But when I got home, I figured I should check on where the line really is, and it turns out the Harris’s was in King County the entire time.  Allow me to explain the situation: The Harris’s is coming to a feeder on a dike.  There’s a pond to the north of the dike.  The dike runs east-west.  I was first told the county line was on top of the dike.  Actually, it’s at the north base of the dike where it meets the pond.  So to record it on my Snohomish list, I needed to see it fly across the pond, something I did not see, which meant one thing: a second visit was in order.  The bird hadn’t been terribly skittish, so a return visit could also get me some decent photos, too.  (I didn’t bring a camera the first time, of course.)

Harris's Sparrow, here in Bothell, WA (that's in King Co.); Dec 31, 2010

I went back on Dec. 31 to take another crack at it.  Here’s a rundown of the afternoon that I sent to the local listserv:

“The sparrow first* showed up at about 1:45 (*the first time relative to my arrival; it had been seen by others earlier).  I first noticed it in a sapling on the north side of the dike, and it flew down to feed on the seed scattered on the path.  It then flew off to the east, disappearing into the cedar east of the suet feeder.  Over the next several hours, it would reappear, often from the area near that cedar, and then after feeding it usually returned to that area.  It was always just south of the county line, never going more than 15-20 feet from the line but never crossing north of it.

“At one point between 3:00 and 3:30, it flew up into a sapling, facing north and looking like it was certainly going to head that direction, which would take it across the pond and the county line.  After about 30 seconds, it did fly, but made a hard right, landing in a tree that’s growing out of the water.  The bottom of the tree is probably in Snohomish, but it leans to the south, and the part the Harris’s was in appears to be over land and most likely in King County.  From there, it flew back to the aforementioned cedar.  Painful.

Harris's Sparrow still in King County

“After 3:30, the sun was no longer shining on the dike, and it really started to get cold.  The Harris’s disappeared soon after.  My feet were becoming numb, but I stuck it out even though I was fearing low-grade frostbite.   Finally, at 4:09, the Harris’s flew in.  I didn’t see where it came from.  I only saw it a split second before it landed on a branch.  Presumably it came in from the Snohomish side, but still not good enough to count on my Snohomish list.  It went back to feeding on the dike, occasionally flying back into the cedar or some other tree.  Once it flew into a deciduous tree just west of the suet feeder.  It was only about 3 feet above the top of the dike and a jogger was approaching fast.  I thought for sure this was going to be it, but it just sat there as the jogger ran by.  Then around 4:30, the sparrow disappeared again.

“By now, I was really starting to worry about my feet, but I figured another 10 minutes wasn’t going to do much more damage and the birds should all be finding a roost for the night by then.  The shrubs on the Snohomish side looked like ideal habitat for that.  At 4:37, the Harris’s materialized on a shrub just below me.  It sat there for about 30 seconds and then gloriously flew straight north, disappearing into the brambles on the northwest side of the pond — in Snohomish County.  Mission accomplished.  My feet returned to normal about 20 minutes later.”

One final note: I returned the next day, and yes, you guessed it, it took less than an hour to see it fly over the county line.

So it was a good start to the competition, especially because after seeing the Black-tailed Gull, Jared and Bruce Mactavish found a Slaty-backed Gull standing right next to a Yellow-legged Gull.  They didn’t get photos, but here’s a shot from Jared of a Yellow-legged Gull seen about 10 days ago:

Did I mention our winter trip, targeting gulls such as Yellow-legged and other goodies is coming up soon?

Again, no Tufted Duck on Friday morning, but the weather was relatively nice, so me and The Kid spent some time checking out the snowmen we made the previous afternoon, and then we did some running.  It was then that I heard what sounded like a Bohemian Waxwing.  My scope was in the car, so I scanned the distant flock of waxwings with binos.  There didn’t appear to be any obviously larger waxwings in the flock, so I just chalked it up to faulty hearing.  But then 20 minutes later, I decided to look at the flock again.  I noticed a white line on the primaries of at least one of the birds.  I decided it was the end of running time.

The Kid and I got closer for a better look, and I realized why I didn’t detect a larger bird in the flock the first time: they were _all_ Bohemians.  A few years ago there was a single Bohemian in the exact same location hanging out with Cedar Waxwings, and that’s what I was expecting this time, not a whole flock of them.

I went back Saturday morning for better looks and perhaps photos.  The light was bad most of the day, but the sun did come out for about half-an-hour in the morning.  The really nice thing about it was the birds were there and feeding in some low trees at the same time.  Rarely does the weather and the birds cooperate at the same time for me.

Here are two photos.  Click on either to see more.

Spearfish Canyon, SD; 2 August 2010

And yes, I did chase this bird (see photo above).  It was a two-fer: my lifer Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush, and a lifer — and my 50th — US state.  No, it wasn’t South Dakota.  It was Montana.  The cheapest flight I could find (just 25,000 miles on Horizon Air for a last-minute flight) flew into Billings.  It just made the trip that much sweeter.  Good times.

