Archive for the Eastern Washington Category

Big Day. May 5. 2012.

Posted in Big Day, Birding, Birds, Eastern Washington, Natural History, Road Tripping, Seattle, Washington with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on May 11, 2012 by Brendan McGarry

A quick note: for those of you haven’t donated yet, my big day was in support of Seattle Audubon. This money is for a general fund but continues programs like Birdwatch, the high school group I volunteer with and have blogged about. Please consider pledging to my Birdathon. Thanks so much for your support!

I woke in the confusion of deep sleep, unsure where I was. Blearily, I cast about for my glasses, brushing frost off my sleeping bag. When my brain caught up it was with a mournful reproach. What had I gotten myself into. Oh no…this was just the start of the day. This could be the intro to a horror movie.

Welcome to our big day: 12 AM on a dirt road in Wenatchee National Forest on May 5th.

Five hours later we were sitting in the car waiting for first light. Our first bird had taken nearly two hours – a Spotted Owl barking in a distant drainage. We stood watching wind push surreal globular clouds across a full moon the rest of the time. The second species in four hours, was a Northern Pygmy Owl right at dawn.

I’ll freely admit that I despise owling. Owls are indelibly special birds, species which have always held a corner of the human imagination. However, interminable hours standing in the cold, listening to air move over your ears and the gaseous irruptions of your fellow owlers, imagining distant barks, hoots, or whines, are almost never worth it. Not the best way to get excited about a big day.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, a big day is when manic birders try to see as many species of birds as possible in 24 hours. This could be in a county, a state, even a city. My expedition mates, Adam Sedgley, Micheal Willison, and I were making our go in Washington State. Adam and I were raising money for Seattle Audubon with pledges for our endeavors.

We secretly knew from the start that we wouldn’t approach the state record of 211 birds. For one we were going out a bit too early in the year for some vital species. Give or take a few weeks, May is universal big day month in North America yet early May in Washington doesn’t afford time for some neotropical migrants to arrive. Second, our route needed some fine tuning. Third, completely out of our control, was wind. A birder can never get worse luck than high winds.

A big day more or less consists of rushing about from place to place. We’d see or hear a bird, make sure everyone got on it, and rush off. This wasn’t about beautiful views or remarkable observations, it was about efficiency and tallying off species within our 24 hour frame.

We started daybreak on Bethel Ridge, which is on a random forest service road near Rimrock Lake on Highway 12. In typical dawn activity we dashed off most species we could possibly snag. Wham bam. Time to move on.

Down Umptanum road between Naches and Ellensburg, we weren’t feeling particularly enthusiastic. Aiming to hit certain habitats is key and it’s a serious issue when you miss birds with only one opportunity to see them reliably. Later in the day when we were going over species we still needed, minutes before a Red-breasted Sapsucker flew across the road I said something like “they’re easy to see flying.” I wished we’d had that kind of fortune with White-breasted Nuthatch or White-headed Woodpecker in the few Ponderosa stands visited. We were getting skunked.

Early in the game we’d adopted a strategy of running to and from the car. After finding Sage Sparrow along the Old Vantage Highway, Adam and I dashed back out of the sage, warily eyed by two geared up gentlemen on dirt bikes next to the car. They were probably used to seeing birders but were maybe a bit uneasy as to our running.

“Stop! Back up a bit……there….a bit further. It just flew. Pull forward…”

Equally so our driving probably wasn’t convincing any bystanders of our sanity. Stopping in the middle of the road or weaving to see a bird. All in all we were safe. But erratic, very erratic.

Things were not looking fantastic by mid day. Noon was literally the halfway point, we’d been up for 12 hours and would be for another 12. Sheer lunacy.

Despite feeling pessimistic I was having a surprisingly good time. That’s what big days are about. Testing yourself, in planning, in ability to pick out birds whizzing by or calling quietly, pushing your limits of sleep deprivation.

By the time the crest of the Cascades at White Pass came and went I’d already started to nod. Time was slipping by as we crossed into Southwestern Washington, hoping to scoop what we could before the sun traded places with the moon around 8:30 PM.

I’d never been to Rainbow Falls State Park but I was grateful to stretch my legs. Everything counts, even common birds (which are so often missed). Pacific Wren, Townsend’s Warbler, Pacific-slope Flycatcher, and Wilson’s Warbler were all birds I can potentially see minutes from my home in urban Seattle. Hermit Warbler however was not. Time to move on.

Desperation setting in and we saw our first gulls in a field near Roy. Luckily they were worth studying, Herring and Mew Gull represented. We were tempted to waste precious minutes to make another bird a Thayer’s. I made an unethical, silly, and unsuccessful attempt to get the bird to fly by running down the road parallel to it.

