You say Camano, I say Camino

My friend Chris has decided that he is into birding. On a Seattle scale this is not all that strange. Nor is it strange given that my roommate once decided he was into mushrooming. So when Chris called me up and asked if I had any plans this afternoon I decided to take the plunge and see what Camano Island had to offer.

I imagine that the first rule of birding is something like "Do no harm." We pretty much broke that within 30 seconds of arriving on Camano Island. Chris, Sarah, and I went to the first site suggested by the InterWebs. We saw three pheasants wandering around. They ran away from us. Into a big field that was full of hunters with dogs and shotguns. Not wanting to hang out near hunters we went on to another location, but it's hard to imagine that those three pheasants aren't cooked/stuffed right now. Sad. They were pretty.

Our second stop was on the north side of the island at the English Boom Preserve. With a name like "preserve" you would suspect there would be birds. You would be incorrect. We saw nothing. Not even a gull hanging out over the water. Not even a duck. The only three heartbeats belonged to Chris, Sarah, and I. It was pretty, though.


The feeling of deja vu was strong, only I was coming up zeros with birds rather than mushrooms. Hmm. We left for Site #3.

"Stop! Wild turkeys!"


Sure enough, we saw about 10 wild turkeys hanging out in a yard. We assume they were being fed by the homeowners, and we assume they aren't going to be alive in a couple weeks. Still, turkeys are underrated in terms of birds. They're quite pretty.

Site #3 (Iverson Spit Preserve Trail) was slightly more promising in that we could see actual birds. We didn't see a lot of birds, nor did we see birds that weren't part of the family "birdus genericus", but we saw live birds that weren't about to be killed. I would share pictures at this point, but one thing I did learn in my 4 hour birding adventure is that pocket cameras are worthless. Well, not worthless; they take great pictures of your friend taking pictures with his 100-400mm lens.



With the sun setting quickly we rushed to our last stop of the day: a state park on the southwest side of the island. The scenery was gorgeous (unfortunately clam season is closed, otherwise there could have been clamming in addition to birding). I got my best bird shot of the day. Sadly, my little camera could capture nary a feather of the giant bald eagle we saw (Chris got good pics, which you can see here). They really are amazing birds; we didn't see this one fly but even from a couple of hundred feet below its perch you could sense the power and size of the bird. I still like Ben Franklin's idea to have the turkey be the national bird, but the bald eagle is a strong second choice. We also may have seen a marble something-or-other.


Or, it may have been a log. 12x digital zoom = worthless.

The fruitless mushroom hunting trip was softened by the fact that I could buy morels in a grocery story. A no-bird birding trip would have been a blow to the ego. Luckily the eagle saved us, and the scenery was tough to beat.