Adult Thayer's Gull (immature Glaucous Gull in back)

Immature Thayer's Gull

After lunch, we returned to where the gulls were gathering for whale scraps.  While scanning through the flock for something different, hoping for an Ivory Gull, we noticed that other birders (Steve Heinl, Jerry Koerner, and Andy Piston) were waving at us from further down the road.  Steve had found a gull that at first didn’t impress me.  Sitting on the water, it didn’t look like anything too out of the ordinary for Barrow.  But then it flew, and it was clearly a big gull.  I asked Steve what they were thinking it was.  He was reluctant to answer, so I said, “You’re thinking it’s a Great Black-backed, aren’t you?”  I should mention that Steve was reluctant because there has been only one record of Great Black-backed Gull, a species normally found in the North Atlantic and Great Lakes, in Alaska.

The big guy -- Click on the photo to see a gallery of more photos

It isn’t a “classic” Great Black-backed Gull, for example, the greater secondary coverts on the upperwing are darker than those of a typical Great Black-backed.  It’s also on the small side for a Great Black-backed — it was the same size as the large Glaucous Gulls — but not outside the normal range.  Its size and somewhat rounded head and smaller bill indicates that it’s likely a female.  There’s been some behind-the-scenes discussion with gull experts, and the consensus is that it is a Great Black-backed Gull.

Great Black-backed Gull with Thayer's Gull

After thoroughly photographing this gull, we all continued on our separate ways, with our group heading northeast along the coast.  Steve’s group went in the opposite direction and looked through the gulls feeding on the whales.  As we turned around, we saw them coming back towards us.  Andy was driving and let us know that they had just found an Ivory Gull.  We got back there ASAP.

There was a snow squall moving through, so it was a little dark, and as you can see, the gull almost disappears in these conditions.  Here are a few more shots:

Ivory Gull and Glaucous Gull

Ivory Gull on right side of Glaucous Gull flock

All those cars in the background are line up because another bowhead whale was being hauled onto shore.  The Ivory Gull was a little jumpy and moving around a lot, probably due to all of the activity associated with the whale.

On the 9th, the final full day of the tour, the Great Black-backed was still around but the Ivory Gull had moved on.  Ross’s Gulls were still moving through, surprisingly moving east-to-west like the previous day (at this date, I would expect them to still be migrating in the opposite direction), but not in big numbers and many were far offshore.  We also watched another fox-and-owl dance, probably featuring the same individuals as the previous day and with the same outcome.  Overall, it felt like a quiet day until later in the afternoon.  There were many King and Common Eiders around every day, but we had not yet seen a Spectacled Eider, so that became our focus.  After looking at many eiders, we finally spotted a Spectacled among a flock of Kings at the end of the road along the coast.  It was difficult at first, as it was far away and would only pop up momentarily from behind the waves, and then a heavy snow squall moved in, making it impossible to see the flock.  Finally it cleared and everyone got on it, and after a wait, the flock drifted back towards us, and we all got to see it fairly close in sunlight.

We had only an hour to bird on the final morning of the tour.  Nothing new was added to the trip list, but we got to see the Great Black-backed one more time before returning to the airport.  We finished with 19 species, one fewer than last year, but this tour is all about quality, not quantity.  Ross’s Gulls, an adult Ivory Gull, Spectacled Eider: can’t complain about that.

Other birders had a couple of days with big numbers of Ross’s Gulls (the main target of this tour) nearly a week ago, but numbers had dropped off dramatically.  Things picked up a little today, and we had 100+.  It’s difficult to say just how many we saw today because some of them were circling around and feeding.

Early in the morning, Ross’ses were noted flying west to east, the expected direction.  At first they were only specks in the distance, but then some came closer, close enough for everyone to tick their lifer Ross’s.  After a short bit, we noticed that there were a number of birds circling and feeding up the coast (northeast) of our position, so we drove towards them.  Soon we had some gulls flying right past us along the shoreline.  A few flew right over our heads, perhaps only 20 or 30 feet high, such as this bird (this is an uncropped photo):

We braved the cold to enjoy the show for the next 30-60 minutes.  Every few minutes, another small group of gulls would fly down the shore and pass by very close.  One gull dropped down to pick up some food item no more than 40 feet away.  This isn’t that bird, but it’s another one that wasn’t much further away doing the same thing:

I forgot to mention that after the first push of birds in the morning, all the others were moving east to west.  You would think it’s too early for that, but maybe it’s just a local, temporary thing.  There were fewer gulls moving after 10:30 or so, but we did see some more in the afternoon (again, moving east to west).  Here’s a few more shots from this morning:

One thing that made today so good was that the birds were close despite the lack of high winds stirring up the surf (the Ross’s like to feed close to shore in those conditions).  The calm conditions also meant the gulls weren’t zooming by or moving erratically, good for photography.  On the other hand, the low light and mostly cloudy skies weren’t great for photography, but it’s expected.

