Planning Your Trip

- Orientation
- When to Go
- Statistics
- Getting There
- How to Visit
- Activities
- Park Information
- Lodging
- Related Links

Olympic National Park Bird-watching

This Tour Comes From...

National Geographic Guide to Birdwatching Sites, Western U.S.

For more National Geographic travel guides—from Europe to Antarctica and everywhere in between—visit National Geographic Books >>

The northern entrance to Olympic National Park provides easy access to high-country birds. A well-marked road leads south from US 101 in Port Angeles past the main park visitor center, winding up to the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center, a mile above sea level. If possible, make this trip early in the morning for more bird activity and less traffic. Along the way, you’ll have terrific views of forested slopes and rugged, glacier-sculptured peaks. Watch for Blue Grouse, Northern Pygmy-Owl (seldom seen, but listen for small birds “scolding” if they’ve found an owl perched in daylight), Vaux’s Swift, Red-breasted Sapsucker, Olive-sided and Pacific-slope Flycatchers, Cassin’s (uncommon) and Hutton’s Vireos, Gray and Steller’s Jays, Common Raven, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Winter Wren, Townsend’s Solitaire, Hermit and Varied Thrushes, Yellow-rumped and Townsend’s Warblers, Western Tanager, Dark-eyed Junco, Pine Grosbeak, and Red Crossbill. Walk the Hurricane Hill Nature Trail, and check open areas for nesting Horned Lark and American Pipit. If it’s open, drive the dirt road to Obstruction Peak for more birding and fabulous vistas. CONTINUED

- San Juan Ferry
- Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge

(Continued From Top)

San Juan Ferry

Purple lupine and other alpine wildflowers grow in a meadow at Olympic National Park.

Photograph © Charles Mauzy/Corbis

The beautiful San Juan Islands are among Washington’s most popular destinations. The San Juan Ferry, which makes stops in the islands as it travels from Anacortes, Washington, to Sidney, British Columbia, serves as an easily accessible seabird trip. You might see four species of wintering loons (including possible, though rare, Yellow-billed); grebes; Double-crested and Pelagic Cormorants; ducks; Bonaparte’s, Heermann’s, Mew, Thayer’s, Glaucous-winged, and other gulls; and alcids including Common Murre, Pigeon Guillemot, Marbled and Ancient Murrelets, and Rhinoceros Auklet. Bald Eagles nest in the islands and can be seen anytime of year. You can ride the ferry as a pedestrian quite inexpensively; if you take a car, you can drive to the American Camp area at the southern end of San Juan Island to look for Sky Lark—a Eurasian bird that spread here from Vancouver Island, where it was introduced around 1901. Sky Lark is found in extensive grassy areas and is easier to find when singing in spring. Watch also for Golden Eagle, seen regularly in the islands, and in fall for Pacific Golden-Plover in the grassy areas where Sky Lark is found.

Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge
Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge (N from US 101 on Kitchen-Dick Rd., 5 miles [8 kilometers] W of Sequim) is a long sandspit reaching out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, creating a bay where waterfowl gather from fall through spring. From the parking lot a half-mile [0.8 kilometer] trail leads to the spit. Some birders walk the 5 miles [8 kilometers] to the lighthouse to find waterbirds and shorebirds, but much can be seen closer in. Marina Drive, on the bay’s south shore west of Dungeness, also offers some good places to see loons, Brant, ducks, gulls, and terns (one of the best viewpoints is from the locally famous Three Crabs restaurant).