So Long, and Thanks for all the Egrets

 

This from Frenchman's Bar. I had gotten out the door from the Black's fairly early in the morning. Starbucks provided my coffee as I poked at a little bit of writing and kept an eye on the Clark County reports. A quick trip over to Vancouver Lake had gotten me a Western Grebe for 151 species for the year in Clark. A Herring Gull at Frenchman's Bar made it 152. 

It was nice to see the water lapping up on the shores of the Columbia as I walked back, removing my footprints. It made me think of the beauty of the cycle of a year. New Years and ne starts. water coming in and washing away the marks of the past. In the end, it all gets washed away, for all of the events in life, from our embarrassments to our vanities. 

We get to start each year at zero. In some ways we do. And we have to start each year at zero. In some ways we do. There's measures of freedom and responsibility both in there.

I liked this year. No regrets. Just egrets. So many egrets. To be fair, I didn't get to 175 for the life lists in *any* of these counties, but as Russ might point out, "That just means you get to come back!"

Gladly!

Sandhill Cranes flying past Mount Saint Helens - from Frenchman's Bar

2023 actually ended in Yakima for me. Dropping my son off at college and visiting my mom. I even had a chance to drive Riverside Drive out on the east side of Yakima to do a quick bit of birding. I picked up my 200th species in the county here I'd grown up. You'll never guess what it was! 

December 28th - Wahkiakum Christmas Bird Count

What was this guy thinking??

I was admittedly anxious for this day. I'd come up with this idea that I could find 150 species of birds in four counties in the Southwest corner of Washington State in 2023. I'd completed the mission in three counties (Clark, Skamania, and Cowlitz), back on October 31st, and then just put it all aside for a couple of months. All I had left as three species in Wahkiakum County, with plans to come don for the Christmas Bird Count. Even if the birds were there, car trouble, or any number of other wrenches could have gone into the proverbial works -- sinking a year of birding in Wahkiakum (with plans to have a 150 year in every county in the state, I'd need to revisit it deeply in another year). 

I got my assignment - the west half of Puget Island, which I would be birding with Kevin Black. The day was not without possibilities!

Waterfowl: Snow Goose, Redhead, Ruddy Duck

Gallinaceous Goodies: Ring-necked Pheasant, California Quail

Grebes: Eared and Red-necked - both Code 4

Shorebirds: Black-bellied Plover, Dunlin, Sanderling - unlikely, but I'd been thinking of the sandy beach at Ostervold Point.

Gulls: Bonaparte's, Herring 

Loons: Pacific, Yellow-billed! (One had been seen near the county border during the previous week - it had been noted that the bird could be chased by boat, but apparently nobody took the time to get in a boat and chase it to Puget Island.... disappointing. lol)

Raptors: White-tailed Kite, Sharp-shinned Hawk, American Goshawk, Rough-legged Hawk

Owls: Short-eared, and an odd sighting of Northern Pygmy to follow up on

Falcons: Merlin, or a very unlikely Gyrfalcon

Flycatchers: Tropical Kingbird has been seen in winter once on Puget Island!

Shrikes: Northern

Horned Lark - unlikely, but there's a little sand at Ostervold!

White-breasted Nuthatch - recently sighted, and another nice patch with an older historical record

Thrushes: Mountain Bluebird (Come on... why not?)

American Pipit

Finches: Lesser Goldfinch, Common Redpoll

Sparrows: Swamp, Lincoln's, White-throated, and other even less likely things like American Tree or Harris's

Based on this, based on Kevin's needs list, and based on other hoped-for birds during the count, I constructed fanciful bingo sheets for Kevin and me: 

Kevin's Bingo Sheet

My Bingo Sheet

It was fun to have Kevin try to decipher this, but he eventually got up to speed on the Redhead, quail, Red-necked Grebe, etc. in the sheets. Some, like Wrentit, were not going to happen, but if they did. . . how fun to have a Bingo sheet calling out the discovery, right??

The joys of vehicle ownership

My car's check engine light had come on a couple eeks earlier. At the auto shop, they had identified it as a thermostat issue. It had turned off as I left, of course. . . and the holidays came. . . and the light remained off, so. . . I did the holidays rather than bringing it in to get it fixed. 

Noooooooo!

Kevin stopped in at the Longview Fred Meyer to pick me up at 6:00 or so. My plans for these days had not included a visit to an auto repair place, or lodging in Longview, but I'd have to sort some of that out later. From there, it was on to Puget Island!

First birds of the day

I usually reserve the parenthetical stuff for my running yearlist total, but I'll see if I can't reproduce our CBC efforts here. It had been brought to our attention that a birder had recently found 80 species in this area on the CBC. ???!!! I had looked over the list, and as pretty amazed by this, but it was certainly in reach on a good day! The wind was blowing from the east, however, so I knew it might be a tough go as far as seabirds. A west wind might blow them up the Columbia a little bit, but the conditions might just make for slim pickings on the water, I figured. 

