January 2 - Big Winter Day in Wahkiakum County

The Cathlamet Hotel

I really am trying to be budget-minded with these trips, but it's always kind of fun to see what kind of hospitality and lodging is available in different parts of the state. So, with a day in Cowlitz County behind me, and a day in Wahkiakum ahead of me, I went ahead and stayed at the Cathlamet Hotel. It's tucked right on Main Street in town, and I am really looking forward to seeing that street when things are open sometime!

There are art galleries, a Mexican Restaurant, a pub, and a cafe at the very least. The hotel itself nearly could have called itself an art gallery! My room was on the second floor, and you could find art throughout the hallways, tucked in corners, in the kitchen area, in the library. As I got cleaned up and settled in the night before, I made a point of taking it in. Why not just pretend that admission to an art gallery was part of the bill for the night? 

Even so, it was reasonably priced for a weekend, my room was clean, and there were many options for breakfast the next morning. 

Wahkiakum County

This is the smallest county in the state. Additionally, the northern half of the county is basically just a bunch of gated-off logging roads, meaning that most of the good birding is found along the Columbia, with a few productive river valleys reaching North of the highway, and some farmland sprinkled around to the South. 

I have been very lucky to have spent time with birders in the county. It is easy to get to know a smaller county like the back of one's hand! Add to that some passion and skill, and there are almost always breadcrumbs to find on eBird to guide a person around the county. So, although I was going solo on this particular day, I had a fairly long list of birds I hoped to find. 

Cathlamet Wastewater Treatment Plant

There'd been a recent report of a White-throated Sparrow here, so right down the road seemed like a fine place to start. There's a nice little loop trail that crosses over Birnie Creek and back, right as it empties into the Columbia. I'm going to freely admit here that I had birds that confused me *heavily* through the morning with their calls. . . European Starlings (Bird number 1 for the Wahkiakum year list - a number I'll keep in parentheses throughout these blog posts whenever I first see a bird). 

I've heard starlings. I've heard them do a lot of varied calls, and I've heard them chattering in ways that are pretty familiar, including some familiar imitations. I've heard so many Killdeer calls from starlings, including many of them on this trip. But on this morning, they were doing an unfamiliar call as a flock, and repeating it. This was a pretty whistling call that a better birder than I confirmed the next day. 

It makes me wonder if they've got a dialect? Or maybe I just haven't been listening to starlings at all over the last 15 years. It's fun when birds teach you things in the field, anyway. 

This was otherwise a pretty ordinary stop. There's a lot of shrubby stuff along the creek, and it held quite a few sparrows, including Song Sparrows (2), Spotted Towhee (3), Golden-crowned Sparrow (4), Dark-eyed Junco (5), Fox Sparrow (6), and . . . not actually a sparrow, but we'll add it to the list, House Sparrow (7). No finches! This was a theme that carried out throughout the day. I *may* have seen some finches in flight, but on a kind of gray day watching at a distance through a car window, I was just left with none. A single Anna's Hummingbird (8) also used the brush as a safe resting spot.

American Crows (9) and Brewer's Blackbirds (10) disputed the ownership of some spilled grain in a parking lot. Other birds along the river (and in the Columbia itself) included Steller's Jay (11), Northern Flicker (12), Belted Kingfisher (13), Double-crested Cormorant (14), and Glaucous-winged Gull (15), as well as a nice mix of waterfowl: Gadwall (16), Mallard (17), Bufflehead (18), and both species of Scaup - Greater (19) and Lesser (20). 

A V of Cackling Geese flew past the waterfront as I got back to my car. I hadn't gone far, when I stopped at a feeder right there in town. This was a well-stocked feeder and was visited by both Steller's and California Scrub-Jays (21), more of the same sparrows, and a half-dozen White-crowned Sparrows (22). Before I left, some American Robins (23) dropped in to visit as well. 

Species number 24 was an American Kestrel on a wire as I went west on the highway.

Julia Butler Hansen - Steamboat Slough

It's a short drive up the road to Julia Butler Hansen Refuge. The 6000 acres have been set aside to protect the Columbian White-tailed Deer, which were only recently taken off of the endangered list. There is now a hunting season for them, albeit limited. The site is wonderful not just for the deer, but for a wide variety of wildlife, including birds, of course. It's hard to pin down exactly how many species have been found at the refuge; eBird has several different pinned hotspots there. But it's easy to say that it's over 200 species, because at least one of those hotspots is over that mark. 