Of course, there were some other birds to be seen, such as Red Phalaropes:

…and Long-tailed Ducks:

Other species seen today were King and Common Eider, White-winged Scoter, a loon sp., Glaucous Gull, Black-legged Kittiwake, Short-tailed Shearwater (some close to shore and a flock of about 50 in Elson Lagoon), Common Raven, and from an Alaskan rarity perspective the best bird of the day, a possible Palm Warbler.  We also saw a few Arctic foxes today.

I’m not sure if I’m more surprised that a Nightingale-Thrush is in South Dakota or that someone is actually birding in South Dakota.

I kid because I love.

I arrived at Barrow, Alaska on the evening of October 5. Denny Hodsdon picked me up at the airport and said he had seen about 25 Ross’s Gulls earlier that day, a relief to hear. While I was mostly confident our timing was good—the Ross’s Gull migration here usually begins in the latter half of September—I had a nagging worry that maybe they’d be late this year.

The next morning, we started birding at the old runway beyond the old U. S. Naval Arctic Research Laboratory (the main building is now Ilisagvik College). Several whales had been harvested and then butchered at this site. The carcasses were stored in dumpsters here before transport to Point Barrow. We figured this was the most likely location for an Ivory Gull to appear. As we started birding, we began to notice several flocks of Ross’s Gulls flying fairly high, coming in from the Chukchi Sea and then flying east-northeastward across some of the inland lakes, presumably taking a shortcut to the Beaufort Sea. Most flocks had from 20 to 40 individuals, but one had about 100. By the end of the day, we had seen about 250.

This following day, we saw similar flocks overhead, though some Ross’s Gulls were seen flying over the sea and following the coastline as well, some fairly far offshore. One such flock, flying fairly quickly and low over the water, contained an adult Ivory Gull. A few Ross’s also stopped briefly on the frozen lake next to the runway. Though the passage had not yet approached the mega-flights recorded in some years, we saw about 300 Ross’s on October 7.

During my discussions with some of the local biologists, I learned that high winds bring the gulls close to shore, as these winds create breakers at the coast, and the gulls feed in the turbulent water. (The direction of the wind is apparently not critical, as wind from several directions can create breakers.)  Up to this point, the weather had been mild.

As luck would have it, we awoke to howling easterly winds and relatively large breakers on the morning of October 8. A few other birders had joined us this day, and as we were getting gas, a few flocks of Ross’s Gulls could be seen flying along the shoreline in the predawn light. We raced down the road to get ahead of a flock so the new arrivals could get their lifer looks at the gulls, then proceeded back to our usual spot at the old runway. Some other birders and biologists also soon arrived.

Ross’s Gulls began to pour by, flying right along the shoreline and feeding in the surf. Many were rocketing by in the high winds, making photography difficult. Some passed by no more than five feet above our heads. Over the next hour or so, my companions made three one-minute counts that indicated the gulls were passing at a rate over 7000 per hour. Of course, a more rigorous protocol should have been followed to obtain a more reliable estimate, but there were obviously thousands of Ross’s Gulls. For several hours, they flew by us at seemingly the same rate.

Later in the morning, there seemed to be fewer gulls, but they may have just been more spread out. We made a trip to the point in the afternoon, and Ross’s Gulls were still flying by the point in a continuous stream, though the point appeared to be a bottleneck. A group of about 500 were continuously in view, with apparently equal numbers flying into the west end and out of the east end of the flock. Given our counting methodology, we were not able to arrive at a reliable estimate of the number of gulls we saw that day, but it may well have been over 10,000, with a higher proportion of first-cycle Ross’s than we had seen in the previous two days.

The next day, winds had calmed again, and the gulls had resumed the behavior we witnessed during the earlier days of our visit, flying by at higher elevations in discrete flocks. Numbers may have been higher though, with about 200 seen in 20 minutes, but we departed that morning, so we don’t know if that rate continued throughout the day. It had been a spectacular experience.

There was a small fishing boat on the horizon, so we switched course to see if there were any birds around it.  There wasn’t, but in the course of a radio conversation, that boat’s captain said we weren’t in a good area for Short-taileds.  We knew we were in a good area — we were approaching Seguam Pass, a hotspot for them — so it was a nice ‘I told you so’ when we spotted the next Short-tailed within sight of that boat.

Over the next several hours, we encountered more Short-taileds.  As we passed through the west side of Seguam Pass, the Short-tailed count approached 10.

A little while later, a small pod of Orca along with many albatrosses were ahead of us.  As we approached, an adult Short-tailed Albatross suddenly appeared on our port side (and yes, I was sitting on the starboard side).  It flew ahead of us but then sat on the water.  It then started flying again and we lost it, but then I started chumming.  Soon we had about 20 Laysans and one Black-footed behind the boat.  Then Rich spotted the Short-tailed coming into the ship’s wake.  Some of us had all three species in one binocular field of view.  The Short-tailed never came close enough to grab some chum, but it did follow the boat for about 10 minutes.  It was certainly the bird of the day.