Kevin and I hit an area that we knew as good for owls, having gotten permission from the homeowner to additionally walk the grounds once the sun as up to hit the feeders. Strolling up and down the main road here, we got Barn Owls, (1 species for the day) first heard, and then seen flying into the grove of trees. At one point, I as able to see one of the birds silhouetted against the sky with some kind of rodent in its maw.

One of the neighbors as up and about as Kevin and I walked the roads. we actually had a good conversation with him - especially given that we were walking around at dusk with binoculars. when he learned we were doing this through the Audubon Society, he got talking about birds he had seen recently on a trip up to Skagit County. "But not near as many Bald Eagles. . ." he related. It's on the one hand, really cool that people are tuned into patterns like that. It's the hole reason that we do the Christmas Bird Count! To see if species are increasing or decreasing in abundance. 

And part of the beauty of the CBC is that it really does consider long-term trends and includes details like weather and effort data to ensure that fair comparisons are being made. So, in the case of this fellow, he may have had some concerns that were based on fairly anecdotal data (Bald Eagles in Skagit are, to my understanding, thriving these days!). But you see this even within the birding community! On a Christmas Bird Count in King County a number of years back, I remember Western Grebe was missed on the count. This brought a long moment of silence from the count compiler. . . "And that may be the end of Western Grebes on this count. . ." he announced somberly.

It has not been the end. :D Just a few years where the birds spent their time elsewhere, interpreted with excitement by a young-ish compiler. But the CBC turns up important trends for so many different species. Western Screech-Owl comes to mind as one that has been getting harder and harder to find as Barred Owls move in. And climate change has slowly encouraged several species to inch northward each year. This is especially visible in Wahkiakum, here you see Black Phoebes, Great Egrets, and California Scrub-Jays rising so sharply in abundance over time. Across many Christmas Bird Counts, and many years, the efforts to make it a controlled scientific effort pay off in helping us to understand how species change in abundance over time. Even those short- to medium-term shifts in location are important signs of change, and important to monitor. 

Great Blue Heron (2), Song Sparrow (3), American Wigeon (4), and Mallard (5) called from some et fields. Other "junk" birds called as well, and we made diligent counts - part of the fun of the CBC, as we might normally just overlook some of the starlings, etc. Eurasian Collared Dove (6), European Starling (7), House Sparrow (8), House Finch (9), Red-winged Blackbird (10), Spotted Towhee (11), Black-capped Chickadee (12), and American Robin (13) were among the additions as the sun slowly thought about rising. 

Black-capped Chickadee at feeder

Anna's Hummingbird

Checking the feeders, more birds shoed up: Chestnut-backed Chickadee (14, and a tough one on Puget Island!), Golden-crowned Sparrow (15), and Anna's Hummingbird (16). In the distance, I heard a Bewick's Wren calling (17), and the repetitive call of a Black Phoebe (18). Pacific Wren (19) also chipped from some gathered up piles of branches. Lush, soggy, grassy fields - commonplace on Puget Island - proved to be good habitat for a number of raptors. Spotted on various perches were Red-tailed Hawk (20), Northern Harrier (21), American Kestrel (22), Bald Eagle (23), and even a Great Horned Owl (24).

Continuing along the property line, other birds heard at a distance included Red-winged Blackbird (25), Northern Flicker (26), Cackling Goose (27), and Golden- and Ruby-crowned Kinglets (28-29). At one point, Kevin slipped away to the car, and I caught the best bird of the day. Great Egret!! (30) In comparison to the "Good" Blue Herons, I mean. . . it was just no contest. 

Kevin called me back to a chicken pen, where a number of sparrows were feeding on the ground. This included new birds, such as Dark-eyed Junco (31) and White-crowned Sparro (32), and my first new year bird for Wahkiakum - a White-throated Sparrow! (33 for the day, 148 for the year). 

A few passes through the list told me that the other two birds at that location were Common Raven (34), and California Scrub-Jay (35). Sounds about right. 

It had gotten just late enough that I was wanting to move along - headed towards Ostervold Point, where we had chances for some seabirds, gulls, shorebirds, etc etc. 

Birnie Slough Road

This was interesting, just in terms of "how do you make sure birds aren't double-counted?" Birnie Slough runs between Little Island and Puget Island. The other team on Puget Island for the day would also be counting birds from Little Island, so they got the birds in Birnie Slough - up to the end of Little Island. Along the road, and in fields to the south, we picked up some more expected birds: Brewer's Blackbird (36), American Crow (37), and some large flocks of Pine Siskins (38 - and nice to see after they had been so conspicuously absent in the previous winter).

