One thing that has been more important than just about anything else this year is my phone. It’s more than a phone–it’s my trip lists, emails, contact list, text messages, reference guide, backup camera, etc. I use it so much, I generally have to charge it at least twice a day. I carry backup batteries which are often seen dangling from the phone when I’m out chasing birds. Last week, it wouldn’t charge. I squeezed in a quick trip to buy a new battery, so I was set. I thought. The new battery wouldn’t charge either. It wasn’t the battery, it was the phone! Thankfully, I had an external battery charger, so I was able to charge it, but that meant my phone was out of commission while charging. My stress level definitely increased! I was about to buy a second battery when I remembered that I had been paying for phone insurance. Maybe I could get a new phone!
I took my phone to the Best Buy Geek Squad, and they said that they’d need to do a factory reset and test the phone themselves before replacing it. That meant I’d have to back everything up from my phone before leaving it with them. And I was only three hours away from getting on a ferry.
As I mentioned in my last post, last week included a trip off the island. This wasn’t all bad news, though, as it meant I’d get out on the Juan de Fuca Strait and have a chance at some seabirds. I downloaded the software and attempted a backup, but as often is the case when you are rushed, it didn’t work. Too bad, as that would have been the perfect time to drop the phone off. I have a US phone for when I’m in the states, so could live without my Canadian one for a day. Moving on to Plan B, I grabbed everything I could think of and carry and headed for the Coho. Thankfully, friends in James Bay let me park at their place, but I got a pretty good workout carrying birding and computer gear along with a travel case and backpack down to the ferry. I think I looked like a homeless birder!
On the ferry, I set up at the bow of the ship. Matt Cameron had reported a possible Thick-billed Murre off Beechy Head a few days earlier, so it was my plan to concentrate on the murres. One of the tricks about crossing the strait is that partway across you move from Canadian to American waters. If I got any new birds, I had to hope they’d be on the Canadian side of the line.
There were plenty of murres to inspect and photograph, but none that showed the characteristics of a Thick-billed. If I could find one, it would not only be a year bird, but a lifer! As I was going through my photos, I came across this:
No Thick-billed Murres, but that dark bird flying over them is a Pomarine Jaeger, a bird I needed for my year list! Now I had a dilemma. I had obviously seen the bird–I photographed it. But it hadn’t registered at the time. Should I count or not count? I’d discussed this very thing with other birders earlier in the year, and most, but not all, said they’d count it. Hmmmm….
The other issue, of course, was did I see it in Canadian waters, within my Big Year boundary. That was easily solved, though. As I was noting birds in BirdLog as I crossed the strait, I used the “mark this location” feature to “pin” the sightings. When I got to Port Angeles, I verified that the birds were indeed inside the border.
The other birds of interest during the crossing were Red-necked Phalaropes. I estimated about 180 of these aquatic shorebirds on the crossing. Despite my best efforts, though, I couldn’t turn one into a Red Phalarope. Maybe a little later in the year.
In Port Angeles, I met up with good friends Shawneen Finnegan, Dave Irons, and Liz and Jeff Gordon for the American Birding Association Rally on the Olympic Peninsula. There were about 40 participants from all over the US here to see the wonders of the Pacific Northwest. That first night, I managed to back up my phone onto my laptop. Whew!
Starting with gray skies and rain. The early morning trip to Hurricane Ridge was postponed and instead we hit some birding hotspots along the way to Port Townsend. A boat trip out to Protection Island was a highlight. The skies cleared, the water was calm, and plenty of birds were seen. (I’m not naming them in order to avoid confusion with birds countable for my year.) Back in Victoria, there were no reports of birds making me regret my decision to leave the island.
That evening, I was the guest speaker for the rally, and gave a presentation on owls, always a popular topic. In the morning, I headed home while the rest of the group headed to Hurricane Ridge and then to Ocean Shores.
My Pomarine Jaeger dilemma ended on the way back to Victoria when once back in Canadian waters, another cruised by the ferry-the first jaeger I have ever seen and recognized without someone else’s assistance. Most of the time, I think I just see a dark gull and look the other way. That obviously has to change!
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After Tim’s, my next stop was Best Buy. They needed an hour or so to test the phone, and I needed to get some groceries, so it worked out just fine. Ninety minutes later, I was out the door with a newer version of my broken phone. When I got home, I restored the data and all seemed good.
Friday night was the Metchosin Talk and Walk (my third presentation that week–so much for keeping commitments down). I was talking about vultures and owls. It was a packed house! That’s the first time I’ve had a standing room only audience. After the talk, about a dozen people headed to our Pedder Bay site to see if we caught any owls. The weather wasn’t the best, but withing about an hour, those who waited it out got to see their first Northern Saw-whet Owl!
At the end of a long day, I went home to get ready for the trip to Tofino. Although the Saturday boat trip was cancelled, there was one on Sunday on a much bigger vessel that was still likely to go. And if you’ve ever bought a new phone, you know that there’s a lot of work to be done to really restore it. Apps have to be reloaded, passwords re-entered, blah, blah, blah.
With all of this administrivia going on, you may wonder if I got out birding last week. I did! There were trips to Martindale Flats, Saanichton Spit and Tower Point, among others. Here are some photos from my week.