There’s a certain salvation in getting to an entirely new habitat. Suddenly coastal Washington and all its marine, intertidal species spread before us. Crunch time and we crunched much of what we’d hoped for, waterfowl, shorebirds, a few songbirds. Yet, those missed species always make you cringe.

Big days are unapologeticly crude. You eat horribly, relieve yourself in convenient, not polite, places, and largely reject courtesy. Vespertine sputtered out on a platform at the Wesport Jetty. Pelagic and Brandt’s Cormorants were our last species roosting offshore. As we scanned with flagging enthusiasm, we probably managed to ruin a man’s attempt to photograph the blood orange moon creeping over Gray’s Harbor, shaking the platform and his tripod.

153 species, 890 miles driven.  Not terrible but not great either.  Definitely fun.  The callous road trip nation easily folds into the world of birding. Maybe we could have driven further and seen more? Then again the need for dinner, rest, and the camaraderie of sharing a meal surpassed a more hours standing in the cold, hoping for owls. I wasn’t going to suggest that anyway. Like I said, I sorta hate owling.

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A (Photographic) Year in Review

Posted in Bird Banding, Birding, Birds, Borneo, California, Chiang Mai, Doi Inthanon, Eastern Washington, Field Work, Fire Ecology, Indonesia, Kao Yai National Park, Malaysia, Natural History, Orangutan, Oregon, Pak Thale, Plants, Road Tripping, Science, Seattle, Southeast Asia, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Sumatra, Thailand, United States, Washington, Western Forests with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 20, 2012 by Brendan McGarry

It’s been a year since I left for an adventure in Southeast Asia. With the extremely tardy completion of a small book I made for those who supported my Kickstarter campaign for the trip, I started feeling like I’d never be on the road again. Modern expectations, the realities of money, and my desire to be a part of a stable community all seemed to be working against me, pulling me down. Yet, instead of dragging myself down the anguished path of the grounded traveler, I decided that some careful reflection was in order.

This year I’ve been a lot of places, there’s no doubt. From the temperate land I call home to the Asian tropics. To the crest of the Sierras and down to the Great Basin. Consciously or subconsciously, mountains played an undeniable role in my explorations. I was in the the shrub steppe of Steens Mountain in Oregon, the forests and alpine of Mt. Lassen in California and Mt. Rainier in Washington, the elfin evergreens of Doi Inthanon in Thailand, eruption scarred Gunung Sibayak in Sumatra, and the ancient oaks and tree ferns of Gunung Kinabalu in Borneo. In my home I wound through the high desert of interior western North America, the temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest coast, the snow of the Cascade range, and the mosaic of forests in the Sierra Nevada. Abroad I traipsed the lowland rainforests of Borneo and clambered about the monsoonal forests of Thailand. I drove to the summit of Doi Inthanon, the tallest mountain in Thailand, and hiked halfway up to the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia, Gunung Kinabalu.

I was captivated by small natural wonders in my own backyard (literally) and stood in awe of a bull elephant thousands of miles away. Birds were held, eyes were met with Orangutans. Animal and plant life always figure highly in my explorations, communities shaped by the landscapes I learned in my wend.

That’s the key. My excitement and passion for this world result from a desire to learn. Curiosity rules my spirit, anyone reading Wingtrip will know that.

Below I’ve compiled a long (yet also very punctuated) series of images from my year in the natural world. If you are curious about the stories behind them please ask or follow a few of the links I’ve provided above (unfortunately, through a flaw in the program I upload photos to Flickr with, literally hundreds of the photos in other entries linked to above are not visible right on wingtrip though still on Flickr – when I have time to sit down to this arduous task, it’ll be fixed). There’s so much worth working to save, these images should remind us all of that.

In short, I’ve got nothing to complain about. I hope you enjoy these shots. May you all have a fruitful year of discovery.

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Rhodostethia rosea

Posted in Birding, Birds, Eastern Washington, Environmentalism, Migration, Natural History, Road Tripping, Washington with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 17, 2012 by Brendan McGarry

Who the hell set my alarm for 3 AM?

Right. That was me.

Four hours later I was in Ephrata, Washington, doubting my sanity.

There were two cars in our caravan. Five demented birders. We had about twelve hours of driving from Seattle, Washington to Palmer Lake near Loomis, Washington and back. Where is Loomis? That’s what most people say.

