Leaving Seattle

I spent a couple of hours birding at Nisqually Wetlands. It just pissed it down with rain, so it was a fitting way to end the trip here. Apparently it has been one of the wettest Septembers on record here. I can believe that.

I make my way back to the airport and check in with no problems to Paris only. My only criticism of the airport is the poor duty free choice. They certainly have friendly security and immigration staff here.

The final stage of the trip is a couple of days in Paris; it's his big seven-o on 22nd, so I'm helping him to celebrate.

Last big birding drive

I get up early and take a quick look around Westport in daylight. There's a local country and western station on the radio called Bigfoot FM. All the songs are about trucks, working hard and having happy families. I never knew life was that simple.

I visit a nice wetland reserve next to the Gray's Harbour area. There are quite a few shorebirds on the mid flats. I'm joined by a couple and we discuss dowitcher identification! It turned out that they were on the pelagic yesterday, so I am treated to a lost of all the species I missed. Nice. Four lifers to be precise, but.nothing spectacular though. " so you were the Scottish guy who didn't show ". Yep, that was me alright. They give.me some tips on places to go. Many of these are part of my itinerary for today and no, I don't want to try and see bar-tailed godwit or Eurasian wigeon. They give some tips on how to find varied thrush, including correcting my impression of their call.

I go.to.a.place. called Ocean Shore and scramble along the rocky breakwater where I hope there will be some tattlers. The waves are splashing the rocks making them slippy. I find some black turnstones and settle down to scope the rocks. I get a quick look at what I'm sure must be a tattler bit it disappears. I wait 10 minutes as the splashing waves get closer to me. Eventually it appears again. In fact there are two of them. At last, I feel that my birding luck is changing.

Surf scoters in the surf off Ocean Shore

I drive up to Qualcot lakes where there are supposed to be varied thrushes. Again it looks like good habitat, but I've thought that before. I pay the full amount in the permit envelope this time. It must have worked, because 10 minutes later I'm watching a varied thrush I flushed from the trail. It Skua on a branch watching me watching it. The deep chocolate brown of its plumage is punctuated by pale orange wing bars and throat and a richer orange supercilium. All this against the setting of a misty, lush forest complete with lichen-covered tree branches and moss hanging from twigs. That was a special moment, made all the sweeter for the many miles I walked searching for one of these.

I start driving back toward Seattle, and stop at a site potentially for rufous hummingbird. There are no flowers out, and I conclude its going to be too late, unless I can find a feeder. I find a motel and start organising my bags for the return flight tomorrow.

I'm not sure if Air France are going to ne happy about me getting off in Paris instead of travelling through to Aberdeen as per my tag. It seems ridiculous, but it probably messes up their fare rules. We'll see.

Walking in Olympic Park

I decided to take advantage of the extra time and go for a short hike in Olympic National Park at Hurricane Ridge. Supposedly there are varied thrushes here plus a few other interesting upland birds, so I decide to give it a go.

View towards Mount Olympus

I leave Port Angeles in rain and fog and ascend by car until I emerge from the gloom into clear blue skies and bright sunshine above the cloud layer. The walk is good with great scenery. I realise that all that cycling I've been doing means I can walk up some steep slopes with a pack on my back and little effort. I see more American pipits and a golden eagle sweeps by at eye level just 50m away, then it circles for another look - truly spectacular. Eagles that try that kind of stunt in north-east Scotland generally don't last very long. I also get a good look at an American kestrel.



American kestrel and cute chipmunk chewing on a seed pod

I still can't get out of my head how I messed up the pelagic date and how my usual checking system didn't spot the problem. What did I do wrong? I put it down to me being punished for not putting enough money in the envelope for a hiking permit at the reserve at Dungeness, and not being honest at the Mexican restaurant to point out that they forgot to charge me for my beer. That's utter nonsense of course.

I go to another forest reserve at Crescent Lake beside Barnes River. One of the rangers at Hurricane Ridge suggested this as a site for varied thrush. It looks very promising with lots of mature wet conifer forest. I walk for two hours through fantastic habitat, past a spectacular waterfall, but still no luck. I'm going to crack this motha f***a if it kills me!

Spectacular waterfall near Lake Crescent

I make the long drive to Westport and go to one of the fish restaurants after checking into my motel. It's packed and I look at people and wonder if any of them were on the pelagic. I wonder what they saw today?

Gutted

Have you ever watched the film 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'? Do you remember the moment when Hugh Grant is in the church waiting for his own wedding to "duck-face" and he has just discovered that his true love Carrie, played by Andi MacDowell is separated from her husband, and this is the person he really wants to be with. He goes into a side room in the church and slowly beats his head against the stone wall and says "bugger, bugger, bugger" with such depth and feeling. For me, it's a defining moment in a great film.

There is also a word in the book "The Meaning of Liff" (the book that marries place names with no meaning, with everyday things and phenomena that have no name). I can't remember the place name but remember the phenomenon - when you know something has just gone badly wrong, but you don't know what it is yet. Yesterday, I was thinking that everything is sorted out now between now and when I leave Seattle - what could possibly go wrong now?

