5MR Booms and Busts

5MR Booms and Busts

October 10, 2019 4 By Audrey

It’s fall! The air is cooler, the leaves are changing colors, and shorebirds are on their way back south. There are only three months left to find 5MR birds this year. Since I’ve last checked in, I’ve had a few hits and misses. Many of the hits were at a place in Portland with terrible visibility, Vanport Wetlands.

Dear City of Portland, please install a viewing platform. Love, birders.

Sometimes you have to take what you can get. Here, I’ve gotten poor looks at Lesser Yellowlegs, a Solitary Sandpiper, and a Sora foraging in the open about 100 yards away.

Sora or Sasquatch?

The best bird of the bad looks club here was a Ruff! First Vanport record, this one was found and kindly shared by Colby Neuman.

So Ruff

I’ve also gotten bad looks of good birds at Broughton, like this Whimbrel found by Jay Withgott. To the right of the Whimbrel is a Sanderling, believe it or not.

Bird pixels

On a whole I have been very lucky in my 5MR and I’m really appreciating that lately, especially when it starts pouring rain as I move closer in to take a photo of a Red-necked Grebe.

And a Common Tern floats down to the beach right in front of me.

When it rains, it pours

And three cheers for cooperative peeps that stick around like this amazing American Golden-Plover found by Aaron Beerman.

Aaron also pointed out a small flock of Horned Lark, I’ve been waiting all year to see these! They were all Streaked Horned Lark, a subspecies of Horned Lark, endemic to the Pacific Northwest and under threatened status.

Banded! – stay tuned to hear back about this one

So many booms! Where are the busts, you ask? Well, there were more than a few birds reported in my 5MR that I didn’t see in time: Baird’s Sandpiper, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Short-billed Dowitcher, Yellow-breasted Chat, Hermit Warbler, Red-necked Phalarope, Common Nighthawk. To name a few. There’s always next year? But, honestly I can’t complain because I’ve found many other great birds, including a Parasitic Jaeger at Broughton Beach.

Boom

No wait, not just one jaeger. THERE. WERE. TWO!

Boom Boom! Who needs a boat?

This was on the same day I saw a Merlin, a Wilson’s Snipe, and I got the best looks of a Common Tern.

For the most part, we birders are at the mercy of luck, timing, and making choices. Hopefully good ones because we can’t be everywhere at once. It feels nice to be in the right place at the right time and be rewarded with jaegers, terns, and plovers (oh, my!). Last I looked I was at 189 species in my 5MR, it’ll be pretty tough to make it to my imaginary goal of 200 by the end of the year, but either way I’m pretty happy with the birds I’ve seen so far.

Still missing: Red-shouldered Hawk, Northern Pygmy-Owl, American Dipper, Sandhill Crane, White-winged Scoter, Eared Grebe, Red-breasted Merganser, some wintering rarities (?)

Booms and busts,

Audrey