Sleep and Owls
One of the true kindnesses of winter is that it allows you to get a little more sleep without missing much. I toyed with the idea of getting up at an hour that might give me a better chance of catching some of the smaller owls (Western Screech and Northern Saw-whet) but let myself rest up for a long day of birding instead.
I loaded up on breakfast at the Best Western. Although I had snacks to pack for the road, I always like the idea of going into these things on the far side from hungry. I was also able to leave with a well-charged camera battery - always a nice start.
Lewis and Clark State Park
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Representative view
from my morning
at Lewis and Clark SP
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There's actually a fairly nice shoulder off of the highway near the park (which is closed to all but walk-in traffic). I got out of my car, ready to do my Great Horned Owl call, but a pair of Great Horned Owls beat me to it! (Species 6 for the year list for Columbia County, a tally I'll continue in parentheses). I listened and eventually joined into the conversation (between a male and female, on slightly different pitches). The male flew over the highway in response.
It was nice to get to see the owl! It is not, to be clear, something that I need for every species in order to count them. One *can* find owls during the day, and with some extra efforts, one can even get photographs of them, but owling has always been my preferred way to experience owls. Get out at the right time of night, give some calls, and listen for a response.
As I walked into the park, I shifted to smaller owl calls, trying for Western Screech, and I got a different species that I was not expecting quite so much - Northern Saw-whet Owl! (7). As a code 4 species in the county, they are not located annually, but much of that in Columbia (and in a lot of counties, honestly) probably comes from a lack of owling. If people know of a tree where an owl can reliably be found (and usually photographed), this seems to be the widely preferred mode for experiencing Northern Saw-whets, especially in Eastern Washington, where their wintering grounds are not so thick with trees!
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| Fresh berries in January! Snowberries, of course, along the Touchet |
On this particular morning, the call I got was a whine call, given once, and then again minutes later. Other birds started to wake up as well, including Bewick's Wren (8), Song Sparrows (9), and several Dark-eyed Juncos (10). By this time, I had wandered to the primitive camping area, closer to the Touchet River. As I used different openings to get closer to the river and look around, I flushed several different birds, including Canada Goose and Mallard, as well as a Ring-necked Pheasant (11). A Red-tailed Hawk called from the far side of the Touchet, uphill from me.
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Most geese know better than to be seen in Columbia County!
I caught these ones off-guard, and they made a quick exit |
Continuing along, it was starting to get a little brighter, and I was able to see and hear a Pacific Wren (12) skittering around in the understory. They're code 3 birds in the county, although I'm sure many of the codes may seem off by the end of the year. It's just hard to get all of these dialed in for a county that is not birded with much frequency. Hopefully there will be more activity this year!
Finches started to wake up, including Pine Siskins (13), and American Goldfinches (14). A Downy Woodpecker (15) also gave its rattling call from a distant part of the park. I also started to find more of the birds one finds in more forested areas - Red-breasted Nuthatch (16), Ruby- and Golden-crowned Kinglets (17, 18), and Black-capped Chickadee (19).
A few other birds made brief appearances, including a Great Blue Heron (20), grawnking as it took off from a hidden spot near the river, a Northern Flicker, and a single House Finch (21) flying overhead.
I crossed the highway to the picnic area. With more brushy, grassy areas on the south side of the highway, I felt like there ought to be some better chances to find more sparrows, but it was pretty quiet all in all. I consulted my map and confirmed my Dayton to Starbuck route.
Dayton to Starbuck
As I was preparing for the year, I developed some curiosity about this area - north of Dayton, and west of Starbuck. Nearly every road in this area seems to be named after a "hollow" that it follows. And now, a couple months later, I finally asked the question, "What's a hollow"? The definition made sense - it's basically a valley that usually has some kind of a watercourse running through it. Many of these did have something more than a trickle and less than a creek. I could well imagine them drying up seasonally.
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| Patch of green along Thorn Hollow Road |
My interest was in the views of these areas on Google Maps. I found that most of the area was simply farmland - areas of scrub-steppe and sage-steppe that have been completely converted to vast monocultural landscapes. Nonetheless, the contours of the land made it impossible for the most optimistic of farmers to cultivate the land. In other cases, some fairly extensive areas had been left intact, and/or replanted. From space, the pictures were dotted, streaked, and clumped with green, giving me leads for places that might have a little more biodiversity.