On this particular day, I started on Steamboat Slough - the road that runs along the southern edge of the refuge. Right at the opening, I stopped to try for some birds in the thick patch of conifers. The first fun sighting was actually a coyote making its way shyly away from the road. I listened in and heard birds that I'm used to hearing in my own backyard - Chestnut-backed Chickadees (24), Black-capped Chickadees (25), Golden-crowned Kinglets (26), and Pacific Wren (27). 

I did have one unfamiliar chip note mixed in, and it turned out to be a bird that I encounter very infrequently in the winters - a Townsend's Warbler (28). Most of our warblers get out of town (out of state... out of country) for the winter months, but a few of these birds stick around. It was fun getting to see a splash of yellow this early in the year! 

I continued along the road, and honestly it was at a crawl. Part of me wishes that I had just left the car and walked the whole thing, but I some good walking in by day's end. Just past that bunch of trees, the Elochoman. . .River? Slough? Actually, what's the di... hang on. 

And yaknow. . . Wikipedia. Hm. I know that there are people who are scared to death of getting any information on there. I understand why. I guess over the years, I've gotten a feel for the *kinds* of things they might get wrong, and how much it might matter to be wrong on it. Sometimes I wonder if the entries are off due to people writing things with an agenda, or because they are writing about a complex topic, and missing the subtler points. 

For now. I'll believe that this is indeed what a slough is, accepting full responsibility if this is actually written by river deniers. That said, I'm not seeing on the maps how the Elochoman Slough is a slough as it's defined there. 

Common Mergansers in the Elochoman

But then. . . the gummint is making the maps. . . so should we believe them?? If you are a sloughologist, please fill me in. Bonus if you do it with a crazy eye twitch.

So back to the birds. I'm solving all of this by just calling it the Elochoman Whatever, and shortening that further to "The Elochoman". So just past this bunch of conifers at the opening is a little stretch of the Elochoman where I had Common Mergansers (29), Common Goldeneye (30), Downy Woodpecker (31), and a Belted Kingfisher (32) making a racket. 

Things open up to the right of the road, and I had yet more waterfowl, including Cackling Goose, Canada Goose (33), American Coot (34), Gadwall (35), Buffleheads (36) and a Great Blue Heron (37).

Coots!

Then I finally got my first of year Varied Thrushes (38). They were at a pretty good distance, 2-3 of them fluting/whistling from a tree. They're hands-down my favorite bird. From their spooky song to their cobalt-on-pumpkin coloring. Add to this the fact that they are birds that can be found throughout the state, and throughout few other states. They're kind of our state bird. The kids who voted for the American Goldfinch got this one wrong, I think!

I should add this to Wikipedia, really. . . 

Bewick's Wren (39), Dark-eyed Junco, and Song Sparrow were among other birds seen early and often along the road.

Things became much more watery as I continued. Ducks to the left of me (adding American Wigeon (40), Hooded Merganser (41), Northern Shoveler (42), and Ring-necked Duck (43)), and sparrows to the right (adding Fox Sparrow to this trip list).

At several points, the fields opened up a bit more to the right, and I had opportunities to pick through hundreds of Cackling Geese, looking for a Greater White-fronted or Snow Goose. Spoiler alert - I found none through the entire weekend! There had been a few sightings here and there, but I missed them all. I also had a heard-only Red-shouldered Hawk (44) along the way. While it would have been nice to see it, as I did the day before, I was thankful to have recently heard their calls, allowing me to pick them out. A Red-tailed Hawk (45) was also found on this stretch, as well as Common Ravens (46), and some calling Virginia Rails (47).

White-tail Trail

Finally, some walking! I got out of the car and followed this trail to its completion and back. This was a *great* bit of birding! The swans were the highlight, with both Tundra (48), and Trumpeter Swans (49) on the pond/swamp/water thing. 

Tundra Swans

Trumpeter Swans

I'll admit, these species are two I often differentiate by calls. Although that was helpful, I was happy to have spent more time working on field marks for them, making it a little easier to get an idea for the numbers of each species. At least one Canvasback (50) was mixed in with the swans, and a Northern Harrier (51) was on patrol as well. 

Birds kept rolling in as I walked: Marsh Wren (52), Bald Eagle (53), Hairy Woodpecker (54), Black Phoebe (55), Northern Pintail (56), and a Great Egret (57).

