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The Daily Bucket: Triple Hotspot Day [1]

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Date: 2023-03-01

The lay of the land:

The letters on the pins correspond to the list (obvi).

Lake Ballinger

Lake Ballinger is where I started in the morning. I had received an eBird alert about a Harris’s Sparrow seen there. I went to the reported spot, stood around, binocular scoping, playing back calls and songs using Merlin, looking like an idiot probably. No luck, so lets move along and learn a little about Lake Ballinger.

Lake Ballinger is a natural lake, like several lakes in the area that were left after glaciers melted away leaving low spots that became lakes. It’s a good sized lake, about 100 acres in surface area and a maximum depth of 35 feet. It’s stocked with Rainbow Trout and also has resident Coastal Cutthroat Trout, Largemouth Bass, Yellow Perch, Black Crappie and Bullhead Catfish. The lake attracts wintering waterfowl.

I birded the north end of Lake Ballinger which was formerly a golf course and is now a Mountlake Terrace city park. The old golf course water traps are now nice little ponds with cattails and shrubbery along their margins. I walked around these ponds and also the lake shoreline where it was accessible (see cover photo).

The former golf course is kind of a mowed grass desert, but Robins and Crows will forage on the ground looking worms and arthropods. There are tall trees here serving as good perching and resting places.

More mowed grass desert but you can see a former water trap now turned pond in the center where the brush is.

One of the old water traps that makes for a nice quiet pond for ducks and coots. I didn’t wading birds here but it’s a perfect place for them. Red-winged blackbirds like the cattails. NGPA stands for Native Growth Protection Area, a Snohomish County Code designation for permanently protected property that contains a critical area, a critical area buffer or both. Critical areas include wetlands, lakes, streams, rivers, and geologically hazardous areas.

I spent almost an hour and a half wandering around the green lawn desert, the ponds, and a peek at the lake through one of the few openings in the lakeshore vegetation. In total, I logged 18 bird species.

Gadwall (male)

Gadwall (female)

Anna’s Hummingbird

Red-winged Blackbird, possibly first year male

Chase Lake

The second stop was Chase Lake. I like this little lake stuck in the middle of a neighborhood. It makes for a quick and easy stop if I’m out and about. I’m usually the only person there. I’ve written two Buckets about Chase Lake.

The Daily Bucket: Chase Lake and the Uncommon-Dandelion

The Daily Bucket: Chase Lake Redux

Chase Lake

Chase Lake

I spent only about a half hour at Chase Lake. There was just a pair of Green-winged Teals out on the water. It was pretty quiet bird-wise in the shrubbery and trees.

Green-winged Teal

Edmonds Waterfront

The Edmonds waterfront is the hottest of hotspots and the fishing pier is the hottest of this hot hotspot. I’m out here often. There’s always something going on whether it’s birdlife, a passing sea lion, fishermen, other birders, boat traffic, or big waves slamming the breakwater.

Olympic Beach and the Edmonds Ferry Dock

Edmonds fishing pier and the Edmonds marina breakwater

A lone first-cycle Glaucous-winged Gull forages among the breakwater rocks. Black Turnstones and Surfbirds are sometimes spotted here.

Pelagic Cormorant

Surf Scoter. They are here in winter, big flocks of them, especially near the ferry dock.

Red-necked Grebe, another winter visitor.

Short-billed Gull (Mew Gull, formerly)

Short-billed Gull (Mew Gull, formerly)

“Olympic” Gull, a hybrid between a Glaucous-winged Gull and a Western Gull. Note the wingtips are slightly darker than the mantle, suggesting that this is a hybrid. The Olympic and Glaucous-winged Gulls are our most commonly seen large gull.

That’s all I have for today. What’s going on in your natural worlds?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/1/2154862/-The-Daily-Bucket-Triple-Hotspot-Day

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