Kevin and I had Pink and Green here

Black Phoebe in the dredge pits. At a distance,
its call echoed off of the sides, giving us a 
nice double-note, and tricking us briefly into
thinking of American Pipit!

This eventually got us to Ostervold Point. I had spent most of the year unaware of this spot but had visited it in October with other birders. I'd added no birds then, but the sandy shore had been so full of gulls, I had high hopes! I had also thought that the East wind might lead some species to take a little leeward shelter nearby. 

Nope! We did add some species for the day: Fox Sparrow (39), Glaucous-winged Gull (40), Downy Woodpecker (41), Double-crested Cormorant (42), Horned Grebe (43), Greater and Lesser Scaup (44, 45), Belted Kingfisher (46), Bufflehead (47), Common Merganser (48), and Hooded Merganser (49). But one of the spots I'd really hoped would get me another year bird had failed to do so. I still believe in this spot - go bird there!

Kevin, giving a Horned Grebe a closer look

Southside

The southwest-facing stretch of the island is interesting. It's got some nice fields to the East, giving us plenty of blackbirds to count (no cowbirds to be found), and even a Red-Shouldered Hawk (50). The road itself doesn't continue along the entirety of the island, turning sharply inward along Welcome Slough, and then curling sharply back to shore on the other side of the slough. This slough did give us some new birds as well, including some Ring-necked Ducks (51), and Pied-billed Grebe (52).

The road becomes Sunny Sands Road as it hits the Columbia again. One of the nicer stops e made during the day as at a heavily treed home. There had to be feeders, I'd think, based on the number of birds, but we never saw any. Just scads of sparrows (Golden-crowned and White-crowned, Spotted Towhee, Dark-eyed Junco, and Fox), more robins than we'd seen anywhere on the count, and our only warblers of the day - Yellow-rumped and Townsend's. (53, 54). Varied Thrushes eluded us all day, making me sad.

I spotted a bit of habitat that looked right enough for Lincoln's sparrow. I didn't get a picture - not of the habitat; not of the sparrow, but: 

Lincoln's Sparrow habitat

There were two of them in here, and they did as Lincoln's Sparrow's do. A few call notes (similar to a Fox Sparrow, but. . . I always feel like Lincoln's is not all "smack" but includes a little more spitting, like.. it's expressing disgust? Lol, we all do what we can for audio.) A bird popped up - long enough to look like a Lincoln's, then dropped back in, with timing completely unrelated to any pishing or playback we did. Lincoln's pop up when they want to, by and large. But hey! 55 for the day, and 149 for the year.

Back on the Columbia, we pulled off for lunch at a spot that I'd missed on previous trips to Puget Island. 

Svensen Boat Ramp

From here we found 8.3 trillion scaup - a dark line of them running towards the shores of Coffee Pot. Our first and only Western Grebe was here, as well as Canada Geese (56), and a Spotted Sandpiper (57).

so... many... scaup...

Spotted Sandpiper

No Tufted Ducks hanging around in the raft of scaup, but Mourning Doves (58) joined the Eurasian Collared-Doves here.

Kevin and I continued to the Ferry Landing and scanned fruitlessly for a bit. The other half of the island had come across a Franklin's Gull, but it had flown up the Columbia, so it couldn't have been relocated by us with any ease.

Coffee in Cathlamet

Kevin and I drove to Cathlamet to regroup and recaffeinate at Patty Cakes. I pulled out the laptop to look for any sightings and to look over patterns in old sightings, trying to dig up some birds for us to go after. It felt like it made sense to return to some of the areas where we'd been owling in the morning, perhaps to pick up a Northern Pygmy Owl. They'd run out of drip coffee during our order, so we got our coffee to go (Kevin's with oat milk!) and off we ran. 

Mission Accomplished

At one of the owling spots from the morning, Kevin and I split up. I found myself walking a forest/field edge, when an owl dove out of its camouflaged position in a tree, dove under a nearby branch, and swooped up and out of sight to another perch. The most striking field mark - lightly colored wrist patches. I'd seen those before! Boom. Short-eared Owl! 

I got Kevin over, and he calmly explained to me that no Short-eared Owl had ever acted the way this one had acted. "It had to be a Long-eared," he told me - the first of eleven people over the course of the day to explain this before I decided to make a call. There had been one other piece of evidence for this bird that put the last piece together for me. As we had owled here in the morning, we had been listening for Great Horned Owl, and got a single low hoot. Long-eared Owls make that call. . . and it doesn't sound too unlike a Great Horned Owl in quality. It's just that. . . Great Horned is only rarely going to just call once. 

