A Getaway to Okanogan County

With 2020 in no way shaping up as planned, with two cancelled vacations we found ourselves ready for a little getaway after more than 6 months without leaving San Juan Island. Only interested in visiting unpopulated areas, wanting to see some new birds, but also to stay in the state of Washington, we decided to head due east from home, east of the Cascades into Okanogan County. While we had explored the Winthrop/Twisp area before, this time we decided to go further east, renting a home-base cabin 30 minutes east of Tonasket out in the woods. 

 

It didn't take long to start seeing new bird species to add to our photo year list; the most exciting one on the way to our cabin was a flock of mountain bluebirds.

 

 

While the goal of the trip was birding, the all-around change of scenery is much appreciated, including the vegetation. It's amazing how different the plant life can be just a few hours drive from home. I could spend all day looking at the trees and shrubs and trying to identify them - in fact we did spend an hour on one quarter-mile trail just looking at the plants! We've timed it well for the fall colors, too, which as been an added bonus.

Our plan has been a series of loop drives from our home base cabin, exploring all kinds of back roads in search of wildlife. The weather has been better than expected - in fact, hotter than expected, and we did not pack accordingly! But no complaints about the all-day sunshine and the amazing photographic opportunities that has helped provide.

Black-billed magpie in perfect light

One of the biggest surprises of the trip was finding a black bear! While we had visited suitable bear habitat, where we saw it was not at all where I would picture a bear - in the middle of farm country. I'm glad I got a photo before it disappeared over the hill, or I might not have believed I really saw it!

The mammal diversity has been better than expected as well. The black bear was the largest, and my second favorite is probably the smallest, the yellow-pine chipmunk.

 

 Another unexpected find was the ghost town of Molson near the Canadian border. Not only was the town, complete with original pioneer buildings you are free to explore, amazing in its own right, but it also neighbors a series of lakes where we found species I never would have anticipated on this trip, including blue-winged teal and Barrow's goldeneye.

The ghost town of Molson, WA

Molson Lakes, hosting an incredible diversity of waterfowl species

The trip turned up two hoped-for life birds, in addition to more than 15 species for the photo year list.

Life bird #1: White-headed woodpecker, a serendipitous find of a species I've longingly look at in the field guide for many years!

Life bird #2: The well-camouflaged gray partridge

The so-called game birds were among the target species for the trip. I figured California quail would be the most common, but I wasn't prepared for just how many flocks we would see! 

The ubiquitous California quail, ranging in flock size from half a dozen to more than 30

My goal was to see at least one other species which we did with the gray partridge, but we lucked out again by finding a group of chukar, too, a bird I've only seen twice and a lifer for Jason.

A brief look at a chukar

I've always been fascinated by the fact that birding seems to come in "spurts". You can go through extremely quiet stretches and then seemingly hit the jackpot, finding unrelated species all in the same place. Such it was on the chukar day, after seeing nothing much more than magpies and robins for 2/3 of the day, a flurry of excitement in one unplanned roadside stop turned up not only the chukar, but a flock of over 100 sandhill cranes migrating overhead, and our first golden eagle of the trip.

Sandhill cranes riding the thermals well overhead

Golden eagle! Another hoped-for species of the trip

I keep saying this trip was primarily about bird-watching, but really, it was about immersing in nature, enjoying all creatures great and small, and getting a much needed break from at all, at least as much as is possible in 2020.

Orange sulphur butterfly

Douglas squirrel

It was rejuvenating to get away for a bit, and also a great reminder that you don't have to go far to go exploring. I will definitely be reliving these warm, sunny days and all the cool critters we saw through whatever it is fall and winter has in store for us in the coming months.

Alaska Reflections

When you take an epic trip, like my recent five week journey to Alaska, it almost takes a while for the whole thing to sink in. On one hand, once you've returned to your regular day-to-day routine, it almost feels like the trip never happened, or that it was over so fast. On the other hand, when thinking back on the trip every once and a while it sinks it - wow, I was really there, and I really saw all those amazing things. It's hard to capture the essence of the trip.

