Sunny spring mornings are an excellent time for Birding! We have been lucky to have a solid couple of weeks of sun this May after what seemed endless rain in April. We had never visited Llandover Woods Greenspace just south of Shoreline off of Greenwood but with the excellent weather we decided to head out early on a Saturday to see what birds we could see.
As you exit the small parking area you head downward into the forest passing a view of the Puget Sound on your right. Immediately we spotted some Robins nesting in the crook of a tree. About thirty yards further and we were just inundated with bird sounds. My Merlin app picked up about a dozen different birds in the area, warblers, chickadee’s, nuthatches and to our delight, a Swainson’s Thrush, which is a bird we’d not photographed before. This one looked like the olive-backed variety which winter in South America, it always amazes me to consider how far these birds travel each year. They can be seen in North America during migration time and summer time and are usually found in the forest.
Other birds we enjoyed seeing were the Pacific-slope Flycatcher, a Wilson’s Warbler, a Townsend’s Warbler and a Warbling Vireo. The Swainson’s Thrush and Wilson’s Warbler are pictured below. There was also Pacific Wren, and Pileated and Downy Woodpecker and Bushtit’s and and Junco’s. All in all a great area for a morning birding walk, or just to walk the dogs, or take a lunch break in nature.
On our way out we also spotted an interesting site in the parking lot. In one of the evergreen’s lower hanging branches, rather well hidden was a hanging Bushtit’s nest, I at first thought it was just a large pinecone but noticed the Bushtit’s coming to and from the branch so was curious as to what it could be. I jumped on my phone and searched for hanging nests and sure enough Bushtit’s will build hanging nests like these. You’ll notice that when you see Bushtit’s you’ll usually see them in a group, and it turns out a family of Bushtit’s will all sleep together in their crafty hanging nests. Certainly an interesting find (and just fun to say Bushtit – makes my kids give me weird looks)!
Things to Note:
- Llandover Greenspace has a link from Washington State Trails association – see trip reports here – Llandover Woods Greenspace
- These shots were taken with the Sony a7 along with the Sony FE 200-600mm lens and a Sony 2x Teleconverter.
- Please check out our resources page to learn more about the equipment we used to find and take these shots!
Backyard Birding?:
- It’s springtime and we’ve upped our backyard bird game with a couple of new feeders. We currently get House Finches, Song Sparrows, Chickadees and Nuthatches. And of course our resident Anna’s Hummingbirds. Make your backyard birds happy and get them a new feeder!
Amazing info. Thank you.
Thanks for reading Llewellyn!