So, I could have continued to consider the idea of a Short-eared Owl leaving a perch about 8 feet in the air and flying directly to another tree on the edge of a field. And I could continue to consider a Great Horned Owl giving a single hoot. Or I could just explain both with a single Long-eared Owl. Unlikely as they are, they are really under-detected in Western Washington. The order of events is of course mixed up here, but this turned out to be bird 150 for the year in Wahkiakum for me! and 59 for the day.

Cross Dike Road

Great stop here. We finally got out of the car (parked perilously on the side of a nearly shoulderless road...) and did a bit of walking. From the soggy edges of the road, we got American Coot (60), and Marsh Wren (61). Killdeer! As I'm typing this up days later, I'm trying to figure out the birds I've missed in this tally, and that's one - from several stops during the day (62). And just for a bit of gravy, we came across one more year bird for me - Swamp Sparrow! (63 for the day, 151 for the year). 

As always, the view of the Swamp Sparrow was long, and satisfactory. 

lol

These birds make Lincoln's Sparrows seem like exhibitionists. It called periodically from the water at the bottom of the roadside ditch, popping up once, just long enough to not look like a Black Phoebe (which has a similar call), and diving back in to remain silent. Someday, I'd love to have that long, satisfactory look at a Swamp Sparrow, but today was not that day.

Had to dive and roll for this Great Egret shot.
Totally worth it.

At the far end of this road, we came across a field with thousands of Cackling Geese. I . . . got too close and startled them before we could do a proper scan, although in flight there were clearly no Snow Geese. 

Back to the car, and we started towards Ostervold and Birnie Slough, hoping for some new waterfowl and maybe Bushtits. Along the way, we stopped as we spotted a Peregrine Falcon on a treetop (64).

Ostervold and Birnie Slough again

Hoping for some new species, we gave these spots another try. It was so crazy to see the tide had completely consumed the dredgey beach. Kevin and I had to walk the "cliff" between the now soggy path, and the dredge pit. From the top, we scanned and found no new birds on the water, then got five swans flying past - at least one of them being a Tundra (65) by call. 

And... Bushtit on Birnie Slough was 66. . . and we detoured up Hendrickson Road to find Gadwall for 67. For the life of me, I can't reconstruct (on the third of January now) what three other birds we located during the day, so maybe we actually were short of 70 - a number I'd hastily come up with, counting up the scrawls on our tally sheet! Not 80, at any rate, not by a good stretch. So, hat's off to folks that had squeezed a few more birds out of the area!

Tally ho!

I look forward to the after-count "party", and this one happened at the Duck Inn in Skamokawa (skuh MOCK uh way, for those of you new to all of this). I had a chance to cross paths with some of the good people I'd birded with during the year, and a few others besides, as we ate and drank in one of the cabanas out back. It was a fine place for us to meet, and the waitress handled the group quite well. Gosh, we talked a lot about that owl. Other fun birds found during the day included American Bittern, a leucistic Red-tailed Hawk, Horned Larks from the kayaking groups, and a Mallard-Pintail hybrid. 

Russ and Becky had come over from Longview - an annual thing for them. And they were able to do some recruiting for kayakers to hit the islands in the Columbia on the Cowlitz CBC happening a couple days later. 

Kevin needed to slip out early to relieve his wife who had been on watch-the-little-guy duty all day in his absence. I got a ride back to Longview with Russ. "So. . . where's it going to be next year?" If anyone *gets* the ridiculous way I've approached county birding in Washington, it's Russ. But folks, I didn't have a county to give him as my destination for 2024. There'll be one, no doubt. I'm just taking a few days to let the last year digest properly, and . . . as odd as it may sound. . . I may chase some birds to start the next year!

Now, to clarify, if a Cerulean Warbler shows up in Jefferson County, just as a crazy forexample, I may go running after that sucker, kind of hoping to find it, but maybe more hoping to get a *really* good start on a year. Any time there's a great bird out there, it pulls in a lot of birders, and they usually find a couple more good birds, populating eBird with all kinds of good reports. I have a short-ish list of counties I'm inclined to do, but that is presently the "plan" for the start of the year. No clear indications yet, but I'll see what shows up!

Finis

I actually had time to get to Auto Zone before it closed. They scanned it. "You're fine!" "But. . . there's a check engine light..." "Oh, that's not a bad code. You're fine!" 

I'm oversimplifying the conversation, but in short, I felt safe enough driving it down to Vancouver to stay with the Blacks. 

Safe in bed, and mission accomplished for the year, by the skin of my teeth!