I don't really fancy myself all that much of a poet, but I have recently been intrigued with haiku, since to me they seem to often convey both natural beauty and personal emotions. There were a few times throughout the trip when free-form haiku seemed to just come to me, so I thought I would share them here as one way of reflecting on my trip.

Alpine flowers grow
Solitude in the tundra
Only bears walk here

Waterfalls cascade
The canyon slowly changes
I want to stop time

Humpback whales surface
Alaska rain showers down
We are all looking

Sun shines bright on snow
At the base of the mountains
How little we are

Haiku are sort of an artistic way of reflecting on the trip, but I also have a more scientific, factual side that likes to keep track of numbers and statistics. So I call my second way of looking back on my trip "Alaska By the Numbers".

Miles traveled by car: 5092
Miles traveled by ferry: 1728
Miles traveled by bus: 132
Miles traveled by train: 40

Number of bird species identified: 147
Number of year birds: 50
Number of life birds: 16

[Note: I added the purple martin (year bird 212) and willow flycatcher (year bird 213, NA life bird 336) on the last day of the trip at the Anacortes ferry terminal.]

Number of mammal species seen: 29
Number of these that were marine mammals: 8
Number of bears seen: 21 (19 black bears, 2 brown bears)
Number of these bears that were in Canada, not Alaska: 16

In addition to being an amazing wilderness sight-seeing trip, it was filled with great quality time spent with my parents, to whom I am eternally thankful for letting me tag along on this adventure! I'm glad all my blog readers were able to follow along on our travels, and as many of you have expressed to me I hope you get to experience the wonder that is Alaska for yourself first-hand. I know I plan to go back!

I'll conclude my Alaska reflections with this quote that I saw on a sign along the way, which to me captures part of the intrigue of nature:

"The wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned to ask." -Nancy Newhall, author

Caution: Wildlife

When you build a road through the wilderness, it is inevitable that large animals will find their way onto the pavement, creating potentially dangerous situations for both wildlife and drivers. It also creates some amazing wildlife viewing opportunities. Early on our trip I was intrigued by the signs warning drivers to look for everything from moose and caribou to sheep and wolverines on the highways. We ended up seeing many of the species right where predicted. Here is a little series I put together showing the often creative signs and the animals on or near the roadway. I think these photos demonstrate an interesting juxtaposition between wilderness and civilization. Most of these photos were taken in the Northern BC Rockies, and the others on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska.

Woodland caribou:

Wood bison:



Stone sheep:

Moose - probably the most common of the bunch, and hence the most often hit. In one town we saw a sign alerting drivers to how many moose have been struck since last July 1 (a whopping 174 in this case!)

And though they didn't often have signs warning you about them, nearly all of our bear encounters came along roadsides as well:

Into Denali

Wilderness is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium ~ Sigurd Olson, conservationist

Denali. The word is Athabascan for "High One" and was given to North America's tallest peak, also known as Mt. McKinley. Yet it has come to mean so much more than that. Say the word aloud. Denali. It evokes pure wilderness.

Today we traveled 66 miles into Denali National Park. Before I go further, I have to say I am extremely impressed with how this park is managed. The National Park Service is succeeding in both preserving wilderness and managing human access to experience it while sending a strong environmental and conservation message. It's really reassuring in a time of so many environmental issues to see something done so right.

As part of the plan to reduce human impacts on park wildlife vehicle access to the park is limited. While anyone can drive the first 15 miles of the only road that eventually leads deep into the park, after that vehicle access is mainly restricted to shuttle and tour buses. We rode one of the shuttle buses which pauses to see wildlife and also makes stops at set points where you are allowed to get out.

Now on to the animals! First of all, grizzly bears. Also known more popularly as brown bears in Alaska, as I had hoped we got to see our first grizzlies of the trip today in Denali. We saw two adults together, and our guide hypothesized that it was a male following a female. The picture above is of the bear that was being followed, presumably the female. The photo below is of the other bear who was lighter colored and potentially the male:

We got amazingly close looks at them and it was cool to see how little heed they paid to us. They just came out of the bushes, tromped along for a little ways, and then disappeared again without giving us so much as a glance.

