27, 28 April

27 April 

eBird data:https://ebird.org/checklist/S86509850

Weather:  7 am 5C wind S5, 12m 12C wind E 11

Tide:  9:30 am 2.8m falling

28 April

eBird data: https://ebird.org/checklist/S86586574

Weather:  7 am 9C wind S7,  12m 11C wind SE 3, light rain

Tide:  9:30 am 3.2m, falling

Two rather quiet days, today more lively.   Our warm spell has definitely ended for now.  Yesterday was cloudy, today light rain.  Very low (spring?) tides.  It's apparent that there was a very high tide in the night;  there is water in the tidal channels, but both days, the tide was well out during my walks.

I guess this accounts for the general absence of ducks, although they may in fact be making their way north to breed by now.  

The foliage is leafing out more and more.  There is now a tunnel through the wild rose and snowberry bushes for part of the path to the shore.  It's kind of an odd sensation, walking through the tunnel.   It's maybe 50 feet of enclosed green space.  I can hear birds sometimes, but can't see much until I emerge.  Sometimes I meet other walkers and then, with the COVID hiking courtesy, one or the other of us has to find a space to turn out and give the other person (and often, dog) space to pass.  This would be less complex were the foliage not rosebushes...  

Looking to the northwest after the--er--tunnel, I could see yesterday that the snow is definitely clearing from the mountains.

Today I explored a new route for my walks.  I used my usual approach but I'd noticed that there were two paths leading into the more heavily forested areas before the shore.  I'd walked one of them in the winter months when the path by the Merganser Pond was flooded, but the other was new to me.  I'd explored a bit of it, but although I knew where it would end up in the main roadway to the shore, I'd never explored it.  I'd reckoned that this time of year, there would be more wildflowers and warblers in the woods.  I was right about the wildflowers, but not so much the warblers.  At least not today.

These are woodland buttercup,

and these are, of course, Pacific bleeding hearts, which I'd always thought were cultivated flowers, but which I learn are native to the Pacific coast.  There are lots of patches of them in the woods.

This is a stand of mostly alder in which I'd expected to find warblers, but not today.  I'll monitor the situation.

All this was in a gentle rain, mostly sheltered by the forest.  The fragrance was a benediction.

I then circled back via the other path and picked up just a wee bit along my usual route.  This adds maybe a kilometre to my walk and, for this time of year, is definitely a must.  Although I didn't see warblers, there were two brown creepers and a red-breasted nuthatch.  All were fairly high up in their trees, which left me hesitant to try to photograph them--the light wasn't all that good and it looked like I'd risk getting rain on my lens.

Emerging from the forest to the open fields, I stopped to chat with a pleasant couple on their first visit to the Estuary.  They were enchanted.  As we talked, two bald eagles emerged from the tree tops and soared past us, but soared so low and so close that we could hear the dramatic "WHOOSH!" as they passed.  I'd never heard that from an eagle--wing beats from ravens, a "WHOOSH" from a condor in Pinnacles National Park, but not from an eagle.  It was impressive.

 The rain let up a bit as I approached the shore.  As should be evident to any reader of this blog, I really love sitting and just looking at the Straits, even when there aren't many birds to watch.  So, I zipped up my rain jacket, put my garbage bag down on the bench (I'm not really happy with a damp derriere.) and sat.  A flock of about twenty savannah sparrows flew in. 

They were the first savannahs I'd seen this year, and I've never seen a flock of twenty before.  They landed just above the high tide line, hopped about feeding on what I take to have been flies of some sort, and departed, for parts unknown.  In birding jargon, I think this is called a "drop-out", or in other jargon, maybe a "spot landing."  I was happy to see them.

I made my way home along the river, and just got home before it really started to pitch down rain.  It's been a rainy afternoon, quite restful.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, is a brooming day.  Today, although not wildly birdy as was the previous week, was a lovely walk.