February 13th - North by Northwest

The University of Louisiana - Monroe

I can explain this header, honestly. The thing is, it bugged me for years that there was a Northeast Louisiana University. The state of Louisiana is basically just a square... a square with the Northeast corner missing. Any time I'd see a score from NELU cross the screen on ESPN, I'd joke that the University simply didn't exist. 

And here, I was going to make a connection to this, given my plans to go birding in what I was about to call "Northwest Douglas County". However, I came to find that NELU is now known as the University of Louisiana - Monroe. Fair enough. What about Douglas County? It's an oddly-shaped county for sure: 

Douglas County, according to Google Maps

It has no Northwest corner, really, and I was struggling to come up with directions. It may even be that North by Northwest is confusing and/or inaccurate! This got me thinking. . . I can't remember how far back I heard this, but it may have been back in college. . . 

Wisconsin is shaped like a hand, and people who live in the thumb call a drinking fountain a "bubbler"

So I just stared at the shape here. . . and stared. . .

This is what I came up with:

Image snip from this site

It's not perfect, but Douglas County is shaped a bit like a bucking bronco. So we were basically up on the Head and Shoulders of the cowboy. Fitting, given the dusting of snow that was on our shoulders most of the day. Okay - back to the normally scheduled content.

Chaining up

I woke up to a little snow

I was up around 4 A.M., and the Chelan Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lot had been graced with a little bit of snow. I didn't mind it so much, as it gave me a little privacy while getting dressed for the day, but it did mean chaining up. 

I just looked, and from Chelan down to the Columbia is about a 3-400 foot drop. It's not all that much, but it happens pretty quickly. On an unplowed, windy road, I figured there was all kinds of wisdom in putting on my chains. I will freely admit, some years have passed since the last time I have put on chains. I did have them ready, but had not actually run myself through any fair-weathered practice attempts. 

I read through the instructions. . . cursed a little bit. . . tried putting on one set of chains. . . cursed a little more at the instructions. It took me about 30 minutes. After this, I looked at the instructions again, and realized how clear they actually were. The other ones went on in about ten minutes. All in all, not bad. It's nice to know that they are foolproof enough - Lord knows I'm a good test on that measure.

What's in a Name?

Here I go again, caring about what things are called, and wanting there to be a lack of confusion. I realized that during my year in Chelan County, I had given up on trying to figure out where one riverfront park in Wenatchee ended, and another one started. I ended up just calling the whole mess "Wallhoranathcee State Natural Parkfluence Point Area". Basically just one place, but too many different names. 

My first stop has a name with a different problem. 

Birding started Saturday morning at "Wells Wildlife Area: Bridgeport Bar", but searching even a little bit will show you that. . . Wells Wildlife Area seems to cover a few different areas. Bridgeport Bar itself was a little ways down the road, among other possible points of confusion. Grange Road, however, was the magical point of clarity that allowed me to find Matt pretty quickly. 

Owling

Bridgeport State Park, across the river and down the road a ways in Okanogan County, is The Spot to Hit for Northern Saw-whet Owls in the winter. Just for kicks and grins, I checked eBird, and found no fewer than 82 sightings for these birds listed in 2020 alone! Some big clumps of these sightings of course came on field trips where this is a regular stop. Our spot had only four sightings in total, all from 2013, and 2014. 

With no recent sightings, I figured either these were random sightings, or that people just rarely came through here to look for owls. It turns out it really might be the latter. I arrived around 5:45, and Matt had already been walking the paths a little, and had picked up Northern Saw-whet and Great Horned Owls. He had also picked himself up after taking a tumble in the snow - something I'd get to enjoy later in the trip. The snow did a wonderful job of covering the shape of the terrain below. 

I first picked up the saw-whets (year bird number 71) from a whining call, eventually followed by the tooting. As we walked, other owls joined in, and we also got to hear the pair of Great Horned Owls calling - a higher pitched female calling back and forth with a lower pitched male. 

I need to emphasize, because these owls seem to have an air of rarity about them, Northern Saw-whet Owls, during this time of year, are pretty widespread in the state, and often calling actively. Go down the street to that spot with all the water and trees - you may hear one there. You might not - "Sometimes there's an owl, and sometimes there isn't," as the quote goes from Owl Moon. But you at least need to go down the street and check. 