I started with a tough decision - Whoopemup Hollow Road or Sorghum Hollow Road? As I consulted my gazetteer, the areas that I'd marked in green colored pencil seemed thicker along a path starting with Sorghum Hollow.
I didn't mind this drive at all. I'd had some concerns that the back roads might be a little rough, especially in winter, but these concerns were almost completely unfounded in this area.
I can't emphasize enough the simple fact that for any given mile or two of road, there was always a Common Raven (22), an American Kestrel (23), and a Red-tailed Hawk. This was true for this stretch, and they may largely go without mention. I was amazed at how well-acquainted I became with the shape of an American Kestrel.
At one of the first stops, I finally got my first European Starlings (24) and American Robins (25). I also found my first Black-billed Magpies (26), not uncommon at all during the day, but certainly a bit more localized, a little picker than the ravens.
Sorghum Hollow Road ends at a T at Thorn Hollow Road - I took the westward part of this T. As I turned, I did a double-take on a kestrellish-sized bird. The shape wasn't quite right for a kestrel. I stopped, looked, and found a Northern Shrike (27).
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| Isn't the lighting just *great* in January!! :) |
And why wouldn't I find a Northern Shrike on Thorn Hollow Road? The modus operandi for these birds is to grab their prey (small mammals, shorebirds, insects) and impale them on something sharp - generally this means thorns, or (in the last few hundred years) barbed wire. This one was just perched on a wire, keeping on the lookout for a good meal.
Thorn Hollow Road runs past a robust patch of pines, which seemed like a nice break to the amber waves of grain. Bird activity was pretty good here! Yes, I found a Red-tailed Hawk and some Common Ravens. I did a little pishing to see what would get stirred up - this brought me some Black-capped Chickadees, Dark-eyed Juncos and Song Sparrows. A good number of Red-breasted Nuthatches also responded, and in the distance, I heard a nasal call from one of their cousins, a White-breasted Nuthatch (28).
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Red Crossbill, with the crossed-bill just
visible. Type 2 (Ponderosa Pine) |
These birds, partial to pines, are one of several such birds that have me curious (crossed with concerned and motivated) about what good patches of pine there are to be found in Columbia County! Over time, poor forest management has meant larger stands of trees have been lost over the years. Douglas Firs have just been better at filling in these empty spaces, rising up to replace Ponderosa Pine habitat that existed longer ago. The bird species have followed suit, and some species (like White-breasted and Pygmy Nuthatches, Flammulated Owls, White-headed Woodpeckers, Gray Flycatchers) have been harder to find over time. So, this is a patch that I might see again down the road.
Another nice surprise here was a pair of Red Crossbills (29) - and specifically, the Ponderosa Pine type!
I did get a picture of one of the crossbills, but it's not visual clues that lead to identification for these guys. The calls between different "types" is just distinctive enough that, with practice, they can be identified. I had really lost my touch with this over the last few years, maybe because I just wasn't seeing as many, or only getting a certain type? But an eBird sighting from Columbia had included the Ponderosa Pine type recently, including an audio recording. This was a huge help in getting my ears retrained! California Quail (30) could also be heard from deep cover, Chicago-ing away as they do.
Thorn Hollow Road Connects to Kellogg Hollow Road. Again, I love the cautious optimism expressed by "hollow". There was water, but the name ensured that I wouldn't get too excited about that fact! The road took me higher, and at one point the hills were clearly frosted over with a little bit of snow.
It was simply beautiful, serene, all of the good things. I keep coming back to a single observation from this stretch of road - there were minutes where the loudest thing in my ears was the sound of the most delicate snowflakes landing on my coat. They really were tiny, and they made micro-audible "pit..pit..." sounds as they landed. I listened and looked out at the vast expanse around me.
Yes, biologically, there wasn't much to love about a landscape given over to so much farming. But such is the cost of the Green Revolution. It's not a revolution that we hear about often, and the "green" moniker may seem misplaced today. Irrigation, herbicides, fertilizers. . . many tools were brought to bear, increasing crop production, and preventing an awful lot of starvation.
Some of the costs have been the loss of biodiversity (which *does* affect us!), and . . . I don't know, do we count high population as a cost? Globally, yes, although it's hard to apply that characterization down to the personal level. I'm glad for all of the people that I come across in life. I hope we can figure out a way to chill out with the population-growth-thing we have going on and can find a balanced way to move forward. I just can't think of any of them as "a problem".
