Spring Break birding day two: April 6th

Sleeping in??

Okay, sleep is for the weak, I had said once in this blog, but I was ahead of the game on owls after the previous morning.  With only Barred and Northern Pygmy- as real targets, I decided to catch up on sleep.  Nonetheless, I was up before the sun (just not several hours before the sun), and made my way directly to Entiat Valley Road.


Entiat Valley Road

The hotels keep setting me up with this stationery

Honestly, my main reason for choosing this road was a vague idea that I would be able to find some Ruffed Grouse up this road.  It was the right time of year, and there seemed to be a lot of pins from ebird.  The first time I got out of the car to listen - bingo!  What were the odds??  By the end of the trip up and down the road over the next few hours, I think it was at least half of them that had a Ruffed Grouse, (my 101st bird of the year for Chelan County - that's what the parenthetical numbers represent) except perhaps the far end of the road, where it started to get at a higher elevation.  It was always faint drumming, and generally hard to pinpoint, but there were probably 5-6 of them by the end of the morning.

I had been up this road maybe a quarter mile back in January, but it was clear right past Entiat and all the way up to Ardenvoir.  I will admit that this stands as my favorite city to say in Chelan County.  In Mason County, it was definitely Twanoh, and I usually said it like Keanau Reeves.  Ardenvoir... I'm not sure who I'm imitating, but it might have a little Southern in it.  The r's are certainly missing.  What an interesting storefront - a happy birthday greeting to one of the locals, a flier for a poker tournament for a young man with aortic stenosis (that one got me for a few moments, as that was the start of our son's heart problems), and a sign reminding passers-by of the Swallow Festival starting April 9th.  The store was closed on the way up and down, so I didn't have a chance to support the local economy.

Yeah... not doing that.

It was a quick drive up.  For the most part,  I was just scoping out spots to hit on the way down, while my main goal was to see how far up the road was still drivable.  I pulled over at one spot and my eyes got a little wide as I heard a Nashville Warbler (102) calling from across a field.  Five years ago, this would have confused me significantly, as I just hadn't heard that many warblers, but now I was confused because these guys weren't even on my list of target birds for the day.  I got a recording (good thing, as it was called into question by eBird reviewers, given that it was one of the earliest arrival dates in the state (although there had been one earlier report on the third of April near Cle Elum).

I continued up, nearly making it to Fox Creek Campground before I had to give it up.  The snowy patches (I drove through a few) had gotten to deep and too extensive so I parked on the side of the road and walked).  My first payoff was a pair of Gray Jays (103) a half mile or so up the road.  I was a little bummed that I didn't have food to offer them, but it was still a nice add for the year, and one of my favorite birds (my true favorite - Varied Thrush - provided the soundtrack for the morning).  A Belted Kingfisher was a nice surprise on the torrential Entiat River, as were a pair of Canada Geese later when I returned down the road.

I had lots of juncos and Red-breasted Nuthatches as I made my way back down the road, but one stop became productive very quickly!  I was scanning a field along the side of the road and thought I was on a Western Bluebird (104), when I realized that I was maybe hearing a White-breasted Nuthatch (105), when my thoughts on both of them were blown up by the raucous call of a Pileated Woodpecker (106).  I checked them off in a different order - getting a picture of the Pileated, then the bluebird, and then listening carefully to confirm the nuthatch.  Things were moving along fast during that minute!

Red-naped Sapsucker

Continuing down, I stopped at what is an absolutely lovely swamp.  I was surprised not to hear much more than Flickers and Ruffed Grouse (a junk bird at this point), when I heard a drumming back up the road.  I followed it all the way to a power pole and the culprit turned out to be a Red-naped Sapsucker (107).  Canyon Wrens were a surprise, calling from several points on the road.

The rest of the trip down the road was largely similar, with Pacific Wren (108) and Rufous Hummingbird (109) coming with a few more stops.  I gassed up and got a Mexican Mocha in Entiat before continuing on up the Columbia towards Chelan.

Scour the blogs out there.  You will find no picture of a Western Bluebird that is quite equal to this one. (thank god)

Oklahoma Gulch

One of my favorite pictures from the trip:  Oklahoma Gulch

I followed an eBird pin for Savannah Sparrow here.  It was a cool little road with a lot of dry habitat on one side, and brushy riparian stuff on the other.  It seems that it would take me to Navarre Coulee Road if I continued, but I only went far enough to find some new sparrows - a pair of Vesper Sparrows (110), refusing to sing for me, but giving enough looks at field marks and listens to calls to narrow them down.  If Savannah proves to be a problem down the road, I may return!  I had Chelan County at 110 life birds before this year, and did it without a Savannah Sparrow.  Now my year list hit 110, and I was still missing them.  I see what you did there, Savannah Sparrow.  No worries.