From one of the largest animals of the day to one of the smallest, we also saw lots of Arctic ground squirrels. These little mammals were abundant, and as cute as they are they are also an important food source for most all of the larger animals that live in the Arctic tundra.

I was very thankful that our driver was also a bird-watcher himself and thus was also looking for birds and, even better, stopping the bus to look at birds! We got a closer look at some willow ptarmigans, a bird I saw for the first time earlier in the trip. Unlike the other ones we saw that were still partially white, the ptarmigans in Denali were already in their full brown summer plumage. Notice how the legs are feathered all the way down to the feet.

In addition to the ptarmigans, we spotted several golden eagles (year bird 197) including a great look at a juvenile perched on the hillside below us. The most exciting bird sighting of the day was a gray morph gyrfalcon (year bird 198, NA life bird 330), another bird I had really hoped to see on this trip. For those of you who aren't familiar with this bird, think peregrine falcon but much larger! This was my tenth lifer of the trip, and we are only halfway through!

Another fantastic sighting was a good look at a mother moose and her two calves. Having two offspring at a time is typical for moose, and as our driver explained, more than half of moose calves are predated upon so for the mama moose it is a good insurance policy in terms of successfully passing on her genes.

Dall's sheep were a common sighting today. We saw several groups including one nursery band of nearly 30 moms and young. This adult male was grazing just below another group of five males that were lounging on the hill above:

Another new mammal for me was the barren ground caribou. Going through the BC Rockies we spotted two woodland caribou, but these are their tundra counterparts. In BC we saw a female and a young male, so I was really hoping to see some adult males with their impressive antlers. My wish was granted as we saw two separate groups of males, including this big guy:

Another cool mammal sighting was a brief look at a hoary marmot! No photos of that one, but if you saw my post featuring yellow-bellied marmots from earlier in the trip they look similar but are blue-gray in color. We also saw a red fox carrying a lemming back to its den. I learned that if a fox is carrying its prey, it probably has kits and is carrying them back food, otherwise it will likely eat right on the spot. The only big mammal we didn't see were the wolves, which are a rare sighting though 70-80 of them are living in the park this year.

The wildlife was of course the highlight for me, but the scenery wasn't too shabby either. It was too cloudy to see Mt. McKinley today, as it is two-thirds of the time, but the painted hills of the Alaska Range were a beautiful landscape to take in all the same. Here are a couple photos to give you the feel of it:

The Northern BC Rockies

No internet yesterday, so for now, here's an update I wrote from yesterday, Tuesday the 25th....

Location: Muncho Lake, British Columbia
Population: 20

Have I mentioned that British Columbia is huge? I know I said so yesterday but it really is hard to believe that we often transit through British Columbia on our whale watching trips out of Friday Harbor and that after four long days of travel we are still in this amazing province. I see on the map where we are, but it is hard to grasp being at 59 degrees latitude, with much further north to go! It does the soul a lot of good to see so much untouched land, and to think that we’re seeing the most developed of it on the only main highway for hundreds of miles around. Over the years we all see and hear a lot about the world’s environmental issues, and I don’t want to belittle them because I worry about them a lot, but today was a perfect example of how there is a lot of raw wilderness left, and that all has not been lost.

They call this region the Serengeti of the North and with good reason. Black bears. Mule deer. Elk. Moose. Woodland caribou. Caribou!! And this isn’t even Alaska yet. I am just awestruck at the sheer beauty of this place. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking, since they capture it for me better than words as this point.

For the first part of the day the highway look like this:

Along this stretch of highway we spotted another moose, and this time she stayed long enough for me to take a photo:

Soon we started our climb into the Rocky Mountains, and for a while it seemed like there was wildlife around every corner. Elk - like this mom and her youngster:

We saw five black bears. This was my favorite photo from today:

We saw a couple of woodland caribou. I really didn't expect to see caribou until Alaska if at all, and I didn't know there were two types of caribou (the other type is the barren ground caribou). Here is a young male who was licking the rocks for salt alongside the road:

Whenever there weren't animals that demanded my attention, the scenery was breath-taking. Here is one example of the still mostly frozen Summit Lake, with snow-capped peaks in the background:

Today we covered part of the most remote stretch of the Alaska Highway. There are miles and miles of nothing but road, and when you come to a "town" it's nothing more than a hotel and a gas station, if it is open at all. Our stop-over for the night was the Northern Rockies Lodge on Muncho Lake.

