March 24th - Spring-ish in Walla Walla County

Who knows where the time goes? 

Lovely song (look up the Eva Cassidy version - trust me on this), and not a bad question here. Two months have passed since I made a run to the Southeast corner of the state, and I recently got back from *another*. So, as I type this, I'm six posts behind. Some kind of personal record, I'm sure. 

At least two things led to this. One was simply work. The change in volume largely came from some work on a high school text for an intro to agriculture class. I could write a book about this experience alone. I've been in there reviewing chapters and actually got called on to write one of them. Writing under pressure is another world. You really don't have time to be in this world. Just write. I enjoyed it and hated it both! Enjoyed because it was fascinating content (technology in agriculture) and hated it because it took me right out of life - just day to day wondering how much I could get done in between obligations. 

The other delay? My car. There were a couple of issues that I finally got addressed. They were inconvenient and expensive. I had a lot of days where I was finding rides from the good people in my life, and other days where I didn't need rides... and was "free" to stay at home and write, with my feet to the fire. It absolutely drove home how much peace, joy, and mental goodness I derive from having my car. I do not take for granted the simple fact that I have been *able* to take these trips for quite a few years running. 

It's a lot on a car, and. . . if you choose to read through to the end of May, you're going to read about decisions that . . . they're just not car-friendly, folks. I really don't hate my car. As much as my decisions may speak otherwise, I really don't hate my car. 

Oh! One more thing - until five minutes ago, my blog did not have the Pages widget over on the right side of the posts. Give them a look! I do want you to understand what I'm trying to do, and I want you to see how things have been going. It's been an interesting year, and I think both of those pages frame the interestingness quite well. 

...

... really, I can wait while you give them a look. 

...

Thank you! Okay, now what exactly happened on March 24th?? Here's my best recollection. 

The "Lost Day" Protocol

I've been freelancing as a writer in science education - hoping for a company to make an honest writer out of me someday. This has - not to my complete surprise - not paid all of the bills. So, for almost a year now, I've been spending some evenings hosting karaoke and trivia as a little side gig. Little, but not so little on a Sunday morning when I've closed out a bar and gotten home and gotten to bed at nearly 3 in the morning. 

Following these days, I'm often dropping in on my Mom in Yakima (2-2.5 hours away), then continuing the next day to Walla Walla County from there (another 1-1.5 hours). On this particular trip, Mom was pretty busy with other things, so I had the *option* of driving straight to Walla Walla on a Sunday morning. But I made a decision to use my Sunday to rest, recover, pack, do wash. After a relaxed day like that, I can get out pretty early on a Monday, as I did. I am liking this plan. 

With this in mind, I got out the door around 6:00 Monday morning and made a run for the county so nice they named it twice. 

McNary 

It's hard to make promises here, but I *really* want to not just bird the West side of Walla Walla County. But goodness. I enter the county, crossing the bridge from Franklin County, and I immediately have so many good birds available to me! So, yes, just like I did in January and February, I stopped shortly after crossing the bridge. Rather than going to Hood Park, my first stop was McNary. 

I have not been running after life birds with any kind of energy. It's fun when I find them! But I'm just as excited when I find the first Black-capped Chickadee in County X for the year. It's a problem. I freely admit this. These blogs are essentially dedicated to this problem. But here I had a chance to pick up a life bird via my county year-list problem (I'm stopping here, and I apologize if you've already read the page talking about my plans for the year. But did you?? If you didn't, go give it a skim. Come on. It's over on the right side. . . thank you!).

Ross's Goose is a bird seen Every Single Year in our state. If all I wanted to do was add to my year list, this is one of the top ten easiest birds in the state that I would have added by now. They come through in the spring, and again in the fall. They're Snow Geese, but smaller. Not quite the same big (literally) honking bill that Snow Geese have. Two had been seen at Burbank Slough, my first stop in the county on this fine day! Could this finally be my day to add this bird to the ol' life list??

(Spoilers - no. Probably not)

Distance and camouflage (a word I always need to check) defeated me. I had a LOT of Snow Geese to look through. I even got them in flight in a LOT of photos. Sadly, nothing has jumped out at me, either at the time, or while scanning through the photos, as being particularly smaller. Take a look at the previous post in this blog "The Goose Post" if you want to experience the haystack of Snow Geese as I have. 

But did this stop me from having a lovely morning of birding? Absolutely not. I was actually greeted by a bird that was new for the year, Greater White-fronted Goose (species 68 for the Walla Walla year list - a number you'll continue to see in parentheses). 

These are my favorite geese. Back when I started birding (twenty years ago? Where does the time go, indeed?) I found out that these not-quite-as-common geese could regularly be seen right at home in Renton, down at Gene Coulon Memorial Park. I'd bring my kids down to let them tear all over the play equipment, and I'd keep an eye on the beach and lawn around the swimming area, where these geese could often be seen. 

"One of the most amazing things about birds is how you learn something new about even the most common birds every time you see them." I don't believe that sentence. There are *plenty* of times where I see Northern Flickers doing the exact same Northen Flicker things that they were doing the last dozen times I saw them. But the geese actually did take me by surprise, two decades after the first time I'd really noticed them. 