October 31st - November Trip, Day 3

Hooboy. I just looked at my posts, and it really sunk in: I have spent six of my days in October in the southwest corner of the state in some form or another. This, in part, is why I'm clarifying here - these are not extra October days. This is like. . . my November trip. I really don't plan on heading down in November itself. Balance. Balance is good.

The previous day, I'd found my 150th (and 151st) species in Skamania County. I woke up at the Society Hotel in Bingen and made an early break for it. I wanted to try for some owls and was up early enough to give it a go. 

First stops were along the river, and it was just far too windy. I took the road up to Carson, stopping at some great spots and enjoying some windless owling. My main target here was Northern Saw-whet Owl. At each stop, I'd whistle for 30 seconds or so, wait another half minute, and repeat that a couple times before departing. This had landed me 2 or 3 NSWOs in Wahkiakum County a few weeks back, but I totally struck out here. This included other stops up Wind River Road and one of the side roads from there. Great weather! Starry skies! No owls. 

I also tried for Barn Owl at the intersection of Marble and Fitzgerald Road. The catch was, it was just way too windy. I saw the barn that Wilson had described to me - a barn on the Clark County side of the road. I was hoping to catch an owl returning to the barn, and trace back its steps to determine it had been in Skamania. I could totally see where the evening variation of this effort would make a lot more sense. On a less windy day!

So, I continued, leaving Skamania County and landing at Steigerwald NWR. Here, I slept until I heard the automatic gate swing open. 

I was pretty excited to jump in and try to find birds 149 and 150 for my Clark year. With two counties down, the path to the final goal (150 birds in Skamania, Clark, Cowlitz, and Wahkiakum Counties) was feeling in reach. Here, I had hopes of finding Common Mergansers, Pine Siskins, White-throated Sparrow, Coopers Hawk, Common Loon or Western Grebe. 

Once I parked and stepped out of the car, I knew it was going to be a good morning. Clear as a bell and calm. But. . . then I walked the 50 feet up onto the berm, and the wind started its mistreatment of me that would last through the morning. It was worse up top, and really interfered with finding any birds. American Pipits were able to cut through the gales with their snappy "pipit" call. Cackling Geese. . . well three billion of anything is going to be easy enough to find, yeah? Northern Harriers and American Kestrels were also easy to pick out throughout the morning. 

American Kestrel playing in the wind

I started running through backup plans, on the assumption that I would find no new birds. The hard thing was, many of the Year Needs Alerts I was getting on eBird were for birds that are a little tough to chase (such as Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawk), had been seen too many days ago (such as Surf Scoter), or were not all that accessible (numerous White-throated Sparrows at peoples' houses), or were Ridgefield (sit in your car, driving ten feet at a time through a loop, and maybe THIS time, you'll see the American Bitterns!). None of these options sounded all that appealing. 

More pipits. More harriers. I even passed some ducks as I walked along the elevated path. I turned the corner and started in towards the center of the refuge. To my surprise, the water that had been here on every other visit was absent. Great Blue Herons perched in the fields here and there, but no bird sounds were really reaching me through the wind. 

Over the bridge, the path entered a forested patch, and things became more interesting. Bewick's and Pacific Wrens called from the path's edge. Golden-crowned Sparrows, Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, and both kinglets joined them. I made it to the end. . . and the water was still impossibly far away. I could see waterfowl in my binoculars, but nothing was recognizable.

The water at the end of the path

Then. . .Pine Siskins! (149 for the Clark year)

A flock of 20 Pine Siskins flew overhead, giving their chattering calls before landing in trees in the distance. One more species. I was pretty certain that it would end up being Common Merganser, if I could just have a better view of some water. What a funny species to be looking for at 150! They're not an uncommon bird, per se, but in Clark they seem to be "everywhere and nowhere" to quote my Clark friend, Kevin Black. 

I retraced the two miles (if I read the signs correctly?) which brought me up on top of the berm once more. 

Boom. Common Mergansers. 150! Three counties down, Wahkiakum to go. 

Washougal

The
Washougal Starbucks was home to my celebratory cup of coffee. I plugged in and looked things over. It was early in the day, and my daughter didn't need to get picked up until 7 that evening. I was here in this neck of the woods, and I felt like I should make another birding stop or two if I could find one that made sense. 

In Clark. . . yeah, there were chances to make it 151. And I am kind of a fan of that idea! Lest I get lumped down to 149 somewhere out in the future when they decide that crows and ravens are the same species (okay, not them, but . . . we had just lost a flycatcher this way - you follow me?). But I saw no new breadcrumbs that really called for me to make more stops.

I looked at Wahkiakum. I mean. . . I could swing over to Wahkiakum. There's got to be some American Pipits waiting for me out there somewhere? Or the White-throated Sparrow that Jake had reported from Julia Butler? 