As the road descended again, I ended up in a little patch of trees, and thought it'd be good to get out and have a listen. American Robins were packed into this little patch, and I also found a massive flock of Lesser Goldfinches (31). In the grey, sometimes foggy morning, their calls made them stand out, with not a single "potato chip"ping American Goldfinch in the bunch.
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| Eurasian Collared-Dove (32) |
Starbuck
I stopped in at the Starbuck store. Not gonna lie, folks - I immediately looked for any sign that this little town had found a way to cash in on the success of the Big Green Monster of Coffee. But even my cup of coffee was purchased without fanfare. They had shirts - Starbuck swag? Nope, just tops for hunters. I stopped to think about what a missed opportunity this was and really thought better of it after a millisecond or two of thought. The "traffic" through town just wouldn't warrant it.
Columbia County, to be fair, is not completely free of tourist destinations. In addition to hunting opportunities here and there in the county, Bluewood Ski Resort is tucked up the road in the Blue Mountains.
I got my cup of coffee and eyed the sandwich options (made fresh!) but figured that I could aim for lunch after a little bit more birding.
Little Goose Dam
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| Cows in the sky |
I had options here and could have gone right into a little bushwhacky hike. I decided that I'd tackle the options that kept me on roads before going off of beaten paths. Little Goose Dam is as good a place as any to find gulls and diving waterfowl along the Snake River. The road there is not ideal for birding! Much of the stretch that brings you closest to the river is traveled on a road with no shoulder. Not like... a shoulder that would leave you in a patch of grass, but a shoulder that would leave you in a ditch.
But traffic was light today. I was able to add a less common bird, Western Grebe (33) a few times over as I drove. I scanned some of the pilings in the river, optimistically thinking that I'd find a cormorant, but it was kestrels everywhere. So many kestrels.
A nice find was a Bald Eagle (34) up on a hillside. I'd missed this bird, one I think of as common enough anywhere, on all previous trips to the county. Before reaching the dam, I also picked up California Gull (35), and Common Goldeneye.
The dam itself left me with the overwhelming senses that I need to get better at birding at dams. I see reports and images from the dams down here, and my experience was quite different - distant gulls circling the top of the dam or the far side of the river was *most* of what I got for gulls. Some of these birds were kind enough to do a swing past my side of the river (Columbia County), before circling back to Whitman, where they would land on a log. Distant scope views were enough to pull out Herring (37), Ring-billed (38), and Short-billed Gulls (39). Glaucous-winged and Iceland were also reported here by better birders than me!
From above the dam, I added Common Merganser (40), and Double-crested Cormorant (41). And just to give me a break from squinting, a Canyon Wren (42), announced itself with its silly descending call ringing out loudly from the rocky hillsides on a quiet morning.
Other stops were uneventful - I did stop at Texas Rapids HMU, and I did stop at Little Goose Landing, beyond the dam. These are very necessary stops in a year like this, and I really do expect to find some rare birds tucked in at these spots over the course of the year. Migrants arriving at the Snake River are met by these imposing cliffs in front of them and just tend to make a left or a right turn, headed towards Asotin and Walla Walla Counties. Some of these slightly open areas in Columbia have just enough vegetation to pull in some of these southbound birds. That's my hope!
Riveria Road
This road rises up steeply from the Little Goose area and takes a path through the hillsides towards the highway once more. I went into this drive with a few different hopes. Horned Larks (yes! 43, with a couple of different flocks lifting from the road in front of me at different times), and all of the fun goodies that can be mixed in with them (nope! no longspurs, buntings, or interesting finches were present, as far as I could tell). Distant powerlines were always worth scoping, and they all had a Red-tailed Hawk.
I did get a look at an eagle disappearing over a hillside. Couldn't identify it, but I'd like to think it was a Golden Eagle - not a hard bird to find out in this part of the state. I'll be back out in these areas later in the year trying for things like Brewer's Sparrow, Loggerhead Shrike... but having seen it now, my hopes are not high! There really are precious few tracts of sagebrush, with the less desirable rabbitbrush being far more prevalent. Still, the steep contours mean that more of the land is undeveloped, leaving at least a little more diversity.
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| Very curious about what had been pooping here! |
Arriving back at the highway near Starbuck, I saw a raptor over a field. And now I present you with yet another backlit bird silhouette!
