October 29th - November Trip, Day One

I wanted to lead with clarity. This. . . is not an extra October trip! It's just that I started to make plans to do some birding, they had to bail. . . the weather looked like it would be nice. . . So, my "November trip" came early. 

It may seem silly on the surface, but "once a month" is part of the routine. Also, to be even clearer, I was a little spooked with 4 birds left to find in Skamania! I'd had epic downpours on past trips, and other trips to Skamania that just never happened because of snow and ice on the roads. I figured that making an attempt at the end of October might allow me to squeeze in an extra trip if I somehow couldn't find those last four birds I needed to reach 150 species for the year. 

Clark was at 146 as well, but I felt a little more comfortable about finding four birds there on this trip.

And Cowlitz. . . at 150 birds already, I didn't need a single bird there. So naturally, it was my first stop!

Woodland Bottoms

Man. . . I keep hoping to come across my first Rough-legged Hawk of the year here. They're such attractive Oreo-cookie-colored birds. That, or a Snow Goose, or a Common Loon, or a Western Grebe. I keep hopin', I keep lookin', and I keep missin'. It was still a nice swing through the Bottoms. Lots of Northern Harriers - usually a few of them in view at any time, patrolling the fields. 

The Grey Ghost - Male Northern Harrier

I went to Martin's Bar and got sucked in by a huge flock of Golden-crowned Sparrows, with another flock of American Pipits using the space on either side of the brambles. I scanned through them for. . . goodness, for what? I had Lincoln's Sparrow in Cowlitz for the year (and found two more here), as well as White-throated Sparrow. So, I was looking through them just for fun. Picking through zonos (White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows) looking for the more unusual siblings (White-throated and Harris's Sparrows) is not a bad way to pass the time. 

The weather remained clear and calm. I was pretty happy with the decision to make a run down!

Clark County - Marine Park

Short-billed Gull

The one stop I decided to make in Clark was on the Columbia at Marine Park. I had seen sightings of gulls and grebes and had further hopes for loons or scoters. The gull roost was one of the easiest viewing opportunities. The gulls were all clustered together on a little mound of sand and rocks off shore. I was able to walk fairly close to study them. Most of them were thankfully in adult-ish plumage as well, so it was not hard work to pick out a dozen and more Short-billed Gulls (my 147th species for Clark for the year). A Horned Grebe quickly joined it as 148!

Horned Grebe

Most of the other gulls fell into that messy category where the primary tips were not black, but not all that light either. A lot of different percents would have shown up on the "40 and me" tests for these gulls, I'm sure. Western and Glaucous-winged Gull DNA would be in there, and potentially some Herring Gulls in the family tree as well. 

I took lots of pictures, thinking it would be nice to pull out some of the cleaner ones for the blog. On the way out, someone asked, "Did you see the gull?" Turns out that an Iceland Gull had been spotted at the park over the last few days. I let the birder know that I had not, although later that day, I found it in my pictures. Not a new year bird for Clark County, but one that I'd not been able to see quite so well as this.

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Iceland Gull - Black tips, pink legs, medium/large gull with a dark iris, and a 
generally "chill" vibe. I mean. . . look at that angry looking gull behind it. . . sheesh

I enter the wind tunnel

It really didn't start off so bad, but it was a little breezy as I entered Skamania County. My first little stop was at the Saint Cloud Wayside. I did a full loop of the park, and quite honestly, I ate one of the many fallen apples while I was there. Delicious! Many of them were bruised, chewed over, or simply not looking good. The one I had tasted similar to a Winesap, one of my favorite apples.

At the river end of the park, I wandered down the path, and looked out at the Columbia. No White-winged Scoters, just white caps. No problem. There were more stops ahead of me! 

Franz Lake

There were so many ducks here! Nearly all American Wigeon that I could see, but they were pretty well obscured (as per usual) by the trees. Franz Lake is never the easiest place for viewing wildlife! Add to that the challenges of viewing a Lake from its North shore on a sunny day. Backlit ducks aren't the easiest things to sort out. 

And then, just for funsies, and because it wasn't hard enough, train tracks also separate the viewer from the lake. Nothing like having trains periodically block the peek-a-boo view of distant backlit ducks!

Somehow, 124 different species of birds have been recorded from this vantage point. Go figure!

Nothing new, but. . . no worries! I had more stops ahead of me!

Skamania Landing

In a previous year, I'd actually found a Eurasian Wigeon at Skamania Landing, although the number of American Wigeons I had seen at Franz Lake had me thinking that few would be seen farther East at Skamania Landing. This was confirmed. A handful of American Wigeons were on Lake Shahala, with far more Green-winged Teals and Northern Pintails. On the East end of the lake, there were quite a few Hooded Mergansers, and in the slough on the far end, you guessed it!

Great Egret!!!!!!!!!