And Cowlitz. Yes, I'd passed through Woodland Bottoms just a few days earlier. But Common Loon and Western Grebe were among the new sightings that had popped up since then. And was it really too early for Rough-legged Hawk? 

I even considered trips to other counties! Pacific County was going a little crazy with bird sightings. A Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, and a King Eider were among some of the rarities that had been seen, but I did the math. I was two and a half hours from home. . . or I was two and a half hours from Tokeland, which was two and a half hours from home. This had been a long trip, and I've never been much of a chaser. 

Thurston County stood out as well. Thurston was actually the first county outside of King where I'd found 150 species in a year. My life list, however, was still sitting at 170, and it was on the way home. A dozen or so possibilities were sitting there in my needs alerts - Black-bellied Plover, Whimbrel, American White Pelican, Lincoln's Sparrow, American Pipit, Red-shouldered Hawk, Redhead, Tundra Swan, Pileated Woodpecker. . . It would be an easy stop and a walk at Nisqually to make a try for them and try to squeeze out five more. It would sure be nice to see it crest 175 species!

And the answer is. . . 

Hello again, Woodland Bottoms! I couldn't help myself. I wanted a chance to get some of those species that were likely out there. I got nice and turned around, honestly - following my GPS suggestion to take Pekin Road, only to take it to a dead end. Trying to make my way out to the Columbia, I grabbed Whalen Road going through the center of the bottoms. Along the way, I passed a pumpkin patch, with a vast parking area (few cars on a weekday morning - and on Halloween itself, no less!) and a massive flock of Cackling Geese on the far side. I pulled in, and parked. 

"You can walk on back!" I was encouraged by . . . the owner? Not sure, but I took him up on it. 

Two Snow Geese were sitting in the midst of this lake of Cackling Geese, my 151st Cowlitz bird for the year (and my 167th life bird in the county - a number I was keenly paying attention to as the year was drawing to a close!). 

Yeah, I tried for the other birds. I scanned the empty waters of the Columbia from several beautiful vantage points. Nothing nothing nothing. But what a beautiful day! I was mildly jealous for people that lived nearby, knowing that they had such easy access to such a relaxing spot (we have some beaches even up in King, but traffic prevents me from calling them easily accessible!). Yeah. . . the plastic bottle floating by. . . it didn't kill the vibe, but like, roughed it up a little bit. 

I also saw a gull soaring on the far side of the river. "You. Are in Oregon." I told the gull, quietly enough that it could not have possibly had its feelings hurt. 

At this point, I made a beeline for home. I suppose that was yesterday, wasn't it? It's been a blur of blogging since then, as well as an evening of college applications and handing out candy to trick-or-treaters with my daughter. 

30 days done! Three birds to go. 

And yes. This is really it! My plans at present are to head back down for the Christmas Bird Count in Wahkiakum on the 28th of December, and like. . . just stay there until I hit 150. :) Unless you start seeing some very miserable Tweeters posts on the 29th... 30th... I should be able to scrape those last birds out. 

Right? 

October 30th - November Trip, Day Two

Spring Creek Fish Hatchery

Near the mouth of the White Salmon River

I was up good and early at the Society Hotel in Bingen, got dressed, and got some breakfast when the cafe opened at 7. After a half-windy half-day in Skamania the day before, I made the Spring Creek Fish Hatchery my first stop. The wind had not seemed to get quite so funneled here, so I had hopes of finding some of the birds on my dwindling needs list. What did I expect to find? 

White-throated Sparrow, White-breasted Nuthatch - seen on a recent visit. 

Sharp-shinned Hawk - seen on a recent visit, but not the kind of bird I would ever "count" on. They are perfectly capable of staying hunkered down in a tree, out of sight, even if a mob of crows comes in to protest. 

Herring Gull - Please? Bonaparte's Gull - maybe??

Red-necked Grebe, Surf Scoter, Pacific Loon - outside shots. These might normally be in the county by now, but an East wind does not work to push these birds in the right direction. 

Um. . . I don't know. Lewis's Woodpecker?? I think I had these in my head, as one had spent some time here in a past winter. 

Distant Mutt Gull

I pulled in, and immediately got on a gull out on the water. It teased me from several different angles into thinking it had dark primary tips, but it turned out to be a hybrid gull. I pulled in immediately as the main drive started to become a little more lined with trees and brambles. Things got off to an encouraging start! Spotted Towhees, Dark-eyed Juncos, Golden-crowned Sparrows, California Scrub-Jays, Song Sparrows, and even a Fox Sparrow came out into plain view on the side of the road. The air was calm, the sky was clear, and it just felt like it was going to be a good day of birding. Some Varied Thrushes "tshcup tschup"ped from the trees ahead, and I felt even more certain about this. 

