April 12th - Perseverance

 

Context for this image will come later, but it's a theme that fits the birding year right here, and one that has popped up in images in my blogs before (scroll down to "into the clouds"). I think there is something powerful about being at a high point, and being able to see another high point, and a seemingly impassable expanse below. It requires some faith and perseverance to press on when the rewards start to thin out. In the case of these traverses, you are forced to head down to a lower elevation where you will surely lose sight of the high points you spied before. You just have to trust that you're on the right path. 

I think the image from the Chelan County Blog maybe captured it better. Fog below, and really no picture at all of how to get from A to B. This picture is a little different. The road is visible below, and I'd developed a picture of the area up above from previous trips. The birding year I've had in Douglas kind of matches this. A lot of birds came early in the year, and there's a little bit of a pause here, a dip in the numbers as spring takes its time to arrive in earnest. But there's progress. It's encouraging. There's a sense of how I'm going to reach the finish line even now. 

I liked the picture, in part because of what it means for me in life right now. Although I figure it's okay for an author to go off-program now and then, I still do hope someone else finds geographical inspiration from this, or at least the freedom to look at awesome things in the world, and to translate some of that awesomeness to the Things We are Doing in Life.

Balance

After an early turn-in (I think the sun was still up when I closed my eyes), I got up early, brewed some coffee, and did some writing. End of day Monday deadlines were out there, and I needed to at least get a start on some of the work before heading out the door. This was in some ways off-script for me. I *always* get out early for owls, but that doesn't actually mean always. I plugged along until I saw the morning light coming in through the windows, and decided to head out and start my birding day. 

Rock Island

My first stop of the day was actually Union Hill Cider Company, where I had arranged to meet with one of the owners to pick up my quarterly cider. I stopped in their place in January, and kind of fell in love with their cider. They work with some pretty cool apple varietals and methods, and the results are just flat-out tasty. 

On the way there, I saw a huge flock of geese overhead and had the wherewithal to stop and check them out in binoculars. This is really something, because if I lack anything it is wherewithal. But geese were on my radar for this trip and I'd found nothing on the previous day. Good thing I looked, as I found five Snow Geese (126) mixed in with the Canadas. The parenthetical numbers are the running tally of species for the year - the same list can be found in taxonomic order here. 

I got to Union Hill, and immediately got mauled by a German Shepherd. I'm fine with dogs, so it was easy for me to interpret this mauling as a friendly getting-to-know-you thing! The owner (of the dog, and part-owner of Union Hill) chastised the puppy and welcomed me in to pick up my half-case. 

As we chatted, I got to talking about wood. I have been collecting coffee mugs from each county in the state, and was thinking it would be nice to make a mug holder display of sorts. In my head, it'll be a map of the state, with each county puzzle-pieced into it with a different kind of wood. Each one of these pieces will have a hook for the mug, etc etc. For Douglas, then, I was thinking some apple wood from Union Hill would be appropriate. Getting a piece won't be a problem, it would appear, and I'm planning to pick something up in May. He did talk to me about how apple wood is prone to splitting unless it is dried properly. I'm pretty excited at the prospect now, and especially if it is something that will require some care with the wood. Updates will come as they are available. 

The Rock Island Ponds were just a short drive from here. I think I was going there with a sense that Golden-crowned sparrow would be the Bird I Needed To Find, and that other species were possible, but not urgent. Hammond Lake held most of the usual suspects, so I made my way up to Hideaway Lake. The biggest immediate help was the swarm of swallows over the lake. Barn, Northern Rough-winged, and Violet-green were present, and I added Tree (127) and Cliff Swallow (128) as well. 

Ducks and swallows over the ponds of Rock Island

Then I walked from the parking lot, about twenty feet past the little gate, and pished. I was excited to find a Lincoln's Sparrow (129) popping up into the thickets at the water's edge. (remember those two sentences)

The lake itself still held no Northern Shovelers - birds I really hoped to find, but I soon realized that I was hearing calls from Evening Grosbeaks (130). It took a little work to improve my view of the grosbeaks from completely obscured to partially obscured, but it was worth it.

Evening Grosbeak

The rest of the soundtrack for the morning was a funny contrast between Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Yellow-rumped Warblers. The kinglets have this long, rambling, excited song - it sounds like an exciting story. If we could translate bird talk, I'd want to know the content. Yellow-rumped Warblers, on the other hand, start off all excited, like they're adding on to the story the kinglets just told, but then. . . in the middle of the story, they read the room, or realize internally that this is not a great story, and they just kind of trail off. 

Continuing on to Big Bow Lake, I walked from the parking lot, about twenty feet past the little gate, and pished. I was excited to find a Lincoln's Sparrow popping up into the thickets at the water's edge. This of course will have me checking (at least on April 14th in all future years) all such thickets similarly placed near parking lots on lakes in the future. *That* is Lincoln's Sparrow habitat. 