I've decided that this bird is the official Rickroll for my birding year. For anyone unfamiliar, to Rickroll someone is to perform a bait and switch situation where they expect to view a song/watch a video and do not suspect that the song/video is going to be "Together Forever" by Rick Astley. 

It's been fun especially on trips in Cowlitz, Clark, and Wahkiakum to manifest that guys-I-just-found-something-amazing energy in advance of the Great Egret reveal. In Skamania, to be fair, they are still unusual enough to warrant a little more genuine surprise. And they're beautiful birds!

But. . . this was not a new bird for my year, and we were drifting into the afternoon. Onward!

Beacon Rock State Park

At every stop, I had to ask myself, "What birds do you even have in mind here, Bub?" White-breasted Nuthatch, White-throated Sparrow, Peregrine Falcon (they nest on that big rock), Canyon Wren, and maybe some gulls or other fancy waterfowl on the Columbia. 

But it was just windy. It had been breezy before, but as soon as a gust made me teeter a little bit, I decided that this was officially windy. (Although today I learned that breezy weather is sustained winds of 15-25 miles per hour, and windy is 25-35. I had no anemometer on me, but I'll stand by the assessment.)

Climbers? Rappellers? If it was the latter, I'm jealous!

I heard nothing. I may have seen a Common Raven. The water was duck-free. I moved on but was starting to get a little spooked! I had come on a perfectly clear day in Skamania but had not at all considered how bad the wind could be for me. 

Bonneville Dam

Double-crested Cormorants

I actually drove up to the parking area for Strawberry Island, but the wind had somehow gotten worse from the last stop to this one. I backtracked a little and found a spur that brought me to a nice view of the Columbia, and one of the. . . water. . . spilly things. . . at the dam. I was about to call it a spillway, but this was a good ways downstream from the dam, and spillways, to my understanding, are part of the dam itself.

Nonetheless - water comes out here. And the birds were taking interest. From all I could figure out, we just had Double-crested Cormorants here, along with what appeared to be Ring-billed Gulls. Nothing jumped out as a potential Herring Gull, but what a fun opportunity to see the birds in different poses.

Ring-billed Gull - plenty of pink legs around it, but juveniles do that. Weird, yeah? 

Just for fun - sunlight and spray made a rainbow

The wind made for good gull-watching, but it didn't turn any of the birds into a Herring Gull, or a Bonaparte's Gull, so I eventually walked back up the service road to the car. 

Stevenson

I almost called this windsurfing! This, however, is kitesurfing, or kiteboarding.
Both activities are popular at the Stevenson Waterfront, cause it can get so dang. . .

Windy. It was so windy here, and as I looked out at the Columbia, facing south, I'm positive that my hair ended up aligning with ENE/WSW. It occurred to me that this could become a fashion statement. Just as people might go into a salon and ask their stylist for "the Rachel", this hairdo could become "the Stevenson."

If only it actually looked good. 

What a great time to find a scoter, outside of the fact that the water was fairly bird-free. The occasional Double-crested Cormorant floated by, but it was . . , it was a day for kiteboarding.

Nothing. I stewed over this and looked at the time. It was nearing 3 PM. At this point, for all I knew, I had just made a trip down to Skamania County only to get shut out. My destination ahead of me was the Society Hotel in Bingen, a place where I've grabbed a 40-dollar bunk on multiple occasions. I was thinking that, in a worst-case scenario, I could stay a second night. It would beat the cost of gas for a drive down and back! Not by a lot, but lots of arguments were pointing towards an extended stay. 

I started making a beeline for the hotel. I thought if nothing else, I could plug the computer in and see if any of my target birds had been sighted during the day by other birders. As I drove towards the hotel, I noticed that the wind started to die down. I got to Drano Lake, Spring Creek, Underwood, and was curious about why the wind was suddenly dying down - maybe in response to my feelings of resignation? 

And as those feelings of resignation started to dissipate slightly, Skamania County even threw a bird at me. Cooper's Hawk! (147 for the Skamania year). I know: "But . . . you don't know what birds look like, Tim. How. . .". Sometimes I can pull this off. In this case, the accipiter flying over the road ahead was large-headed in appearance, with its wings relatively straight, rather than pushed forward. I like to look for the white "epaulettes", but it was just not the right angle for it. The bird was doing some soaring, not as much flapping, and seemed to be on the larger side. All signs pointed to Cooper's. 

Yay? But. . . how to get three more birds the next day?? I checked into the Society Hotel. Looked over the short list of sightings on eBird while enjoying a happy hour Old-fashioned. I heated up the homemade chicken noodle soup I'd packed for the trip, and I went to bed. 

Owls. . . I thought about them. I thought about the wind. I decided that my best bet - my "all your eggs in one basket" plan was to hit the Spring Creek Fish Hatchery the next day, and then. . . maybe Little Buck Creek Road. There were some breadcrumbs to follow from recent visits and from years past. If I fell short, I could at least give it another try the following day and go for the owls with a little more sleep under my belt. 

Day 28 - feeling a little spooked