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| Cooper's Hawk! (44) |
Tucannon HMU - Cove Trail
What a fun find. At the encouragement of Chris Lindsey, a much more local birder who is also taking Columbia County pretty seriously this year, I went on a hunt for a Swamp Sparrow that he had found just days earlier - the first ever recorded in the county, meaning that every county in Washington now had a record of a Swamp Sparrow.
The trailhead itself is not extremely well marked. Chris sent me GPS coordinates; I checked it on my laptop the night before and found the pull-off easily enough. The gate was the kind of gate that always makes me laugh.
These strike me as gates designed with a zombie apocalypse in mind. I'd run into a few of these at Big Bend Wildlife Area up in Douglas County, and it honestly took me a silly amount of time to figure out the functioning of these simple gates!
But even typing about it now made me gasp inside, just thinking of Big Bend - and no, not the one in Texas. It's a relatively new Wildlife Area near Grand Coulee Dam. I made a few trips there during my Douglas County year, and it is simply phenomenal. And nearly nobody has been birding there! A few lists here and there - several of them tallying over 50 species, including some goodies like Sharp-tailed Grouse - but it appears to still be largely unexplored by the birding community in the state.
Okay, back to Columbia County! I let myself in through the gate and started my hike - booted up and ready for some water. This was great habitat - plenty of cover for sparrows and such, water, open areas, cliffs. I can imagine this hike producing some pretty big lists in the right season! One early addition to my year list was White-crowned Sparrow (45). Plenty of them were singing and/or chipping as I walked, all of them sounding like the Gambelii subspecies.
Mallards on the river took flight every time I came around the bend. They seemed content to relive the utter shock of me coming around the corner over and over again! The trail runs along the east side of the Tucannon River, gradually making its way in a mile and a half to the Snake. As I got farther up, I heard the rattle of a Belted Kingfisher (46) up ahead.
One of the more enjoyable birds of the walk was a Downy Woodpecker. It put on quite a show during the walk, and I eventually just named him Bob. It's short for Robert, which of course makes him Robert Downy Woodpecker - a fitting name for a showy bird.
I know that the Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers on the west side of the state are a bit duskier but was still floored by how bright and crisp this bird looked.
The main trail was fine for a while, but then I ran into the flooded parts. It was fine, as it didn't go very far at all up my boots. But at some point, I wondered why I was walking in water. I looked east and saw little side trails wandering along the base of the hillside and opted to take them. A whirr of wings at one point got my attention. My imagination started running through what bird may have buzzed me! It was just Bob.
Chickadees, Bewick's Wrens, American Goldfinches, and Black-billed Magpies called from the riparian areas and the surrounding hillsides. I finally made it around a corner and saw the cove. It's a great sheltered area, including some marshy vegetation immediately below me that looked great for the aforementioned Swamp Sparrow.
"chip...chip...chip..." I heard a repeated call from down in the marshes. Regular enough to make sense for Swamp Sparrow - nice high pitch. I got the binoculars on the area, and Bob flew out of a tree with a rattle. Downy Woodpeckers make high pitched chip calls, of course, but Bob had done a nice job of adjusting his habitat and cadence. If you are looking for a bird to *play* a Swamp Sparrow, look him up!
I got closer, and I kind of knew how this would go, but I gave it a try anyway. I did a little bit of pishing. It pulled up a few birds. Two of them were Song Sparrows - both happy to hop up in plain view, to give Song Sparrow calls, and to remain in view for quite a while. The other bird popped up into view briefly, was gone to cover before I could get binoculars on it, never made a call and never came back out from cover. By behavior?? 1000 percent, this was a Swamp Sparrow! But I'd had no proper look at the bird at all, and had not even a call note to encourage me. I let it go and continued to walk more towards the Snake.
I tried my Virginia Rail call, and got some return calls - not a lot, but distinctive and heard multiple times! 47. Then I had to stop. Up ahead, first of all, were the Mallards. Yeah, they flew again, trying to make it look every bit like a scene from a horror movie. But further out, I could see there were quite a few waterfowl sitting on the water.
My scope picked up Gadwall (48), Bufflehead (49), American Wigeon (50) and Hooded Mergansers (51). Closer in, tucked alongside some marshy habitat, there was a single Pied-billed Grebe as well (52). This was a huge stroke of luck. Columbia County is notoriously difficult for waterfowl, so being able to find such diversity in one stop was very welcome indeed.