I kept looking for a Golden-crowned Sparrow, but could not turn one up amongst the handful of White-crowned Sparrows at either lake. I hopped in the car. . . and decided to go West. The Palisades were tempting for sure, but I was kind of excited to head up Highway 2, which had been closed for my last two trips along the stretch from Orondo to Waterville. 

Up Highway 2

There weren't a lot of birds in this stretch of the trip, so if you're just here for the birds, head on down to the next bolded item. If you're an explorer, read on.

I'd mentioned before that the elevation change from the Columbia to the Waterville Plateau is significant and awesome. As I made my way up, it was interesting to see that someone else seemed to agree with me. I wish I had taken pictures of the signs, but there were basically elevation markers along the road all the way up. Another thing to note as you head up, there are these rocks - you won't miss them - that have been painted and graffitied by high schoolers, political activists, and other members of the Motivated Class. I honestly have not figured out how they got to these rocks. Hats off to these people. Check out the rocks as you head up the grade, and be amazed. 

I stopped once just because I couldn't stand driving past the same flowers and rocks so many times without some kind of a picture. 

Top: This is balsamroot, part of the aster family (which includes sunflowers). This stuff was everywhere, and was not a familiar plant to me. It's just beautiful. I think people drive through sageland maybe at the wrong time of year, but this was a plant that was dotted around the landscape in many places and just made it beautiful.

Middle: Serviceberry. This was a shrub (tree?) I saw in many places, and had to get a picture. The berries are (ostensibly) edible, and similar to blueberries, which has me pretty excited. I've enjoyed trying edibles, from leaves to fruits, a little more in my local area in recent years, and would love to find some naturesnacks over the course of this year.

Bottom: Split rocks. I just took this picture because it captured geological processes on a few different scales. I'm not a geology guy. I'm a physics/astronomy guy who somehow got tangled up in all of this ornithology. But as a science writer, one does not always get to pick the topics! In the last few years, I've had occasion to dig into geology more deeply, and processes similar to this have popped up for me pretty recently. 

landscapes from Highway 2

It's worth noting that this entire area is just bizarre. It took people some time to figure it out, but the periodic massive ice age flooding led to some landscapes and features that defy most other geological patterns. It has been interesting to learn about how scientists were working so hard to get past the idea of biblical floods that it was difficult for them to accept the idea that. . . no, there were actually some crazy enormous floods in this region that left behind some crazy crazy features.

I pulled the car over when I got to "Number two road", which leads into Pine Canyon. This is about where Highway 2 was closed in months past, and I started to understand why , to some extent. After a few switchbacks, I ended up parking near a gated residential community. The road appeared to continue up above where I parked, so I figured "Why not walk it?"

Common Mullein or "Boy Scout's toilet paper"

I walked up the very first switchback, and got to a gate, preventing me from continuing! I was not completely surprised. It seems that there are a lot of interesting places that have been worth gating off in one way or another by the people that own the land. As I started back down, I realized that I had actually passed a partially obscured continuation of the road I had been on. 

There were no signs saying "don't go here" (a formality that is rarely skipped in this county), so I continued up the road. Tyee View Loop Road appears to have been the name of this road, but its days as a path for vehicle transportation has passed. 

There were nearly no birds here. I got Cassin's Finch and Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and. . . a lot of quiet. It was so neat to walk along this road where huge chunks had eroded way, where rockslides had covered large bits. Geology was just showing that, in this case, human construction was not a significant factor.

I actually stumbled across a chair along the "road", next to a large ponderosa pine with the quote: "Walk Tall" - Big Ben. Special spot that I stumbled on. I didn't take a seat, but enjoyed the view.

This was around where I took the picture from the start of the post. This view, just to be clear, is from the foothills of Badger Mountain. Badger Mountain Road, in fact, has a spur that continues right into Tyee Valley View Road. I didn't walk too too far up the road, as reaching a crest suddenly exposed the walk to some cold wind. I called it quits on the walk and turned back towards the car. 

One thing that struck me on the way down was how pretty the road had become. This picture may only hint at it, and even then only with a generous zoom, but the sun was hitting some of the quartz that had been weathered away from the rocks and deposited on the road. Without any distractions from birds, I enjoyed little things like this on the way down. 

Waterville to Jack's Resort

Highway 2 took me right to Waterville. I actually turned South from there to hit the Waterville STP. This is a wonderful place with some great birds. It also happens to not be available for public visits. I don't know if that has always been the case, but a careful look at the signs confirmed what I had heard from others. From the road, I was still able to scope out some distant Northern Shovelers (131), which had been reported there from earlier in the day. 

I wanted to stop in Waterville for lunch, but nowhere was quite open yet, so I continued onward. I do promise to come back and spend some time in this town!

Down Highway 2, one eventually comes to Moses Coulee, with options to head South, or North to Jameson Lake, and Jack's resort. The latter was my destination, and I hoped that there would be a restaurant there, perhaps.

