The Pacific Northwest is a beautiful place to be in September. The tourist crowds are gone, the weather is dry, sunny, and lovely, and birds are pouring south along the Pacific towards their non-breeding grounds. This trip will feature some of the top resident birds and migrants in the region, during the peak of fall migration, and will also include a pelagic trip. 

​Among the beautiful scenery of the coastline, the Olympic rainforest, and the Cascade Mountains, the group will look for many classic Pacific coast birds. Along the coast, we will search for birds like Wandering Tattler, Pacific Loon, and Marbled Murrelet; in the forests we’ll effort for Sooty and Dusky Grouses, Pacific Wren, and White-headed Woodpecker; and we’ll scan for migrants like innumerable shorebirds, ducks, and seabirds. 

Join longtime Birds Georgia guide, Adam Betuel, as well as Steve Huggins from Red Hill Birding, on this stunning and bird-rich itinerary. 

 Adam Betuel, Co-Executive Director, Interim, (Birds Georgia) & Steve Huggins, (Red Hill Birding)

An additional guide will be added depending on group size.

Today is a dedicated arrival day in Portland, Oregon. The group will be staying near the airport and will meet for dinner to get ready to enjoy over a week of fall migration and fantastic birding in the Pacific Northwest.

Today will start with a bit of inland Oregon birding along our way towards the coast, where we will take a northward turn and head into Washington State for a two-night stay in Westport. 


The birding will start with something of a long shot: looking for Mountain Quail in the foothills of the coastal mountains. Always a challenge to find, the birds are in the area, so we will take our chances and cruise along rural mountain roads, keeping our eyes peeled for this secretive quail. We will certainly see some other nice birds here, possibly including Varied Thrush, Red-breasted Sapsucker, Band-tailed Pigeon, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Stellar’s Jay, and if luck is truly on our side, maybe even Ruffed or Sooty Grouse or Northern Pygmy-Owl.
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We will eventually cross through the mountains and drop down to the coast. Where we stop will depend on our timing, but we will spend some time birding the coast, including a stop in Tokeland, where we could see birds typical of the Pacific coastline like Heerman’s Gull, Elegant Tern, Black Turnstone, Black Oystercatcher, Wandering Tattler, Brandt’s and Pelagic Cormorants, and possibly even a rarity like Bar-tailed Godwit.

Today is our pelagic day! For those who choose to join the boat trip, we will head early to the dock and from there out into the Pacific. Late summer and fall is peak time for pelagic birding here. Over the course of the day, we’ll be looking for a wide variety of pelagic species, including Black-footed and Laysan Albatross, Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel, Sooty, Pink-billed, Buller’s, and Flesh-footed Shearwater, South Polar Skua, Northern Fulmar, Sabine’s Gull, along with jaegers, alcids (possibly including Tufted Puffin), and phalaropes. We’ll also be looking out for whales and dolphins and the guides will be keeping a sharp eye out for rarities.

For those who opt out of the pelagic trip, you will spend the day birding the area, especially looking for shorebirds and waterfowl along the coast and in the coastal bays.

Our day will start with birding at Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge and the adjacent Hoquiam Sewage Treatment Plant. These places are tremendous for waterbirds, and we’ll spend the morning looking through flocks of ducks and shorebirds and gulls and terns. We’ll especially look out for western birds like Long-billed Curlew, Cinnamon Teal, Eurasian Wigeon, Short-billed and Heerman’s Gulls. We may see Clark’s and Western Grebe, or a rarity like a Ruff or Sharp-tailed Sandpiper. Golden-crowned Sparrows will just be arriving for the winter as the last Violet-green Swallows linger before their departure for more tropical climes. 
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After lunch, we will carry on up the coast to the Quinault Rain Forest. As we make our way along the loop drive, we’ll look and listen for rainforest denizens like Pacific Wren, Varied Thrush, American Dipper, Steller’s Jay, and Ruffed Grouse. Eventually, we will make our way to Forks for the night. 

We’ll have two days to explore the Olympic Peninsula. This is an exciting place to be in September, the peak of fall migration, and we’ll spend time around the towns of Neah Bay and Dungeness looking for migrants like Townsend’s, Black-throated Gray, and Wilson’s Warblers, Sooty Fox and Lincoln’s Sparrows, Black Swift, Purple Finch, and Western Tanager. 

We’ll check Cape Flattery to see if any Tufted Puffins are lingering and look for any Pacific Coast waterbirds that we haven’t seen yet, like Marbled Murrelet or Harlequin Duck. Wooded and wooded edge habitats here are home to Canada Jay, Band-tailed Pigeon, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Bewick’s Wren, Bushtit, and American Goshawk.
We’ll also spend time driving up Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park looking for Sooty Grouse and around Dungeness looking for Pacific Golden-Plover among the many shorebirds that will be present. 

We’ll start our day with some brief last minute birding on the peninsula before crossing Puget Sound by ferry, driving over the Port Deception bridge, and heading well inland, clear across the Cascades, to the town of Winthrop. We’ll have the late afternoon and the following day to bird the mountains, looking for some of the rarer mountain birds like American Three-toed Woodpecker, Dusky Grouse, and American Goshawk along with more numerous birds like Cassin’s Finch, Clark’s Nutcracker, Canada Jay, and American Dipper. We will hope to find a lingering Black Swift or Hammond’s Flycatcher that hasn’t headed south yet. 

We’ll spend the day working our way towards the great Pacific Northwest city of Seattle. We’ll head south from Winthrop along the base of the Cascades, stopping in a rocky area to check for Rock and Canyon Wrens. We may get lucky with Chukar in this area and we’ll have a good chance of seeing California Quail (which, like Chukar, is introduced here). It’s also a good area to find Say’s Phoebe.


We’ll make it to the town of Leavenworth on the east slope of the mountains, where our main aim will be to find White-headed Woodpecker. We may also come across Pygmy Nuthatch, Red Crossbill, Band-tailed Pigeon, Purple and Cassin’s Finch, and Spotted Towhee.  
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We’ll finally head into the city of Seattle. If we haven’t seen California Scrub-Jay yet, we’ll see if we can make a quick stop near the airport to pick up one more lifer before settling in to our hotel for our final night.

Today is a dedicated departure day, so you can schedule your flight for any time.