Birds in Washington

Western Tanager

I didn't go to Washington to see the birds but seeing birds is part of what I do. I saw lots of American robins, Canadian geese, black capped chickadees and mallards. The mallards looked different because their heads were more purple than green but they were still mallards.  I saw lots of crows and a few ravens. I had trouble identifying the pelagic cormorants.  I saw many long black birds flying over the water.  They looked like cormorants except each had a white patch on either side of their tails.  It wasn't until I saw one fly up and land on top of a post next to the ferry I was riding that I could get a really good look and identify it as a pelagic cormorant.  I saw a white winged scoter on the ferry too.  Walking back from the beach I heard a bird scream at me like a blue jay but not quite a blue jay.  This bird demanded my attention.  With it's black head and head crest I identified it as a stellars jay.  I saw a robin sized bird with a reddish breast but a black head in the yard.  I thought it could be a towhee.  I looked it up and it turned out to be a rufous sided towhee.  I was very proud of myself for guessing the towhee part.  I saw a hummingbird fly by overhead and could see it wasn't a ruby throated hummingbird.  But the underside of a hummingbird is not enough for me to identify it.  One late afternoon I was snugging my grand daughter when the sight of a new bird with a red head and a yellow throat forced me to leap (as much as an old arthritic woman holding a newborn can leap) up out of the chair to find my binoculars.  My first thought was a Blackburnian warbler but this bird was too big to be  warbler and it was eating fruit from a tree instead of bugs so it couldn't be a warbler.  What could the pretty bird be?  Turns out it was a Western Tanager.  A Western tanager is such a pretty bird.  Scarlet tanagers are cute but Westerns are pretty.  I think it would be great fun to go on a guided bird tour while out there.