Central Ferry Canyon

Matt and I made our way up Central Ferry Canyon to start our day-time birding. Worth noting (in these unprecedented times) that Matt's work in the medical field put him in the early rounds of getting vaccinated. Given this, we decided that (together with masking and cracked windows) we could safely share a car. Had the weather been different, I was ready to drive, but Matt did bring his truck, and the accompanying 4-wheel drive. I think the picture above would convince you that the truck was the better option!

I bird by ear so much. . . and as much as I love the sound of birds, it's sometimes all the more beautiful to stand in silence and listen for them. . . only to hear the soft landing of snowflakes on your coat. It was that kind of a morning at nearly every stop on the way up. We were able to find a Hairy Woodpecker (72) on the way up, as well as a few Common Ravens and Steller's Jays.

Plan A

This was a beautiful plan on paper. I had seen all of these eBird pins for pheasant, grouse, and partridge along this route for January and February. We just picked a day when the snow would have none of this. On 26 Road, we hit some deep snow, backed the truck out of it, and made our way back down. 

I highlighted Packwood Cemetery on here, as it is up near the Southernmost point of the canyon, but we were not able to locate it at all! Our best bets involved a trail kind of sort of near the turn in the road, but neither Matt nor I had been to the cemetery before, and the snow often made visibility difficult at a greater distance.

We did try one pull-off, seeing that there was a little trail that ran off from it. The snow got a little deep. . . 

Knee-deep in the snow

We did find some birds on the way down, including a White-breasted Nuthatch (73), which is a code 3 bird in the county. It was calling from the pines well off of the road. We also saw a handful of Black-billed Magpies at one point, and stopped the car to investigate - they chased off a Common Raven, and we had a Golden Eagle and Bald Eagle pass by in short succession. Flickers at various times fooled us into believing we were seeing other birds - from hawks to falcons to thrushes. There's a lot of good birds the size of a flicker, it would seem.

Lake Pateros

I'll be honest. I was ready for everything here. Long-tailed Duck? of course. Yellow-billed Loon? several would be the most likely thing to expect. What did we get instead? Limited visibility from the snow. All of the Eared Grebes I found were turned into Horned Grebes by Matt. . . something about "field marks", whatever those are. And the five Long-tailed Ducks I found were deemed to be Ruddy Ducks with a dusting of snow on their backs. Awash in disappointment, we continued up the road. 

Bridgeport Bar State Wildlife Recreation Area

Please see the image at top for clarity! It sounds like we had already been there, but this is a slightly different spot, a little West of where we had parked and found the owls. We hopped out of the car and had House Finches, House Sparrows, and Eurasian Collared Doves. Off in the distance, however, there were some odd calls that sounded like they were coming from gam... I mean gallinaceous birds (I was recently corrected when using the more hunting-positive "game birds". I do not hunt, but have no personal qualms about it). 

I couldn't place the call, and even when Matt asked about Ruffed Grouse, I realized how infrequently I've heard them make any noise besides the drumming sounds they make. We did get a recording of the Weet... Wut... Weet Wut... Weet... Wut... Matt noted that Wild Turkeys make a call that could be a good match for what we heard, and I found at least one example from Xeno-Canto that had me agreeing. The semi-open hillside of trees was also not bad habitat for them. I'll go ahead and say Wild Turkey (74*) and leave the asterisk on there, pending some more review and other ideas. I've certainly done sillier things with my record-keeping in these years.

We picked through a few billion White-crowned sparrows, and a few million Dark-eyed Juncos for anything else of note, but the birds were stubbornly consistent. It was still neat to find them in such concentrations. Something about the heavy snow must have left just small areas temporarily tolerable for these sparrows. On the way back, we talked about Bewick's Wren as a possibility, and found one (75*) near the car! These are easy birds in Western Washington, but definitely become harder on the East side of the state.

Up to the plateau

Matt and I made our way from there up towards the Waterville Plateau via Bridgeport Hill Road. We passed through Foster Creek, where people have traditionally found Sharp-tailed Grouse. Our hopes were not high for finding these, as fires had reportedly taken out a lot of the habitat for this already-fragile population. 

