Bike Touring Shaw Island

December 3, 2016 4 By Audrey

After the nice camping and amazing baked goods, but basically birding-bust on Orcas Island, I was determined to find every bird on Shaw Island. With a land area less than 8 square miles I had high hopes.

Domestic crossing

Shaw Island is the smallest island served by the ferries. It has no restaurants, one general store, and a year-round population of 240 people. And Shaw County Park, the only public campground, is just under 2 miles from the ferry dock.

Bike touring is so easy.

Shaw Co Park

Camp

After setting up camp, Tomas hammocked while I biked and birded along the few roads on the island.

It went okay. I found gulls.

Mew Gull

Mew Gull

Glaucous-winged Gull

Glaucous-winged Gull

A few other birds.

Hooded Merganser

Hooded Merganser

Belted Kingfisher

Belted Kingfisher

And I met a new crow, the Northwestern Crow.

Northwestern Crow

Northwestern Crows average ever so smaller than American Crows and they have a lower, hoarser, and more rapid call. They are best distinguished by range (beaches, shorelines, coniferous forests from Kodiak Island, Alaska to Puget Sound, Washington). But the catch? They “may be only a subspecies of the American Crow.” In hindsight I wish I’d recorded their calls.

Other birds I found included Great Blue Heron, Turkey Vulture, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Black-capped and Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Spotted Towhee, American Goldfinch, Red Crossbill.

All pretty familiar birds. Where were the Parasitic Jaegers? I had hoped we’d spend more time on the water, kayaking and finding rarities, but the timing and weather didn’t cooperate this time.

The Domestic Swan Geese on the other hand, were very cooperative.

Domestic Goose Crossing

Domestic Goose

The best surprise on this island came during the middle of the night.

I didn’t see the owl, but while in the tent trying to sleep, I heard high accelerating toots of a Western Screech Owl! It was even harder to get to sleep after that.

The next morning we packed up to head back to Anacortes. More rain was in the forecast, so we decided to end the trip on a sunny note.

Now boarding

I’m glad we did because the last ferry ride back to Anacortes was fantastic.

Puget Sound

It even included an Orca pod escort back to the mainland.

Orcas

I’m grateful for our time on the islands. In total it was 8 days, 4 islands, 5 ferries, and 125 bike miles. Lopez was my favorite for birds and biking. San Juan was the best for whales. Orcas had great hiker-biker sites and Shaw had the owl.

And I couldn’t ask for a better riding partner.

Tomas and me

Tweets and chirps,

Audrey