And then kaput. My camera repeated a trick from last year, deciding to give me a black screen rather than an image as I snapped. Apologies, but the rest of the pictures will be from the phone for the rest of the trip, and it would appear I'll need to ask the camera people if I broke my camera, or perhaps they didn't fix it. 

I got to the end of the trail and found myself stuck on a bird. It sounded like a Black Phoebe to me, but it was awfully close, and I couldn't see the bird on a perch. I tried to grab recordings, but it just wasn't singing constantly, and never at the right time. I left it at that and just thought, "What a weird Black Phoebe." A birder passed through immediately after me and later posted that he'd found a Swamp Sparrow at the end of the trail. 

So, I just get to sit and wonder. And sit and listen to recordings of both species. I learned later in the trip that this was a semi-reliable place to look for Swamp Sparrows too! So, next month I'll come in better prepared, I hope.

Go West!

I was off to a decent start for the county, and it was just approaching noon. I slipped out through back roads and arrived in Skamokawa. (skuh MOCK away, rather than SCAM o' COW uh). Here, I found Mourning Doves (58) in town. They're a tough code 3 bird in a county where (interestingly enough) Rock Pigeons are notably absent! There used to be a place or two where they could be found, but those days seem to be in the past. 

This brought me to Highway 4, and then further west. I pulled over at one point, seeing a sign that I'd summited KM Mountain. Neat! Elevation is given as 955 feet, and I snapped a picture of the vista.

This was to the South of the highway, where there are hills that keep you from driving right along the Columbia River - places like Elk Mountain, and Altoona Hill. None of it is very high, most of it is logged. Even just driving along the highway, it's pretty easy to see evidence of logging operations on both sides of the road. I'm always drawn to the high points in counties, but many of the ones in Wahkiakum are up gated logging roads. There may be an ascent of something this year, but I have no idea what that would be in this county!

Grays River

Grays River meanders its way through farmland in the Western end of Wahkiakum County. At this time of year, there are a lot of flooded fields, so I thought I'd give them a peek. One of the first stops was at the Covered Bridge: 

This is a spot I've been back to a couple of times. The birding has been fine, but honestly, it's a cute bridge in a pretty setting. This is also where I pulled over to pick at something resembling lunch. Cheese, apples, crackers. 

Gulls flew overhead, reminding me again to work on getting to know gulls in flight a little better. Ravens called from the surrounding hills. It was otherwise pretty quiet right around here! As I continued around this valley, I basically kept going clockwise around its center, heading south, and then west. While it was generally quiet, I did have one very good stop with a flooded field. I picked up a Yellow-rumped Warbler (59) as I got out of the car. 

Down below, there were a hundred or so American Wigeon. I scanned them for a Eurasian Wigeon and had kind of given up on it. But to keep the good eBird data flowing, I got in and counted the birds, giving them each a second look. It didn't take too long to find a red head in there - Eurasian Wigeon! (60). Also in this field: Red-winged Blackbirds (61), Short-billed Gulls (62), and Green-winged Teal (63). 

Flooded field in the Gray's River Valley

My route took me from Covered Bridge Road to Barr Road and finally to Altoona-Pillar Rock Road. This started with a drive down the Grays River, then onto a tree-lined section of the Columbia before things opened up a little. When things opened up, I had views of the Columbia, AND a surprising little bit of mud. As I scanned the Columbia, I heard a call from a Least Sandpiper (64). I hadn't expected to do any shorebirding, but why not? I moved my binoculars down to the mud and realized there was a nice group of Greater Yellowlegs (65) working the mud. 

Why, incidentally, do birders use that term so often? A *nice* group of Greater Yellowlegs? Do you really know what those shorebirds have been up to. . . ? But I do like to give the benefit of the doubt, so we'll stick with nice. Then I started hearing a high-pitched call that I couldn't quite place. After some scanning, trying to find a Spotted Sandpiper, or who-knows-what, I found a Long-billed Dowitcher (66) there in the mix. Shorebirding to start the year!

Out in the water, I additionally found a Horned Grebe (67), and a Red-throated Loon (68). Tundra Swans called from out of sight on the Columbia, and huuuundreds of dark ducks crowded together at a distance too great for the light/optics situation. I'd wager there were at least some Surf Scoters, but these birds got away from me. 