A steel gray morning broke as we climbed onto the Waterville plateau, out of channels of basaltic flows that blanketed out over 4 millions years ago. When lava began to periodically sweep over the landscape millions of years before this, it was lush and wet, a polar opposite of the now arid high desert.

The sun wasn’t yet strong enough to budge the hard frost, an elegant tinsel about the trees lining the few farm houses dotting vast fields of cultivation. Agriculture reigns throughout this part of Washington like many others. We power through it and the small towns heading north. Bridgeport, Omak, Okanogan, Riverside, and finally, after almost five hours, Tonasket. Turn off to the Loomis-Oroville highway things start feeling rustic, exhilaratingly obscure.

If I’d told you we made a 10 hour drive to see one bird, would you think me crazy? Not just any bird, but a gull that without careful observation, most wouldn’t notice as particularly striking in basic (non-breeding) plumage. What about the dozens of other birders clustered around Lake Palmer squinting across the water, shivering and straining through scopes? My non-birder friends would hardly be surprised, but that doesn’t mean they get it. Yet, across the water was a gull that inspired this frenzy of driving. With a vague hue of pink, like the pale sunrise hours before, there sat a Ross’s Gull (Rhodostethia rosea), Washington’s second.

This bird is not only rare here, it is a sought after species in normal range.  This is a truly unique and superbly adapted species, exciting enough to see in its own landscape, let alone Washington. If you want to see a Ross’s Gull, typically you head to Barrow, Alaska in October for migration, or to Siberian or Northern Canadian marshy tundra during the breeding season. If you are truly demented, you could peruse the edge of arctic ice flows during winter. Spending one day with hours of driving across Washington and back, with the strong possibility of dipping on the gull, was odd. Yet, here we all were, some of the hundreds who visited the lake tucked away in the precipitous mountains of north central Washington, thousands of miles away from this bird’s home.

Named for James Clark Ross, an English naval officer who explored the arctic and the antarctic, the Ross’s Gull is monotypic (but certainly not unique in being named after a dead white man). Sole membership to the genus seems immediately appropriate when one is adorned in striking alternate (breeding) plumage. Despite their beauty, there is no accurate count of populations I’ve ever heard, or extensive information on their natural history. Territory on the edge tends to restricts our knowledge base. Their summer diet revolves around insects, abundant for the punctuated profusion of arctic summer. Winter is spent scraping by on algae and likely whatever else is found.

 

At first the atmosphere was reserved. When we arrived around 9 AM, they’d seen the bird. The deer carcass sustaining the gull’s vagrancy was still iced over; it had flown. Only certain portions of the lake were accessible or visible and there was concern that it would settle in an obscured corner. Thankfully, we didn’t have to drive the frigid lake shore for hours. The chase was fruitful.

A chase was exactly what this was. We saw the bird, watched it for about an hour, and then left. In many ways I was happy to leave. This didn’t feel organic or entirely enjoyable. Thirty birders huddled around watching one bird. Seeing it was a pleasure, how it flew and jumped above the drift ice in foraging behavior that seemed particular to a bird that winters on the edge of arctic ice. We had diagnostic views of dark underwings, a pinkish wash, a wedge shaped tail, and a small dark bill, but it never came close.

Yet something wasn’t right. Without sounding like a hermit or agoraphobic, I don’t relish this aspect of birding. Too many people vying for room, vying for attention to their ego. A crowd is still a crowd, even looking at a cool, rare bird. I didn’t need to hear the woman shouting out every little detail about the gull, as if she was announcing a horse race. I didn’t need to hear the pretentious discussions of binoculars, cameras, and trips. Too much showing off, too little reserve, appreciation, time spent learning, and ultimately, respect. Call me negative but this wasn’t what I looked for in a community. The numerous pleasurable people I spoke with were overshadowed by this miasma of obsession. I was reminded why I don’t always chase rare birds, despite admittance of enjoying adding them to my life list.

What was the point of driving all this distance, using these resources, to see a bird almost certainly destined for death far from home? This little gull had probably gotten lost, arriving here in attempts to find food. As I’ve grown older, this internal battle has raged, largely because I know the value of birding isn’t housed in vagrant species. Yet a part of me is still giddy in the chase or discovery. Some aspects of it warrant intellectual pondering, postulating on the why and how. Yet, the most benficial part of traveling to a remote locale for birding is that it can have a positive economic impact on the communities visited. Very simply, more habitat will be saved if a community sees gain in catering to nature oriented visitors. This works well around the world, a strong basis for local driven conservation efforts.