Well I just had both of those moments. I woke at 5:30 a.m. in my motel room in Port Angeles, and something made me think about the pelagic birding trip I've organised. Isn't that due to go on 18th? Isn't that today? Checking the booking confirmation, it certainly is today, and I'm in Port Angeles and the boat leaves from Westport, which is at least 4 hours drive away.

I'm feeling completely gutted. That boat trip was going to be the highlight of my trip and I've screwed up. I've had a month since I booked this thing for the penny to drop and I could have done something about it, even last night. I doubt there's much chance of getting a refund given this is completely my own fault, and they won't have had a chance to get a reserve at this late notice.

Oh well, there are plenty of other things I could do instead.

Dungeness spit

I wake early. I need to sort a few things out. I book a motel for the night before the pelagic trip in Westport, sort out some money and work out my route for the next few days. Finally, I check out and go to pick up my hire car.

I've decided to take a ferry across Puget Sound to Bainbridge Island. At $15 for me and the car, I sense we're getting back to sensible prices (the Canadian dollar is quite strong now, so there aren't any bargains to be had over there just now). As you get off the ferry, you realise you've left the hustle of the big city behind and entered the rather well-heeled island community. Of course they're probably all so rich they can afford to commute daily to Seattle.

The impressive Seattle skyline from the ferry

I drive to the Dungeness area. Like its namesake in England, it is a spit made of sand and shingle, with more emphasis on the former. The spit is a long and narrow, and projects into Juan da Fuca Sound close to the southern tip of Vancouver. It's a calm day with the sun trying to force its way through the occasional fog and cloud.

Dungeness Spit and Vancouver Island (far)

Olympic National Park in background

Once again, I don't see a huge amount, but its an enjoyable day's birding. The most interesting additions to the trip list was a couple of American pipits at the end of the day. They showed exactly why they are called buff-bellied pipits, with their quite rich buff underparts, contrasting with a much greyer back. They have pure white outer tail feathers, giving away that they are related to water pipit.

I stay in a cheap, but very comfortable motel in Port Angeles, and have a substantial Mexican meal nearby - they forgot to charge me for my beer, so I give them a bigger tip.

On my own again

We wake early and do some birding at Lake Somenos nearby. It's a bit more lively here, though not much more. I manage to pick out a Lincoln sparrow. Hurrah, a full blown lifer, though it didn't exactly knock my socks off! We add a few more birds to the trip list, including a moulting drake wood duck.

We then drive round to Swartz Bay where the ferry leaves for Vancouver. After a great breakfast at a cafe in the nearby marina, I drop off Martin for his return journey and we say our farewells.

I take the car along the coast road down to Victoria, stopping off at a number of locations to take in the view and do some birding. It's a very nice stretch of coast, with fantastic panorama views across to the gulf islands. It's pleasantly mild and the sea is flat calm. I manage to see a few new birds. Perhaps the highlight is two Sandhill cranes flying along the coast. There are a few other new spec ies for the trip, though all are fairly common, and to be expected. A wasp managed to sneak inside my shirt and start to sting me. The first was the most serious, but the others had relatively little venom in them. Other occupants in the car park in the rather refined Oak Bay must have been put off their prosciutto and mozzarello do buffalo foaccaci at the sight of a shirtless Andy swiping at a long-gone wasp!

Not a Lincoln's sparrow, but a song sparrow

A group of harlequin ducks in Oak Bay

I drop off the hire car and wander around town for one last time, picking up a map and other bits and pieces, while the heavens opened on Victoria. The ferry is delayed and full of excited American football fans from Nebraska. They are converging on Seattle for a big college game, and there to support the Huskers. I get to my hotel at midnight - two hours later than planned. US immigration is a breeze from Canada on the ferry. The hotel is rather good - the Mediterranean Inn - a little outside the centre, but all easily accessible.

Wet Wet Wet

Today, Martin and I went walking in the woods.

We started at the lighthouse again and did the circuit, bumping into Mark Newell there. We didn't see an awful lot - nearly all the migrant birds from the previous two days had cleared out, and the bushes around the light were pretty quiet. There was still quite a bit of wildfowl passage offshore - mainly surf scoters (and mostly drakes as well). We did, however, see a greylag goose fly over. Still not sure if this was a genuine vagrant and if we should have initiated a rare bird alert.

After a hearty breakfast at a nearby breakfast joint, and we checked out, we went for a walk in a different bit of coastal woodland. We didn't see much here, and the varied thrush I wanted to see eluded me once again. We did manage a brown treecreeper which was new for the trip. Perhaps the best thing I saw (Martin missed this) was when we first arrived at a viewpoint. I raised my binoculars to a spot offshore, and instead of seeing grey sea and a few waves, I got a face full of humpback whale. It had clearly done a lunge feed and launched half of its body clear of the water. So what I could see was the upper half of the underside of its body (all those ridges), part of its pectoral fins and water surging from the side of its huge mouth. It surfaced again and lofted its tail fluke into the air. Then we didn't see it again until much further offshore. WOW!!!!!

We walked for ages trying to see a varied thrush. But it started to rain, and didn't stop all day, so we got pretty wet and dis-spirited. We drove much of the way back to Victoria, stopping at potential places for varied thrush. All of these with no luck. We found an OK motel in Duncan and had a not very interesting meal at a family diner.

Will I go through my entire journey in Canada without seeing a single lifer?