The trick here was that I got to see them landing. I've seen them in flight. Seen them in the water or on grass. But on this particular day there were multiple groups that arrived while I was there. It was so fun. For whatever reason, they don't just land gracefully and in unison, as I see so many other ducks and geese do. In my mind, the best comparison would be to a squadron of X-wings suddenly being ambushed by some tie fighters. Evasive maneuvers. Geese dancing and dodging erratically on their way to the water. Evolution is behind this somehow. I'm sure of that. What a quirky and joyful result. :)

A normal looking group of Greater White-fronted Geese

... and then the wild banking and spinning starts!

Burbank Slough was quite full of waterfowl, these geese aside. Canada Geese in fairly small numbers, and Snow Geese by the hundreds. I settled on 800 for the eBird report. . . but I think the accuracy of this estimate decreased every time I skimmed through and looked at each goose. By the end of it, I asked myself if I wanted to look at all of them *again* to get a count. No. Nope. I'm good. 

Duck-wise, there was good species diversity, including Mallard, Ruddy Duck, Ring-necked Duck, American Wigeon, Lesser Scaup, Bufflehead, and Northern Shoveler. None of them were new for the year, but they gave me plenty of birds to scan through looking for something new and/or rare. 

From the observing platform on the North side of Lake Road, I also got a Ring-necked Pheasant (69) as a new year bird. Crossing to the South side of the slough, I gave the geese another gander. From a rise in the road just past the parking, I had better looks but nothing would give me a Ross's. So, I hit the Quail Trail. 

From the refuge office, this little trail meanders almost parallel to the water's edge, eventually providing a little spur that runs right up to the slough. Here, it leads you to a lovely blind. It's quite large - giving 180 degrees of views of the water. The walk to this spur gave me Cedar Waxwings and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, as well as a few Marsh Wrens (70) chittering from the marshy areas. And California Quail, of course!

Dodd Road and thereabouts

On my eBird reports, I've been pretty comfortable combining some hotspots that are pretty darned close to each other. Dodd Road itself has some good birding - I scanned through the flocks of starlings and Red-winged Blackbirds, hoping for something new, but nothing really jumped out, and I couldn't find that sweet spot - close to the birds, but spaciously safe from traffic. 

So, I scooted past the Tyson property, turning on a dirt road to the right. If I understand the hotspot nomenclature correctly, I was looking at "The Blood Ponds", although this little road was taking me past several other ponds that certainly didn't seem to be connected in that way to the Tyson property. Another reason that it felt reasonable to just lump these roads together, rather than parsing them quite so finely. 

Yellow-headed Blackbirds (71) were heard loudly all along this road. The marshes between me and Tyson provided a near constant soundtrack of their crazy chainsaw-like calls. But none were visible. At one point, camera tucked away in the car, the entire flock did deign to rise from the marsh, and I was presented with more Yellow-headed Blackbirds than I have ever seen at once in my life. I've admired 5-10 of them at once, perhaps, but this was dozens of them. Beautiful. 

In addition to the blackbirds, I added a couple of common birds - Redhead (72), and Violet-green Swallows (73), as well as a slightly-less-common Eurasian Wigeon (74). 

9-mile Canyon and a 10 mile backtrack

From Dodd Road, I got back on the freeway, experiencing a distinct lack of freedom as construction slowed traffic. Continuing east on Highway 12, I turned up 9-mile Canyon. Gosh it was quiet. The occasional Western Meadowlark broke the silence, but bird-wise, it was nearly a shutout. A hawk flew over a ridge, popping into view long enough for a few pictures. I couldn't see it all that well at the time, and assumed it was a Red-tailed Hawk, but it was actually a rarer bird, one that I hadn't seen in a few years - Ferruginous Hawk (75)!

I thought that I should at least get a wider shot of the road, and the beautiful stark scenery. But. . . where had I put the camera case, which held the other lens? I looked through the car, front seat back seat trunk. Nope, no, and nope. 

And I returned to McNary. Back through construction traffic, back to the observation platform, where my camera bag was sitting and waiting for me. 

Goodness. 

Then back through construction and Highway 12 towards Walla Walla. I considered the time, and considered my uncertainty about a good stop, or a good target bird. I was just coming up empty! So, I decided to shift from birder to tourist. 

Wine Country

It would feel silly to spend a year in Walla Walla County without hitting any wineries. I did, and was glad to have done it. I'd feel silly talking about wines from L'Ecole 45. It's one of the most prestigious wineries in the state. You can read about the wines from someone more skilled than me. 

It was a slow day, and they let me wander a little. The piece that hit me hard was a mural that had been completed by students. An age ago, when I was working at the Northwest School in Seattle, I had the opportunity to design a mural with students and have them paint it over the course of a month or so. Just seeing something similar here threw me back in a good way. 

I left with a couple of bottles, a purchase that waived the tasting fee, which has always seemed like a fair enough arrangement. 

I stopped at a Mexican restaurant on the way out of town. It wasn't all that great! I really do love finding little spots and having some reasons to give them a little plug in here, but I couldn't find those reasons. And so, that stop will fade from memory. 

I pushed onward to the Best Western in Dayton - my home for the next two nights!

75 species in Walla Walla! For the moment, this tied it with my Columbia County year list. I got to bed good and early, excited to put Columbia back in the lead.