Passing through Loomis I considered all this. We’d seen other captivating things this day but had to rush by. Two ram Bighorn Sheep, crossed the road in front of us and stood veiled behind bare Douglas maples eying us from mere feet away. A deer kill, I’d guess from a Cougar (they tend to return to a kill and eat, incapable of devouring in the manner of wolves), was covered in Black-billed Magpie, Common Ravens, a young Golden Eagle, and two adult Bald Eagles. I counted a dozen Rough-legged Hawks between Palmer Lake and Seattle, wintering from the north.

The day ended with a beautiful sunset over Cle Elum and the eastern Cascades. I felt justified in having taken this trip but I still felt uneasy about aspects of it. How much of birding recklessly ignores impact in favor of valorous exploits? Does this make our pastime, in extremes or not, any better than something sneered at as explicitly impactful like say, snowmobiling? Did anyone learn anything in seeing the Ross’s Gull or did they just get their check mark?

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Bird-a-thon 2010 (Long)!

Posted in Big Day, Birding, Birds, Eastern Washington, Natural History, Seattle, The Montlake Fill, Washington with tags , , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2010 by Brendan McGarry

I’d like to preface with a warning.  This entry contains the manic depictions of deviants.  Birding has many manifestations.  Some are the gentle musing of the causal observer, no less informed, simply less hastened or statistic driven.  This is a trip report of the absurdist, the crazed who don’t sleep for 24 hours, the big day birders.

Favored with employment in an organization that focuses heavily on birding, this April I was lucky to participate in our major fundraiser for work.  Birdathon is an event created to fuel fundraising through friendly competition.  Solo or on a team, birders get sponsors who either foolishly give $.50 per species (this gets expensive when lists soar above 100 species) or pledge a static amount.  Then they go birding and try their best to see as many birds as possible.

The big day has roots in the East (I could never see it coming out of say, California). According the Scott Weidensaul’s book Of a Feather (a brief history of American birding), as early as 1898 birders in Ohio were out on grueling daylong assaults.  Different areas had colloquial terms for their endeavors.  The bottom line was that you end up spoiling a perfectly respectable and cerebral activity into baseball statistics.  I’m the first to point out the flaws in this extreme form of birding, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t fun!

Half of Seattle Audubon’s staff was willing to ship out the night before our Birdathon and camp on the Columbia River, where we’d begin.  When we arrived at Wanupum Damn State Park, the reason for the windfarms perched on nearby hills was evident.  It was a blustery night.  Wind isn’t good for birds and if you haven’t figured it out yet, this practice in mania is grounded in number of species seen.

Thankfully the morning was calm.  With time to rake the surrounding area before a 7:30 rendezvous with the rest of the staff in Vantage, we wasted no time.  While only two of us were so far removed from reality as to wake up at 5 am to bird (before light), we had a good showing for the morning walk.  Yellow-rumped Warblers (Audubon’s specifically) dripped from the poplars, but they seemed to be the only songbirds about.  I started to get nervous.  But no worries, we soon stumbled into a Dusky Flycatcher, some Ruby-crowned Kinglets, a House Wren, Golden-crowned, Lincoln’s and Fox Sparrows.  You cherish every bird on a big day, you may not see it somewhere else.

With a large staff and no one nearly as enthusiastic as Adam, our science associate, and myself, a real big day wasn’t entirely possible.  Contrary to what you might believe, not all the staff at Seattle Audubon are expert birders, who would have been fine with a slapdash day.  People actually wanted to see birds, not rush through, ticking them off.  We also weren’t going to be able to go owling.  A final admission was that most big days are centered on mid-May. My most epic have always been as late as possible to coincide with Birdathon dates to maximize incoming migrant birds.  Late April was slightly premature. My main goal was to beat our board members’ team.  They’d amassed a respectful 122 species a few days earlier. (To avoid sounding like a sniveling snob, I had a great time birding with my coworkers regardless of their sane tendencies).

On the other side of the Columbia River, the Shrub Steppe opens up into the willow lined shores of the potholes and Moses Lake.  Water always attracts birds and we soon found ourselves another twenty species deep.  Never a certain bird, a Black-crowned Night Heron flushed into a tree at Martha Lake and we saw, astonishingly, our only sandpiper of the day, a Least.  Swainson’s Hawks glided on gracile wings overhead, back from their sojourn in Argentina.  Cinnamon and Blue-winged Teal floated on many a waterway.

Before we knew it, we’d blasted through the wetlands and headed back over the Columbia River to Vantage.  Wind had picked up again which meant finding things in the quickly diminishing shrub steppe (read: land being bulldozed for wind turbines), wasn’t going to happen.  We still managed Sage Thrasher and both Mountain and Western Bluebirds en route to Ellensburg.