The drive up Jameson Lake Road seemed promising, with talus littered at the feet of basalt cliffs. I was hoping for Rock Wren or White-throated Swift, but got neither. Jameson Lake itself was full of ducks, including huge numbers of Redheads. I also saw a Hooded Merganser - a bird that was pretty common earlier in the year, but I only saw this one time during my April trip. 

The resort itself was closed, which wasn't clear from their website. Some searching when I got back revealed that fire had reached the resort back in September. The story I found was brief, but it didn't sound great. I've reached out to the resort to see if there are any updates I can add here. It was really a place I had hoped to visit. If they do reopen, I'll be sure to do so.

Osprey - Jameson Lake

Try, try again

At this point, I made a trip through the East side ponds that I had visited the previous day: Atkins, 6th and N, Jolly's, and Highway 17. Atkins Lake was once more, just a wide swath of lightly damp earth. The body of water off to the West of it (Atkins Jr?) continued to hold no more than a handful of Northern Pintails. 

"Atkins Junior" - see what happens if you don't name bodies of water, folks?

At Saint Andrews Farms, I stopped again with dreams of a Virginia Rail, and got something expected but unexpected - Ring-necked Pheasant (132). As noted in the previous day's post, these birds have been hiding pretty well, despite all of this travel through good habitat. Hearing a pheasant crow in the distance was a small victory. Now it's just those Gray Partridge holding out.

6th and N was where I hit the mini-jackpot. Black-necked Stilts! (133). There was also a small group of Greater Yellowlegs that had not been there just one day earlier. My late friend Pete Fahey was a font of wisdom, and in this case would have explained the observation with, "Birds. Fly." The cast of characters can change pretty quickly in a good spot during migration. A Savannah Sparrow (134) popped up onto a wire at this site as well.

Jolly's Pond and Highway 17 pond had no surprises, and the Dunlin from the previous day had exited the latter site. This is the point where I went down Highway 2 and found a Great Egret, as mistakenly described in my April 11th post. This is the risk of going to a lot of places twice in consecutive days on little sleep!

Back door to the Palisades

I swung down Whitehall Road, and actually dipped into Grant County for a little bit before coming back up to Road 24, where I had started birding on Sunday. Here I saw a hawk on the ground. My first thought: Ferruginous Hawk! They often perch on the ground, and I had been down in this end of the county in hopes of stumbling across one. 

I got a good look at the bird, and my second thought was "Nope. Red-tailed Hawk." This was a dark bird, most 'rugies are lightly colored, and most RTHA sized birds are actually RTHAs. 

The bird flew up to a post, and I couldn't quite see the tail at first glance. I did, however see the folded wings, and they were cleanly dark without the typical white "backpack straps" that a Red-tailed Hawk might have. So my third thought at this point was "This is not a Red-tailed Hawk. 

I got pictures, and figured I'd look later. When I pulled it up and saw no white chin patch, my fourth thought was "This is not a Swainson's Hawk." A quick internet search led me to images that, on some points, matched my image pretty well.

So my fifth thought was an excited, "This is a dark morph Ferruginous Hawk!" My sixth thought was thankfully the thought that I was likely wrong on this point, so I reached out to Tweeters, the local birding listserv with a query. 

"One thing I'll tell you it's not is a Ferruginous Hawk," was one reply from a birder who pointed out that FEHAs have feathered tarsi (fluffy legs), and this bird had no such thing. Again a quick search, and *every* image I found of these hawks showed me quickly that the bird pictured was not a Ferruginous Hawk. This was my. . . what are we up to? I think my 7th thought.

My 8th thought was delivered by several respondents, "That's a Swainson's Hawk." (135) It took a little more searching on this one, but it turns out that thought number four above was in error. Dark morph Swainson's Hawks aren't rocking the white goatee.

This. . .was a lot of typing for a single bird, which might be a nice break for people who have been wondering when I'd actually talk about birds in this blog! For me, the experience was valuable - as a wet-sider, the opportunities to see Ferruginous and Swainson's Hawks are nearly non-existent, and Red-tails are so variable that . . . a set of quick "tells" has not fully developed in this birder. Not yet. We'll see how much of this sticks!

I continued along the road towards the Palisades. No new birds here, just stunning views, and a single Chukar - my only one for this particular trip. 

Wrap up

I got back to the Cedars Inn, and it was a full evening and morning of writing before I was clear to slip out of the hotel at 9 AM. I made one stop at Porter's Pond on the Columbia on the way out, and found three Greater-white Fronted Geese (136). At this point, I was pretty content to make my way home. 

April brought me a nice bird list, and some restoration. Birds I missed? Sandhill Crane was actually the one that was most expected, and one where I'm a little worried down the road that I'll miss. Greater Sage-Grouse would have fallen into the same category if it wasn't on such a steep decline in the county. So I'd say the pleasant surprises outweighed these misses by quite a bit. Continuing to trust in some good spots and returning certainly paid off several times. 

May. . . there are so many birds coming in May. I haven't even really started to plan that trip out, but it's going to be a doozy!

Until then.