Phil Dickinson has tramped through marsh reeds, walked the easy-going Bob Heirman Wildlife Preserve, and traveled to the Stillwater unit of the Snoqualmie Wildlife Area near Duvall, all while volunteering for the Puget Sound Observatory’s pilot year of the Secretive Wetland Bird Survey.
He and other volunteers spread out to dozens of sites in Snohomish and King counties in May and June in search of sora, Virginia rail, American bittern and green heron.
Many wetland birds are secretive, blend in well and are often overlooked and under-documented during efforts such as the Breeding Bird Survey or Christmas Bird Count.
“Even experienced birders don’t see them that often, although they may hear them in swamps and marshes,” Dickinson said. “Not a lot is known about how they are doing in our area … We can track down some and get an idea about the population and what type of habit they’re using.”
Dickinson recently moved here from North Carolina, where he was an active member of the local Audubon chapter. He also co-wrote a birding column for the Winston-Salem newspaper. He had participated in surveys for the golden-winged warbler, wood thrush and a fall hawk watch.
“I noticed from the beginning that there was a lot of interest out here in maintaining and restoring wetlands. This will give us an idea of what is good habitat and maybe target the areas that we might want to do restoration and preservation work to help protect the population,” he said.
PSBO’s (pugetsoundbirds.org) vision is to identify the gaps in knowledge about local birds, mobilize and train people to collect data, and provide the results to the general public and to land managers.
Birding has been a good way for Dickinson to meet people with similar interests and get to know different birding areas. The Secretive Bird Survey continued the learning experience. It was also different than other surveys in that an MP3 player and a speaker were more effective than binoculars. Dickinson would play recordings of the four birds’ calls and listen for a response between the songs.
The Lake Stevens resident’s most exciting moment was at the Stillwater site. He had recruited his wife, Mary*, to be part of the two-person team, who gamely followed him into a swampy area to record information about the results.
“We went to the first survey point, a few feet off the main trail, a spot where a bittern flew up at my feet and flew south toward the area of the third (survey) point,” he said. “I finally got to the third point by crashing through 4-foot-high reed, in water, and there it was, sitting there watching me the whole time, for the longest while.”
On the flip side, no target birds were seen or hear on the other two sites. In this case, not finding birds is also a valuable piece of the information puzzle.
Next week: We will take a look at one of the secretive birds and get a sense of early results from the survey.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
* Correction, June 22, 2016: Mary Dickinson’s name was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.
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