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My American Birding Adventure, Part 8

  The last place we visited in America before we left was Halden Farm, where our friend Ellen and her family live. We stayed there for four days, so we had plenty of time to bird, kayak, hike, and explore their huge property.

Juvenile Red-tailed Hawk

The best birding was at Semiahmoo Marina, Halden Farm, Mt. Baker, and Birch Bay. On August 8th, everyone went to Mt. Baker, one of the tallest mountains in Washington. Because of its latitude and altitude, Mt. Baker has snow on its peak year-round. The coolest thing by far was seeing glaciers for the first time, which was truly mind blowing. The glaciers seemed surreal, especially when observed with binoculars. They almost looked like something from a drawing. Besides the breathtaking scenery, we saw some birds, but not much because the altitude is a bit high for birds. There was a raptor that flew really close, which we thought at first was a juvenile Golden Eagle, but further inspection found it to be a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk. Another bird was an American Pipit, jumping around on the rocks. It was a year-lister, which was good enough for us.

Barred Owl perched on a staff

Barred Owl

Later that night, while we were back at Ellen’s house, Dad was having an online meeting with his co-workers and I was inside reading. Aurora suddenly came up to me and told me Dad was looking for me, because the owl was outside. Previously Ellen had told us about a Barred Owl that was present on their property, and was seen quite often around the house. Sure enough, it was perched on a staff planted there as a marker. It stayed there long enough for me to get some pictures before it flew into the woods behind it. I decided to go looking for it, because there was a path that cut through the woods. As I was walking, I heard a strange shrieking sound, at first I thought it was a passerine warning its companions about the potential danger. Turns out it was the owl making the quite obnoxious noise. The owl was obviously disturbed, but it didn’t fly away or anything, just continued to make the irritating sound. Not wanting to bother it, I left it to itself, hoping it would calm down. The next day, Reed, Ellen’s husband, gave me a tail feather of the owl, after looking at my pictures, indeed the Barred Owl was missing some tail feathers.


Barred Owl in the tree


Halden Farm isn’t far from the sea, so we went to a couple of bays and marinas, so we decided to do some coast birding. First, we went to Birch Bay, and we saw an asylum of Common Loons hunting in the water. You could never see them for long, it would be roughly half a minute before they slipped back under the water, with scarcely a splash. Next, we went to Semiahmoo marina. There were many cute seals close to us, balancing themselves lazily on a half submerged pipe. There were also some female Harlequin Ducks, a Greater Scaup chilling in the water, hundreds of cormorants, a mooter of Surf Scoters in the back, gulls squawking in the sky, and the odd cormorant loudly splashing into the water. The next day was mostly spent packing, but me, dad, Reed, Ellen went kayaking in the afternoon. We had a great old time, enjoying the last of our time in America. Thus was the end to our amazing trip, I will be writing a conclusion in the next blog.


Belted Kingfisher

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