Hey, it actually felt like spring part of last week. After a hellish April it’s overdue.

Birders watch the migrating shorebirds at the Grays Harbor NWR.

With spring came the annual Grays Harbor Shorebird Festival last weekend in Hoquiam — a small Washington coastal town just north of Aberdeen and south of Ocean Shores.   Notably the late Kurt Cobain was born and  raised in Aberdeen and  50s pop singer Pat Boone tried unsuccessfully to turn Ocean Shores into a gambling mecca in the 60s.  Not quite sure about Hoquiam?

Hats off to all the shorebird folks who put on a pretty good event on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of shorebird that migrate through their community each spring at the popular Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge out by the airport. Event headquarters was at nearby Hoquiam High School.

CLICK FOR SLIDESHOW!

Hundreds of birders and some just plain folk flocked (get it) to the two-day event that each year is planned not only around the migrating shorebirds’ arrival but also around high tide.  The best viewing at the refuge is two hours before and two hours after high tide.  Both weekend days were sunny and the high tides were mid-day, perfect for the festival goers.

I was registered in the weekend craft fair part of the festival to try to sell my custom bird note cards and some of my wife’s hand-knit hats and hand warmers.  The craft fair part of the festival was held in the upstairs of the high school’s activity center Saturday and Sunday.  Unfortunately the craft folks were kind of hidden a way from public view  with marginal signage. I ran into a friend Saturday at the refuge who didn’t even know about the craft fair.  Despite the poor signage, on Saturday the customer traffic was pretty good.  Sunday however the vendors ended up either talking to themselves or other vendors.  Not unexpected, since it was sunny and 65 degrees outside, a rarity at the ocean anytime of year.  Festival goers took advantage of the wonderful weather while us craft people twiddled our thumbs indoors.

A mom teaches her son the finer points of bird watching during the shorebird festival.

Since the weather was so good I decided to arrive early on Friday, the day before the event to photograph the shorebirds. From past experience I knew that the boardwalk at the refuge is too far away  to photograph the birds except when they fly.  So I drove about 20 minutes up the coast to the broad, sandy ocean beach at Ocean Shores.  I got there a couple of hours before high tide.

I knew where the shorebirds liked to forage  so I parked, grabbed my cameras, bundled up and hiked a couple of miles down beach.  The gang was there – Marbled Godwits, Long-billed Dowitchers, Western Sandpipers, Sanderling, Dunlin, a lone Willet and Semi-palmated Plovers — the usual players this early in the migration.  Other shorebird species show up later next week and on into mid-May.

Facing mostly south and west  while I photographed the birds I didn’t pay much attention to the shorebird traffic due north.  When I turned to walk back north at about high tide I noticed thousands more shorebirds had landed and were busy feeding along the tide line as far as the eye could see.  As a photographer colleague told me once, I could have been blindfolded and got a pretty good picture of the scene.

CLICK FOR SLIDESHOW!

The lead picture on my website is looking north.  The woman in the photograph obliged without knowing it.  I was maybe a  hundred yards away. The four hour beach experience was time well spent and worth the early arrival.  Friday night I produced a slide presentation of the day that turned out to be a big hit at the craft fair.  Next year I’ll take a big  monitor and make the shorebird slideshow my centerpiece.

Never too late to plan ahead.

Ever since I photographed a duck hunting story for the News Tribune in Tacoma Washington back in the mid 80s I’ve marveled at how dabbling ducks launch.  Unlike diving ducks that literally run across the water to launch, dabblers like the Nothern Pintail springboard out of the water by pushing off with  their webbed feet gaining enough altitude in a split second to avoid predators. 

The event happens so quickly and unexpectedly it’s difficult to photograph with a still camera unless you can recognize the pintail’s subtle signs (turning around, dodging back and forth, etc.) that indicate a liftoff.   For the first time in almost three years I was able to be in the right place at the right time last week with the right camera, right lens, right shutter speed and right exposure to photograph a male Northern Pintail, in full breeding plumage, lift off from an estuary in the Theler Wetlands near Hood Canal in western Washington State. 

It’s a common duck in these parts, but the uncommon part is watching the power and grace in its movement caught at 9 frames per second with my Nikon D3.  One of the photographs made the lead picture on my website  For more pintail photos   Here’s the rest of the action:

I admit it — I’m 65 and retired and a day at the beach isn’t quite what it used to be. I’ve learned to accept that.  But when my friend David Gluckman, a retired environmental attorney from Florida who now lives in Port Townsend, emailed me about the potential sunny weather Wedenesday (on February 9?) I couldn’t resist.
Plus, a Red Knot was spotted recently carousing with a flock of Black Turnstones it was time to head to the beaches at Oak Bay and Fort Flagler, both near Port Townsend.   No sunscreen – just cameras thank you.  We both arrived mid-morning at Oak Bay County Park under glorious skies with the temperature climbing. Dressed warmly David hooked up his mammoth Nikon 600mm F4 to its tri-pod and slung his smaller Nikon 200-400mm F4 over his shoulder and around on his back. 

A Bufflehead male on the prowl in Oak Bay

I arrived first so I was already scoping out the bay for waterfowl with my Nikon 200-400mm F4 with a 1.4 extender, all mounted on a carbon fiber mono pod.  The wigeons and pintails were starting to feed. 
We both looked like real photographers but accented with binoculars.  I never told him this but David’s 600mm looks heavier than he is. Too bad no one else was at the beach to witness us.
 

The turnstones weren’t there. Neither was the Red Knot.  But a small group of Buffleheads was and what we experienced I think a birder once referred to what happens this time of winter in the Pacific Northwest as “Bufflehead Bedlam.”  

The Bufflehead males chased each other from one end of  Oak Bay to the other and back again during our half-hour stay at the beach, bobbing and weaving and attacking each other with gusto.  The lone female just stayed out of their way as the males duked it out for privileges.  

A Mew gull lands gently among grazing Brant geese at Oak Bay.

As it turned out the Turnstones, without their Red Knot pal, were at nearby Fort Flagler State Park on Marrowstone Island directly across from Port Townsend. A large flock landed along the rocky shore to feed along with Dunlin, Black-bellied Plovers, Sanderling, Western Sandpipers, and Surfbirds.  

It was real apparent the shorebirds-unlike the Buffleheads-had only one thing on their minds — eating.  

A day at the beach in this part of the world wouldn’t be complete of course without Bald Eagle entertainment. David and I weren’t disappointed.  We spotted a pair shoulder-to-shoulder perched on a navigation sign with the crystal clear Olympic Mountains in the background.  Later they flew and one plucked what looked like an unsuspecting shorebird off the beach for lunch.  

So in just over two hours — in good light that’s rare this time of year –  David and I saw and were able to photograph a real cross section of waterfowl and shorebirds that frequent this region during the winter months.   Neither of us kept a list but it would have been substantial.  

Brant geese show their displeasure at an encroaching gull.

I doubled back to Oak Bay and caught up with a flock of Brant Geese I’ve been waiting to photograph in decent light.  David drove back to Port Townsend for a nap.  The older you get the more fun -and tiring- it is at the beach.