Good signs

I started to do the drive a little stop a little plan but decided no. I was certain I'd miss birds that way. I drove to the far end of the hatchery, got out, and began a focused exploration. I even made a decision to photograph as many birds as possible along the way. I figured anything to slow me down would increase the odds that I would find every dang bird in the park. 

I definitely have visits that are a little less careful - often on days where I may have multiple stops to make and a wide range of habitat to cover. But this was the time to slowbird for sure.

Common Mergansers

Early on, it was American Robins and a Downy Woodpecker that had my attention. 

Some flyovers included Great Blue Heron, Common Raven, and Bald Eagle.

Common Raven, bottom left; Bald Eagle, top right

Great Blue Heron

And then I had a chance to see some of the Varied Thrushes that had been calling gently from the trees.

Varied Thrush. My favorite bird <3

And some of the sparrows that I'd usually pass by: Dark-eyed Junco and Spotted Towhee:

Some birds simply didn't show themselves - Lesser Goldfinches were a surprise, calling with their distinctive "Tweeyou!" calls. Northern Flicker was definitely not a surprise, although they stayed surprisingly out of view throughout the morning. I also heard a bird that I had no hope of seeing from the hatchery - Canyon Wren! (148 for the year!). 

The bird called from the hillsides above the hatchery with its distinctive "jeet... jeet... jeet" call. Just enough times to grab my attention, stopping as I'd try to record it, and starting up a few minutes later after the phone was away. I was confused on these birds for much of the year. I thought they'd been recorded here, but then thought maybe I'd mixed up my Fish Hatcheries, as they were recorded during the year from Little White Salmon. As it turns out, they have been recorded from *both* locations! This is a bird I could easily have missed, had I not decided to slow things down this morning. 

I haven't seen many Golden Eagles. . . Just enough to get excited about this bird, because of the placement of those white patches under the wing. But I've come to believe that all of that other white sprinkled around the undersides of this bird make it a juvenile Bald Eagle. The white and black on the tail is the right kind of arrangement for a Golden Eagle - in a very general sense, but the black here is too thin, and too messy. Bald Eagle.

Red-breasted Sapsucker

Quiet mornings seem to be a good set up for finding woodpeckers. I followed the tapping to a tree and found this Red-breasted Sapsucker hard at work. I also heard, but never got shots of, several chickadees. There were some that clearly sounded like Black-capped, while others skirted the line between Chestnut-backed, Mountain, or even just. . . juvenile hoarse Black-capped. None ended up being close enough to even view in binoculars. An Anna's Hummingbird also evaded my binocs.

Some other little birds did cooperate: 

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Golden-crowned Kinglet; /the Ruby-crowned Kinglets were visible, but caffeinated as always

And then the silence paid off once more! A White-throated Sparrow sang from a side path. I followed it off of the main road and came across a thick pile of zono sparrows - all Golden-crowned that I could see, but also a little backlit as I found them East of me in the morning sun. I walked slowly towards them. . . and they flew across the little retention pond. I continued. . . turned. . . waited. . . and some slowly flew back in. I studied them again but could not find the White-throated in the bunch. But more of the birds were back up near the main road where I had started, so I returned and pished. 

I got a nice view of the White-throated's head - the white and yellow lores being a feature unique to them. The bird dipped down, and I got my camera out to try for a shot of bird number 149 for my Skamania year.

And the guy with the off-leash dog arrived, flushing the sparrows to remote locations. 

It's not a stretch to say that most of the people reading this are birders. Not all, but most. And I know y'all. Some of you are pretty patient with things like this, but many of you are not. An even smaller portion of you would even take the opportunity to say something snippy. I said *many* of these things in my head, but the man instantly defused the situation.

"I bet we're looking at the same thing!" he told me beaming. 

"Oh. . . ?" I asked, a little intrigued.

"The egret over there! Right?"

Great Egret

So. . . this is pretty much my favorite thing that has happened this year. Well played Egrets. Well played indeed. 

We chatted for a bit about them, and quite honestly, they're not as common here as other places I've visited during the year. Yeah, a pic of that sparrow would have been nice, but birds fly, man. Birds fly. They continued on, and so! Did I.

149. Hm. . . I also had to look at the time. You see, I had signed up for a wine club membership with Willow Wines very early in the year. I had a few bottles to pick up and had told the owner that I'd arrive around 10. My watch told me that I was about 15 minutes late for that, so I turned and started hustling back towards the car. 

About halfway back, a call from right over my head stopped me: 

White-breasted Nuthatch! Bird 150 for my Skamania year. Mission accomplished!

This was a happy find. I really had some doubts going into the day, so this really felt good to have bagged this bird. I enjoyed it for a half a minute more, and then *really* got hustling back to my car. 

