Big Year Stories – Part 1

Introduction – In 2023, Liam Hutcheson located and documented 378 bird species in Washington, a new state record. I enjoyed hearing Liam tell the stories of his Big Year and I asked him to write up some of them for Birds of Thurston County. 

       ~ George Walter

On January 1, 2023, I was not setting out to do a Washington Big Year. I thought such a massive undertaking was out of reach for me. Instead, I figured I would be spending my 2023 on a more local scale, focusing on my favorite backcountry for birding, Grays Harbor.

The Grays Harbor year record was a much more achievable number and on a much more practical scale, and I was excited about it! So, on January 2, I set off, deciding to start my year by birding the fields of the Chehalis River valley. On the first stop of my first morning birding, something extraordinary happened: I stepped out of the car at the intersection of Highway 101 and Brady Loop Road, got out my telescope and started counting a flock of Sandhill Cranes about a quarter mile out in a field. Sandhills are a relatively new winter visitor to the Chehalis Valley, but for the past few years, there have been small groups ranging from a few birds to flocks of over 50.

I counted 43 individuals, and as I was finishing my scan, a 44th caught my eye. It was a crane, that much was obvious, but it was clearly not a Sandhill. I have studied the identifications of many of the rarest vagrants that have been recorded on the West Coast in preparation for the inevitable day I would stumble across one myself, and today was the day. This outlier was larger, had a black face and throat, a small red head patch, and a large gray “bustle” (the grouping of decorative tail feathers on the backside of some cranes). It was a Common Crane! Despite the name, it is very rare in North America. In fact, this was only the second time one had been recorded in the state of Washington!

Common Crane in flight

Common Crane (right) with Sandhill (left, out of focus)

The Common Crane is an old-world bird, with their normal range covering much of Asia and Europe. This one must have gotten caught up with a migrating group of Sandhills, crossed the Bering Sea before somehow ending up here! I was very excited and immediately got the word out. By the end of the day, tens of people had made the trip out to see it. By the day it disappeared in early April, over four months later, many hundreds of birders from all over the United States had journeyed to the little farm field to catch a glimpse of this wandering Crane. 

Finding the Common Crane and starting out the year with such a jolt, definitely put the idea in my head that a state big year might be possible. I mean, what a start! With this in mind, a week later, I trekked down to Cape Disappointment State Park, where a similarly rare Eurasian Finch called a Brambling, first seen in 2022, was still hanging around in the campgrounds with a large Junco flock. The Cape was anything but a disappointment this day, as I got great views of the Brambling foraging on the ground under the coastal Sitka Spruce canopy.

Brambling in Sitka Spruce

Brambling on snow - Neah Bay Dec. 2022

The winter of 2022-23 was unprecedentedly good for Bramblings; seven were found among flocks of hundreds of finches in Alaska and Washington. (In a typical year, they are not recorded in Washington and maybe only once or twice on the West Coast).

I managed to see four of the seven, three in 2022 and the Cape Disappointment bird in 2023, and even got to help find one in late December 2022 in Neah Bay. That day two Bramblings were found in separate parts of town within a one-hour window. However, even after such a start, I was hesitant about jumping into a full-scale state big-year effort. A few weeks later, though, Washington State’s third-ever Whooper Swan was found up north, and my race was on! 

Whooper Swan (left, head up) with Trumpeter Swans

The Whooper Swan is another Asian vagrant, much rarer than the Bramblings, more comparable to the Common Crane. This particular Whooper Swan is an interesting story.  The year prior (2022), Washington’s second-ever Whooper was found in Snohomish County near Monroe. Hundreds of birders jumped at the opportunity to add Whooper Swan to their county, state and US lists. After a while, the swan disappeared, to be found again only north of the Canadian border in BC. Examination of the bird through photos showed it to be the same individual.

In the winter of 2023 (my big year), a Whooper Swan again showed up in the same general area, and it is presumed that the same bird had returned for a second winter.  But here is where the story gets even more amazing. This year (2024), just a few weeks ago, not one but TWO Whooper Swans were located in the Skagit Flats area. (for details about the area, see George Walter's Winter Birding – Skagit Flats). The most likely scenario is that the same Whooper returned once again and, this time, brought a friend. The Whoopers are still being observed as of the publishing of this article and full details can be found on the Washington Rare Bird Alert on the ebird.org website.

PHOTO NOTES: The Brambling images are NOT from Cape Disappointment but rather are from Neah Bay in December 2022. The flight photo of the Common Crane is from April 2023, exactly four months after I found it on Brady Loop. By April it was in a different part of the valley. The other crane image is from January 2, the day I first found it.

This week's column was written by Liam Hutcheson, a student at Olympia’s Avanti High School who is an avid birder and accomplished bird photographer. Liam also provided the photographs. 

Most weeks, George Walter writes "Birds of Thurston County" in The JOLT. You can reach him at george@theJOLTnews.com.