Grays River antics - courtesy of the eBird hotspot map

I knew that there was another viewpoint on the West side of the Grays River, so I looped up through Rosburg, working from memory to try to find it. Unfortunately, my lack of preparation lost the day for me here. I ended up on Miller Point Road, which dead ends before reaching the water. Womp. Womp. Womp.

Done? Hardly!

Skamokawa Vista Park

I'd passed the 1:00 hour and thought there might be some time and value in giving Skamokawa Vista Park a try for gulls, and Puget Island a try for Eurasian Collared-Doves. At the first, I found not a single gull, but did add Western Grebe (69). I gave every Common Merganser a good look, as at least one Red-breasted Merganser had been seen near Puget Island recently. 

On Puget Island, I found myself feeling rushed, and not really prepared. I think I figured I'd just give this place a pass for January. But it was nearing in on 2:00, and there were still some good possibilities here. Puget Island is largely agricultural, so the fields held the possibility of some of my missing geese. I scanned every wire and tree for Eurasian Collared-Doves but found none. Along the way, I did pick up Killdeer (70), and Pied-billed Grebe (71). 

across the bridge to Puget Island

Finally, as I was headed back towards the bridge off of the island, I came across a field of gulls. Most of them were Short-billed Gulls, but there were two large gulls as well. One was clearly a Glaucous-winged x Western Gull Hybrid, with slightly dark primaries. Next to it was an Iceland Gull! (72) Pink feet and size ruled out a good handful of possibilities. Not too dark, not too light narrowed it down further, although in the lighting, it was worth questioning that. One last piece that separated it from Herring Gull was the dark iris. Herring Gulls have a yellow iris that, together with their head shape, give them a kind of angry look. Iceland Gulls are sometimes described as having a gentle dove-like expression. I don't know if I see *that*, but I would say this gull looked "less angry."

The very last bird of the day: A Peregrine Falcon (73) sitting in the same field. 

THIS was a great start to the year in Wahkiakum. Digging 73 species out of a small-ish county in the winter is a good good day.

Vancouver, and . . . Oregon??

My final destination for the day was Kevin Black's couch in Vancouver. He and his wife had kindly opened up their home for me to collapse, even though they themselves were just returning from a trip. We all arrived around 5, talked about dinner plans, and eventually decided that Kevin and I would head out to grab dinner. 

And he takes me to Portland.

My feelings about being in Oregon are essentially all tongue-in-cheek, but there's that grain of truth thing about jokes. For someone who spends a year focused on a county (or, erm. . . four) in Washington State, time spent completely outside of Washington is just off the theme. I could pass a Wrentit riding on the back of a White-tailed Kite, but it wouldn't count. It would count for my. . . Oregon list, but. . .Oregon list?? 

I may honestly get to Oregon next. You know, next like, when I'm 80. 

Until then, I really do try to stay inside the lines for the year, including patronizing the places inside those lines, seeing what the people are like, etc. etc. 

Sighhhhhhh, so we're in Portland, and we landed in a bar that was packed to the gills with people on their way to a Trailblazers game. Kevin and I found a spot, settled in and got a pint and some food. Kevin is, of course, a Clark County resident, but had also lived in Cowlitz in his early years, so we spent a lot of time talking about all of the surrounding counties. Plans, possibilities, and birds that we might have fun targeting together down the road. 

Rock Wrens and Green Herons were the topics of conversation. We also talked a little bit about where you can go to see owls in Clark County. 

"Owls are to be heard. Not seen." 

I honestly don't mind seeing owls, but there really is something special about hearing them when they are hearable. There's a lot I love about owling. There's the efficiency of it (you weren't going to spend those hours looking at other birds!), the spookiness of it (more on some nights than others), and on a successful night, the conversational aspect of it is also fun. 

On the way back to the car, I called Cindy, another Clark County birder. We were making plans to do some birding the next day. I mentioned that I had thought of trying for Barred Owl at Fort Vancouver. And she told me where you can go to *see* owls in Clark County. "Yep, Kevin told me about that place too!" I said, smirking at Kevin. 

In the end, the plan was Steigerwald NWR in the morning with Cindy and Les. Kevin and I drove some streets hoping for a Barn Owl flyover but got none. This left my Clark County total at 1 - thanks to a murmuration of European Starlings seen after sundown on my way into Vancouver. 

Day two complete!