Bluebirds used to be a favorite of San Juan Island bird watchers as their bright colors and cheerful warbling sounds could be enjoyed near most farms, orchards, and woodlots. Unfortunately, these beautiful thrushes completely disappeared over large portions of their former range across North America, including Washington’s San Juan Islands. Bluebirds were victims of the
Our spring birding tours on San Juan Island have been very productive with some occasional surprises. April is an interesting month for bird watching in Washington state as many winter visitors overlap with newly arriving summer breeders and passing migrants. This makes for some great diversity on our bird watching tours in April and May.
If you are looking for some hot birding action in Washington, the winter bird population is hitting its peak in the San Juan Islands right now. The marine birds are especially abundant at this time of year and enjoying them from a sea kayak is a very relaxing and rewarding way of bird-watching in the
Our San Juan Islands birding tour on August 28, 2009 found a real rarity for our part of Washington. Among approximately 3000 marine birds of various species feeding on the Salmon Bank were several dozen Sooty Shearwaters as shown in the picture below. This species is usually restricted to open ocean waters and seldom penetrates