On the way back through, I tried one more time, giving a pish or three into the area where I'd seen the mystery sparrow. Farther out, a bird responded, perching up on top of a little sapling.
Bob...
Lyons Ferry KOA
After my return walk, I decided to continue along 261 towards the Lyons Ferry KOA. Interesting spot. Across the water is Lyons Ferry State Park - a wonderful area with 800 checklists on eBird and over 230 species of birds reported over the years. The Palouse River empties into the Snake there, and there is plenty of good riparian habitat, making it good for geese, gulls, ducks, shorebirds, migrants - you name it.
But here on the Columbia side, only about half as many species have been seen, and the checklists are far sparser. Nonetheless, I enjoyed views of yet more Western Grebes - birds that are supposed to be pretty challenging to find in Columbia, if the codes are to be trusted. And I do and I don't, in regard to these codes! Some may be off, but it's not for a lack of trying to get them right. One of the most valuable and enjoyable things I do during these years is ground-truthing the abundance codes, often giving feedback to the folks in the Washington Ornithological Society who work hard to keep them accurate and updated.
Some cormorants flew past. Some ravens. But it was pretty quiet here. I gave one longing look over to Lyons Ferry State Park, then headed for my car. I passed the cafe, closed seasonally, and was approached by a woman on a golf cart. "Can I help you with anything?" she asked. I let her know I was birding and anticipated that I'd wandered into areas I should not have wandered into. She reassured me that I was fine - just part of her regular rounds, making sure that people using the area were well-taken-care-of. How nice!
Fletcher Road
Highway 261, if followed west, takes a person out of Columbia County, and into Walla Walla. It took this person there. But if one hangs a left, Fletcher Road brings you right back into Columbia. I hanged that very left. Poking around in Walla Walla may very well have brought me some new species for that county, but I wanted to keep my focus on the more challenging task of Columbia.
Fletcher Road, much like Riveria Road, has had some good sage-steppe-open-grassland kind of birds over the years. I was scouting this for March and April as much as anything. But again, I found that there was really no sage to speak of. I found nothing beyond a few flocks of House Finches, American Kestrels, and Red-tailed Hawks. The road eventually pops back out onto 261 near Starbuck.
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| Mourning Doves near Starbuck |
Heading north of Starbuck, I came across two more new species, neither one a surprise: Mourning Doves (53), and then a field full of Wild Turkeys (54). After so much time on the west side (where there are scattered groups of turkeys hanging on here and there), it has floored me just how large some of these turkey... groupings (apparently "flocks" or "rafters" would have served me here) are!
Smith Hollow Road
My last bit of birding was along Smith Hollow Road, as the sun started to get lower. What a great bit of habitat! Almost immediately, I came around a turn and startled a Northern Harrier (55) into flight. Again, not a surprising bird to find in farmland, but each new bird had me pretty excited about the great start I was having for the year. I stopped a little farther up the road, as Smith Hollow itself seemed to be begging me to take a closer look.
I parked, and walked to the edge of the hollow, looking down its steep sides. A good trickle of water followed the course below me. I figured it might support some sparrows or other good birds, so I pished. A Song Sparrow and a Dark-eyed Junco responded. As I got my binoculars up to take a look at them, a few birds came out of some of the many nest holes dotting the steep sides of the hollow.
Gray-crowned Rosy Finches! (56). I'd heard of these birds wintering in nesting holes along rivers in Eastern Washington but had never actually come across any. I'd imagined them being along the Snake (they are often reported there), but I had not really thought that I'd come across any on this particular road. Fun find indeed.
A Western Meadowlark (57) sang its song from a field as I scanned around. Then I caught sight of a Golden Eagle (58) being chased by a pair of Common Ravens. Ravens aren't small, but gosh they look small next to a Golden Eagle! I hopped in my car to follow, and to try to catch a picture of them. They disappeared up over a ridge, past some massive wind turbines.
Back to Dayton
I got back to the hotel and collapsed for a bit. I poked at lists, checked for new sightings, and eventually got out the door for dinner. I returned to Buckwheat Brewing. I'd had chili on my mind for a while, and after looking over the menu, I decided on a chili dog. Good decision. I went to bed full, and excited to wrap up and head home the next day. I was just torn between a morning in Dayton, or a quick morning excursion up into the Blues.