Snow Bunting flock on the Waterville Plateau - Matt's photo

I was napping when the car rolled to a stop near Foster Creek. In retrospect, I do wish I'd gotten a picture. We did see some burned trees, and we did scan the others for any grouse perched in the branches. I just assumed from all descriptions that the fires had been completely devastating, and it didn't really sink in that. . . there were actually quite a few trees left standing. There were reports from the same day (just a little later, I believe) of Sharp-tailed Grouse at Foster Creek, so I do wish we'd stuck around a little longer, but only with the benefit of hindsight. 

Snowy Owl - B Road

We stopped early to look through a flock of Snow Buntings and Horned Larks. Our ears and eyes were looking and listening respectively for something new, like a Gray-crowned Rosy Finch, Lapland Longspur, or Common Redpoll in the mix. We struck out on those, but did find a Snowy Owl in the distance. This has been a good year for them, but it was still kind of a pleasant surprise at this location.

Common Ravens - note that the horizon is somewhere in this picture

I don't think the world has ever been as white as it was up on the plateau that day. You couldn't pick out the horizon at most times, as the snow on the ground met the snow in the sky, melting with each other miles in the distance. At times, this made the occasional Common Raven a beautiful sight, standing out in black. 

Matt and I made several more Snow Bunting stops, and eventually continued to Lamoine to take a peek at the windbreak, in hopes of Long-eared Owls. The snow just hurt visibility too much. 

Eurasian Collared-Doves - Lamoine

We made our way down, with brief stops at Chief Joseph Dam (Belted Kingfisher, Cooper's Hawk, Loons), and in the town of Bridgeport (Red-breasted Nuthatch, and so many collared-doves!).

Bridgeport Bar

Yes, this was actually a new stop! Take another look up at the map near the top, please, thank you, and sorry. I can honestly say that interest was flagging. It had been some time since the last new bird, and we had gotten up awfully early to start the day. But this was looking like a lot of neat habitat, and the sun was starting to peek out through the clouds.

One of the birds we were looking for as we went was Lincoln's Sparrow. One had been seen here within the last week or two, so our ears were open for the call - something I'd always thought of as a Fox Sparrow call, but like... a disgusted version. That's the best I can do. Both of them say "smack", but with a Lincoln's it feels like "smack! smack!" could be translated as "ew! gross!"

In general, it felt like our ears complemented each other pretty well. Matt focuses nearly all of his birding in Grant County, with a dash of Ferry and Chelan mixed in. He's not so interested in chasing state lists, or even most county lists outside of the ones that have made his shortlist, as it were. I'm familiar with the regulars on the West Side, and just have to relearn the East Side birds every time. Even the White-crowned Sparrows (gambelii) were speaking with a weird accent!

We had a few phantom calls that I thought might be good for Lincoln's Sparrow, and Matt thought might be good for Pacific Wren. We did pick up a Pacific Wren (76*) making calls that we both agreed on, then heard the disputed call from earlier. The bird popped up and we found we were both wrong! 

Matt's photo of the Fox Sparrow

A Fox Sparrow (77*) popped up and let us get a recording and a few pictures. This is a bird that is tough to find in the winter in Eastern Washington, so we were pretty happy with the find.

Out on the water, we had a huge flock of 100-150 Greater Scaup, and nearly nothing else. It was a rare opportunity for both of us to hear the call, so I pulled the phone out, pushed the button and held it up as the birds called a few times for us. As they flew away, I looked at the phone to stop the recording, and realized I had just taken a picture of the sky. Genius.

One more new year bird showed up for me - five Tundra swans flying overhead. Matt picked them out as Tundra swans (78*) as they flew by - working from details in the bill and lores. I was happy to have them vocalize!

White-tailed Deer - Bridgeport Bar

Matt and I called it a day at this point, and went our separate ways.

Actual Lodging

I needed warmth, a place to plug in the computer, and a shower. The Cedars Inn in East Wenatchee had been a good stop the last time around, so I headed back through Brewster, Pateros, over Beebe Bridge, and down the Columbia to East Wenatchee.