Unfortunately one of our stops, Robinson Canyon, was closed till May (to allow Elk to winter in lowlands without being bothered by people).  Luckily Carly, a former staff member who ran Birdwatch, came through for us and suggested we visit Taneum Canyon.

Not only were the high basalt walls that wrapped the road in the canyon beautiful, we managed some good birds in Taneum.  Townsend’s Solitaire busied themselves on the hillsides, Evening Grosbeaks flew over, and we finally got both Mountain and Black-capped Chickadee.  A bonus was a Golden Eagle that came in low over the road!  Not being able to get into Robinson still cost us key species – it was time to get back on the road!

The intersection of the Teanaway and Yakima Rivers just outside of Cle Ellum is a traditional spot for any serious Washington-wide big day.  This is mainly because it’s a reliable and simple place to find American Dipper. Rufous Hummingbird (which I unfortunately missed), Downy Woodpecker (astonishingly only the second woodpecker of the day, and Vaux’s Swift were also about.

It was time to cut our losses and head to the less fruitful western slope.  With weather moving in, a stop a stampede pass didn’t seem promising but out of the car we had Golden-crowned Kinglets, Varied Thrush, Pine Siskin, and Red-breasted Nuthatch.  The beauty of big days is that they make every bird exciting!

Our only owl of the day was pure luck.  A few staff were trailing behind and luckily for the rest of us, heard a pair of Barred Owls!  Sitting listening to them we heard Red Crossbill, just as I had said they were something we hadn’t seen yet.  Finally we had Oregon Junco, a shock to not get sooner on the trip.  A Red-breasted Sapsucker called, giving Adam and I views.  Just as we started to walk back, I heard the quick, sweet call note of a Brown Creeper.  We could still beat those board members yet – I was above 100 species.

Rain was slamming down through Snoqualmie pass but when we finally started to get close to Seattle, during rush hour, the clouds parted and traffic was actually moving.  The group, diminished from dropping off a few deteriorated staff in town, descended on the last main stop at the Montlake Fill.  This was crunch time and Adam and I took off from the rest of the group to try to see as much as possible.  Cleaning up on easy species we had Savannah Sparrow, Anna’s Hummingbird, American Wigeon, Glacous-winged Gull, and Common Yellowthroat.  While we didn’t get Wood Duck, a regular at the fill, we had Cedar Waxwings and a Virginia Rail.  A Bewick’s Wren was singing as we left the park.  Chomping at the bit, we headed back to the office to drop off the rest of the staff, empty the van, and head to the rental place.  I followed Adam in his car and after the van was parked – we jetted off to West Seattle, our final stretch.

As absurd as it sounds, just writing this report is getting my heart rate up.  Birding like this is about uncertainties and it calls into action your absolute ability and attention.  You have to be on point perpetually.

Pigeon Guillemot, Western Grebe, Horned Grebe, Red-necked Grebe, Mew Gull, Brant.  We were doing well and the light was cooperating, it was past 8 pm by the time we’d reached the final park on our loop around Alki Point in West Seattle.  The sunset over the Olympics with a contrasting storm was so spectacular that I had break for a photo but then it was back to business.  An Eared Grebe was nestled in a group of Horned Grebes.  Finally a Harlequin Duck!  A Barrow’s Goldeneye flew away from us as we strained but failed to find Long-tailed Duck or Marbled Murrelet further out on the Sound.

As the light failed, we made out last-ditch attempt to find Western Screech Owl or Winter Wren in the forested section of Mee-Kwa Mooks Park.  Every crow back in the trees seemed to be an accipiter (it’s embarrassing to admit that we missed both Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s Hawks) as we stood patiently listening.  Finally the strangled croak of a Hermit Thrush rang out, as if calling the end to our day.  We’d been up since 5 am and by the time I got home it was 10pm.

As it turns out, I managed to squeeze by the board members at 124 species.  But that doesn’t really matter too much.  What was really important is that I raised over $600 for Seattle Audubon and all that money will be going to leave a legacy of the environment.  Maybe if I have kids and they are so unfortunate as to find themselves addicted to birding, they’ll be able to follow in my footsteps.

Thank you to all my sponsors (there’s still time to give money, till the end of May): Linda Carroll, Marti Davis,  Rebecca Evans,  Al Ferkovich,  Thomas Mansfield,  Jean Mills, Eldon Olson,  Roberta Roberts, Paul & Barbara Webster,  Diana Aubin de Paradis, Barbara Clark,  George Johnson,  Penny Koyama, and last but certainly not least Virginia Morrison!

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