Townsend's Solitaire - Oklahoma Gulch

Wapato Lake

Lake Chelan in April

Wapato Lake

Okay, I didn't really make any other "stops" per se, but I did accidentally end up in a private development where I was able to see the shores of Lake Chelan as I was trying to turn around.  My binoculars showed me a pair of Gadwall (finally!  111) on the shores, and having the windows down gave me my first Brown-headed Cowbird (112) of the year. My Wapato Lake targets included Northern Pintail (nope - where are they??), Cinnamon Teal and Blue-winged Teal (no and no - maybe too early), but I did find one other bird that I suspected I'd have to look for down at Beebe Springs - Marsh Wren (113).  It was a code 3 bird and I found myself sitting quite well for the day and for the trip and the year.  I went back down the road to Manson and sat down at Wapato Point Cellars.


Reset


My wife and I used to be wine club members here.  I know... it's pretty far away from Renton, but we had been in a habit of making nearly annual winter trips to Chelan, and we really did love the wines here.  I tried some different wines, and decided to buy a bottle of Red Delicious  - a blend that tips its hat to the apple industry all through the county.  I drank a glass of it while I tried to make sure I knew what my tally was, and tried to figure out what the heck I could even possibly need at this point that I might have a reasonable chance of finding at this time of year on this end of the county.

The couple and their friend finished up their tasting and made their way out of the tasting room with a few bottles in totes.  Being almost clinically unable to keep myself from talking to people, I asked the woman behind the tasting room bar, "So... having a better year than last year?".  The obvious reference was to the fires from the summer of 2015, which had threatened homes all the way into the towns of Chelan and Manson themselves, in addition to the trouble up in Okanogan County.  Many of the towns hotels and restaurants simply had to shut down, as it wasn't safe or healthy to be in a town clouded with smoke from fires knocking on their door.

This was part of the reason that I came to Chelan this year - to help a county that had been hit hard financially.  It was an interesting response from the woman.  By her reckoning, the town had kind of welcomed a little hiccup in business.  Although it brings in money, I think the tourist season brings in a pace of living that many of the people in these communities don't exactly prefer over normal operating conditions.  She's happy to see the business coming back, but it appears to have been a nice break in a way.

It's almost like the communities themselves mirror what happens in nature.  I mean... what animal doesn't like plants, right?  But when vegetation gets thick, when the understory gets cluttered and the leaf litter starts to pile up like kindling... it's time to reset.  Fire is hard, but the land recovers, and apparently the resilient people will as well.

But back to the conversation:  I let her know what my plans were fot the year, and angled it into questions about where the burns were specifically, because... you know... Black-backed Woodpeckers, man!  They love recent burns, and if I don't find some this year, I'm either unlucky, dumb or both.  Apparently, the drive up to Twenty Five Mile Creek State Park (one of the ports for the Lady of the Lake, which runs all the way up to Stehikin) would take one through some of the fire zone, as would the drive up to Cooper Mountain.

"Cooper Mountain is still snowed in" she explained, "but...".  The rest of her sentence led to some notes on how to get to "Goat Mountain".  Now... I may have screwed this up, but I left thinking that I would be getting into some good high elevation burns that were publicly accessible.  I left with Goat Mountain as the last thing on my to-do list for the trip.

Are you lost...?

Maybe a little lost...

Okay, I made it to Apple Acres Road. This is a nice bit of habitat where I have had some good birds like Lark Sparrow, which I'll need sometime down the road.  I had written down "Antoine Creek Road", which may have originally come from a sentence like "Don't go down Antoine Creek Road".  I went up it and soon found myself in Okanogan County.  I looked at the map and returned.  A short way up the road brought me to Washington Creek Road.  This was also on my list, so I followed it as far as it would take me.

Part of the 2015 burns - Sawtooth Ridge near Washington Creek

I made it through some burns without even going too far up the road.  It was nice to see things a bit cleared out, and also to see homes intact.  I continued up the road and eventually found myself too far up the road.  I backed up the car and tried another bit of gravel, quickly finding that it was a driveway.  Ugh...  As I turned the car around, a four wheeler came tearing up through the driveway towards me, blocking my way out.  I got to meet the neighbors - yay!

Burn near Washington Creek

It took a minute to clarify what I was doing and where I was trying to get to, but in the end the retired fella that had stopped me on the four-wheeler was in a lovely conversation with me.  We covered damn near everything.  The fires ("This was my fire truck - this, a tank of water, and a shovel"), birds (A family of Great Horned Owls who were intent on eating his cat, a House Wren that nested in some of his pipes, Mountain Bluebirds that had just arrived), hunting (by agreement, no hunting of the turkeys that had recently arrived in the area, as the neighbors all thought it best to let them establish themselves).

The year so far

We even talked about the school where I teach (Kentwood - go Conks!).  His dad apparently worked on building the school.  We also talked about the fire ecology unit we teach at the end of the year.  Apparently, they are doing a better job of managing the fires now, rather than suppressing them as they used to.  For decades, the rule of thumb was to get a fire out by the following morning.  Those policies have led to unhealthy forests which are now starting to recover.

I ended the conversation with a suggestion that I return on a future visit to see what birds he's got on his property.  I was jealous when I heard his four wheeler could take him from this end of the Sawtooth Ridge to Union Valley Road on a near straight shot.  As I made my way back towards Apple Acres Road, Chelan County threw one more bird at me:  A Mountain Bluebird (114).

I went home via Orondo to grab some donuts and cider before heading back to my home and family in Renton.