Cook-Underwood Road and thereabouts

I made it up in the vicinity of 10:30-10:45, and picked up my wine, thanking Brendan for providing the bookends for the year. It was a close thing that I was even able to pick up the wine! During the summer, fires had hit this area, and had nearly gotten to their home. He expressed a lot of thankfulness for the work of local fire teams.

I returned East on Cook-Underwood Road, pulling off at that one beautiful wide pull-off.

Spring Creek Fish Hatchery from far above.

From here, I watched as a Cooper's Hawk sparred with a Common Raven. This went on for quite a while! It allowed for some nice pics to aid in identification, although the biggest one was again - the position of the head, and the bend (or lack thereof) at the fore of the wings.

Although I did briefly have hopes that this was a Sharpie! I was snapping pictures and looking at them on my viewfinder, and this one had me briefly excited that I might have bird 151: 

But even in this one, where the angle makes the arms look a little more pushed forward, the head seems to be pretty big. I was comfortable with Cooper's Hawk, given the image above!

I did want to make one more birding stop in the area - Little Buck Creek Road. One of the birds on my radar was. . . Western Bluebird?? There'd been a sighting from this time of year several years back, so I thought I'd give it a try. I birded windows down, enjoying the crisp fall air, and listening for birds. I first heard the "few few" of the bluebirds when I arrived at a large powerline cut.

The calls were distinctive enough, but I wanted to get pictures. I was also increasingly curious as I walked into the clearcut - there seemed to be a pretty big batch of bluebirds here! Finally, I got a semi-crappy photo of one of the birds. 

Western Bluebird - 151!

In the end, I counted ten of these birds, and enjoyed watching them work the open space before finally deciding that they'd had enough of me. 

Little White Salmon Fish Hatchery

This spot was also on the not-so-windy end of the county and has some good duck duck gull potential. I made a stop, and found some good birds: Barrow's Goldeneye, American Dipper, Western Gull, and a mess of Common Mergansers. 

Fish!

Stevenson

Now I was just hungry. I continued West to Stevenson and tried to enter the Walking Man Brewpub for the second time this year. It was closed for the second time this year, and I instead ended up going to the adjacent gift shop, Traverse PNW market. 

For my ex and my daughter, I picked up some gifts, (wine and a notebook respectively), and I had fun chatting with the two women in the shop (both employees? I guess I wasn't sure!). But I chatted with them about the year I'd been doing; Additionally, we got talking about the weather. I had a moment in the conversation that made me finally feel like a bona fide Skamania birdwatcher: 

"When the wind is blowing from the West like today. .  " the woman behind the counter started. I think many months ago I wouldn't have been able to tell you which way the wind was blowing, just that it was windy! But she corrected herself without any comment from me. Still, it felt like something had stuck. . . maybe only temporarily, but it stuck onto my Teflon brain. 

Apparently, the variability in wind that I had experienced is not only an East/West thing. The other woman was describing how she had just been up in "The Gifford Pin" foraging for mushrooms, and it had been not windy at all. The two of them, Stevenson residents and nearly neighbors, would even experience days where the wind at one person's home was different than the wind at the other's! I packed this information away, and decided I would try to hit areas upslope for owls the next morning. 

Red Bluff tap house was lunch. Oh my lord, the burger. . . jalapeno slices, cream cheese, bacon jam. Good lord, typing about it now and I almost want to hop back in the car! This stop gave me a chance to see if any more birds had popped up on my needs alert. 

Sharp-shinned Hawk - Spring Creek Fish Hatchery. Doesn't that just figure? I'd picked up 32 species on my walk, and one of the locals, and *outstanding* birder, came through and found 33 species basically right after I had departed! Nothing else was screaming at me to hop in the car and drive, so I strolled around town a little. I tried the drug store for a mug, but the Stevenson mugs. . . they just had that feel, like there was a factory somewhere cranking out the Stevenson mugs, then changing the name to Cle Elum. . . or Republic. I'm hoping to get one for 50 cents at a thrift store, ideally, emblazoned with the name of some local business. 

I went to the Rock Creek Pond in town, looked at the water, went back to my car, tipped the seat back and woke up ten minutes later. I was done birding for the day!

Returning to Bingen, I sat and sorted through pictures, working out plans for the next morning. I eventually got around to looking at the events page for Everybody's Brewing. They had live music going on, and I realized that I'd almost missed it! I hopped in the car and made it up to see the second half of the set from Megan Alder, a regular at their Live Music Mondays. 

That, a sampling of brews, and a Greek salad with some additional protein. That set me just right for the evening. I returned to the Society House, took advantage of the complimentary soak, and turned in for the night. 

Day 29 complete! This... feels doable.