bruce Labar and I are making a 5 day blitz of SE Arizona. We left SEATAC on a 5:15 AM flight to Tucson Sunday, got to Tucson in time to get a car and dash off birding. We copped a Vermillion Flycatcher from the shuttle-stop at the airport waiting for a ride to to Payless Read More…
Pectoral and Snow Goose
Today Bruce texted me that he had 4 Pectoral Sandpipers at the 56th Street stormwater ponds, and I dashed right down. He had mentioned that the PESA was on the second pond, but when I got there no PESA, but a whitish goose was standing there with a Cackling goose. My first thought was that this Read More…
Grand Park Trail
Today Bruce Labar and I hiked a trail neither of us had visited before, looking for woodpeckers sighted and posted about on Tweeters and e-Bird. After a bit of searching we found the unmarked trailhead just about 10 miles from Hwy 410 on FR 73. The trail almost immediately enters a montane forrest that seems Read More…