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By Russ Koppendrayer
This has been the spring to find flycatchers migrating through Cowlitz County that will do their nesting on the east side of the Cascade Mountains. We started with our unprecedented numbers of Western Kingbird sightings. While this species appears annually in Cowlitz County during spring migration, this year there were numerous records including one of ten individuals in one small area of the Woodland Bottoms. The previous record size for one group was six last year, and there were many fewer occurrences that year.
Next a Dusky Flycatcher made an appearance in the Woodland Bottoms producing the third county record for this species. Dusky Flycatcher always makes spring migration appearances in a few western Washington locations, but our bird seemed to be one of an abnormally high number of sightings.
Lastly a Gray Flycatcher was found along Barlow Point Road giving Cowlitz its first ever record for this species. Much more rarely seen in western Washington, our bird was also part of a bigger than usual count. Thurston and Pierce counties to our north also saw their first ever records of Gray Flycatcher. This species has been making a big population increase as a breeding species in eastern Washington in the last couple decades which may account for a few more using this side of the Cascades for a migration route, or the bonus sightings may have been an outlier. Time will tell.
Enjoy the breeding season and be safe and healthy.
Download the pdf here.
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By Russ Koppendrayer
I'm amazed at the size of our list at the end of April. As migration gets really going in earnest it is usually a month of lots of new species, but with the shelter in place rules I thought we'd struggle a bit this year to see them all. Our composite list does not seem to reflect that however.
With the reporting of birds found on personal property and folks getting out a bit to get some exercise we seem to have found a very nice selection of birds. However, even our most avid birders seem to have seen a smaller percentage of the species on this list than in a typical year.
While we had a few species found in April that are less than annual in Cowlitz, even those were not particularly rare, but seen in most years. Hopefully we can all continue to enjoy the ongoing migration and stay safe and healthy at the same time.
Download the pdf here.
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By Russ Koppendrayer
We only added 9 species to our year list in March. Two things would seem to account for this; first that we found many of the early arriving migrants on the last week of February leaving few for March, and second the coronavirus pandemic which has naturally caused much less birder action in the field.
Our mega vagrant from February, the Siberian Accentor, was last seen on March 26th giving it at least a fifty day stay. Whether it has left or just not seen because no one is making thorough efforts is unknown. A phenomenal visit in either case.
Two species that are less than annual put in brief appearances in Cowlitz County this month. A Say's Phoebe was seen in the Woodland Bottoms and a Mountain Bluebird passed through Willow Grove. I know that migration will begin to pick up steam as spring advances, but above all stay safe and healthy.
If you do find new species at home of safe forays out please document to eBird, Tweeters or send me a personal note.
Download the pdf here.
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By Russ Koppendrayer
WOW! On February 6th 2020 the first ever MEGA-rarity for Cowlitz County was discovered around a small weedy field in the Woodland Bottoms. This Siberian Accentor breeds in the region it's named for and typically winters in Korea and eastern China. It possibly got to Alaska last fall either by poor navigation or blown by winds, and continued its migration south on the wrong continent until it liked the looks of the little patch in our county, where this tiny five and a half inch bird was seen as recently as 2/29/2020. While this is the third record for Washington State, I believe it to be only the fifth for the lower 48, with Idaho and Montana having one each. There is one record in British Columbia that I'm aware of and 20 or so in Alaska. The vast majority of the Alaskan records are from islands in the Bering Sea during fall migration however.
Within a couple hours of its discovery the Siberian Accentor had been publicized on Birder list serves in both Washington and Oregon as well as a national Rare Bird Alert Facebook page, all with directions to its west end of Stenerson road location as well as the attached photo on the Facebook page. So thus the Accentor Chase Mania began. By Thursday afternoon of the day it was found there were about 25 avid birders there hoping for a glimpse of this rarity. The crowds would swell to many times that Friday through Sunday before slowly thinning out as time passed. Throughout its stay it has been a test of patience for many as the Siberian Accentor can disappear into vegetation for hours at a time before popping up for a few minutes. It does seem to be punctual about 10-15 minutes before official sunrise to stop in the top of a small apple tree by the last driveway on the north side of the road. It is there for anywhere from two to seven minutes.
Hoping to add this Asian rarity to their life list or big year list or just curious because it's so rare has brought people from around the country to this little dead end road near Woodland. I wish there had been a way to do some kind of head count along with home bases for all these visitors. Left to my own devices I've counted all the posts to eBird (a Cornell University site to share your findings) and found over 450 individual posts and growing. Being aware that some have seen the bird and posted more than once I believe there have been about 425 individuals that have posted. Since it is my estimation that less than half the visitors post to this web site, I believe that we are approaching 1000 birders that have seen this bird, if we haven't already surpassed that figure. This includes visitors from at least 22 states I've been able to document including Hawaii and numerous Atlantic seaboard state.
Also in February a Black-legged Kittiwake was seen from Gearhart Gardens dining on the smelt run. This was the second ever record for Cowlitz County.
Download the pdf here.
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By Russ Koppendrayer
We wrapped up an exciting year of birding by adding three species to our year list in the last two months. White-winged Scoter, Wild Turkey, and Mountain Chickadee are all code 4 species, meaning there are at least five previous records in Cowlitz County, but they appear less than annually. This brought our year total to 206, bested only by our 2015 record of 207.
Cassin's Auklet and Lark Sparrow were species seen in the county for the first time and documented on eBird. This brings the number of species documented in Cowlitz to 280. In addition eight code 5 (1-4 previous records) species were recorded, with the most exciting being the Eastern Kingbird pair that were also documented fledging two chicks.
Our big miss was Western Sandpiper which went unrecorded in spite of being an annual visitor.
Download the pdf here.