Before leaving Fort St. John this morning, we saw a lake with Bonaparte's gulls and black terns (year bird 176) circling overhead. When we arrived at Muncho Lake, this gray jay (177) met us at our cabin:

Muncho Lake is a beautiful aqua color due to suspended copper oxide left as rock dust by receding glaciers. If you don't want to drive all the way to the lake, you can catch a float plane in from Vancouver, as many fly-fishers do for a weekend getaway. Here was an early evening float plane taking off in front of the beautiful mountains that encircle the lake:

The Beginning of The Alaska Highway

Location: Fort St. John, British Columbia
Population: 17,402

By looking at a map, once can recognize that British Columbia is a big province. By flying over it, you may see that much of it is uninhabited and remains raw wilderness. But you don't really get these things until you're driving through the countryside and humans feel like the minority - colonized here and there but dwarfed by the mountains and forests surrounding them. You don't really comprehend how big "big" is until you keep driving and driving and all you see are millions of trees stretching in every direction, mile after mile.

This morning, less than five miles outside of Prince George (and after visiting the hockey rink since I don't think I'll be coming back to see a game played here anytime soon) we saw our first moose of the trip. It was a brief glimpse of a female alongside the road who quickly disappeared into the woods, but it whet the appetite for more sightings and we were hopeful based on all the watch for moose signs we passed. She was the only one we saw today, but I'm sure we'll see more.

One of our first stops today was at a nature park where the mosquitos were too numerous and the trails were too muddy for us to feel much like hiking, but I did spot this butterfly. I've seen these commas (Polygonia spp.) in the field guide and was looking forward to the day I got to see one, since I'm intrigued by the feathered edges of their wings! Beautiful insects:

It didn't take long for us to find another black bear, either. We stopped to watch an adult bear up on the hillside, and before long one cub emerged from the nearby trees. Then came a second cub, and a third! The cubs looked very small - I wonder how old they are? Probably 2-3 months old already, but still so tiny! They were certainly full of energy, running back and forth across the clearing, and were full of energy as they kept wrestling each other down the slope. Very cute:

Our lunch stop was at Bijoux Falls where I got a close enough look at this squirrel to identify it as a red squirrel, a species I haven't seen before:

We also got close looks at a flock of Steller's jays. These are one of my favorite northwest birds, and though we see them often near my parents house in Portland I haven't ever photographed them before. The ones we see in Oregon don't usually have that white eyebrow, which was cool to see:

In general we saw fewer birds today - by far less variety and less abundance. The one highlight was when we pulled over on a wide shoulder to switch drivers and heard an unfamiliar call. It took a bit to locate the bird, get good looks, and agree on the identification, but it ended up being my first life bird of the trip - a singing male Tennesee warbler (year bird #175, North American life bird #321)! Does anyone else find it odd that I had to go to British Columbia to see a Tennessee warbler?

The terrain again changed a lot today from flat farmlands to rolling hills blanketed in aspen trees to rocky mountains covered in spruce forests. Here's a picture of some of the highest mountains we saw today, still capped in snow, with Highway 97 winding its way between them:

It's pretty amazing to me that we've been driving all this way and didn't even reach the Alaska Highway proper until today! But we passed the Mile 0 marker in Dawson Creek and covered about 50 miles or so until reaching our destination city Fort St. John. Along the way we got to detour onto a small portion of the original Alaskan Highway, which was amazingly built in just over eight months in 1942. It took thousands of people to complete the road, which was intended as a supply route for use during World War II. In the years since the highway has been rebuilt, and while it follows closely to the original route it is a bit shorter since they straightened it out considerable. At the old portion we drove today, we got to see the only original bridge that is still in use - the Kiskatinaw wooden bridge at Milepost 20: