February 18: Owls, Owls, and More Owls

Last weekend my family and I went out on a birding trip in southeast Washington/ northeast Oregon with Khan Tran of KTBirding. It's a trip my dad and I have talked about taking for years, reading with longing his regular trip reports that listed many potential life birds for both of us right here in our home states. Our initial trip plans got postponed due to weather, but thankfully, we finally made it happen!

It didn't taken long fro Khan to impress with his birding skills, as practically the first bird of the day was a northern pygmy-owl he somehow spotted as we drove up to higher elevations near Walla Walla. First bird of the day, first life bird of the trip for me!

Northern pygmy-owl in the early morning fog: North American life bird #369, photo year bird #103

While we didn't spot any hoped-for great gray owls, we did see some other new species for the year.

Townsend's solitaire, photo year bird #104

Back down at lower elevations, we picked up our second owl species of the day when we checked out some long-eared owl roosts. It was incredible in that Khan knew they were likely there, but on our first pass by, no one saw any owls. On our second pass, Khan spotted a couple, and even when he pointed out right where they were it took a few minutes for the rest of us to see them. Talk about camouflage!

Spot the long-eared owls!

Then the more we looked, the more we started seeing! There were at least a dozen birds in the first roost we saw, and we ended up seeing an astounding 30 or so of them as we checked several other roosts. And that's just the ones we saw - we could have easily missed twice that many for how hard to see they were!

Long-eared owl, photo year bird #106

Next we went to look for northern saw-whet owls, and en route spotted a pair of great horned owls - third owl species of the day!

What are you looking at? You, you great horned owl!

And sure enough, we found two saw-whets, too - an amazingly tame wild bird!

Northern saw-whet owl - photo year bird #109

On a roll now, we made a slight detour to look for a roosting barn owl, and found one. Not exactly a great photo op, but the first barn owl I've seen in many years and owl species #5 on the day!

Roosting barn owl - photo year bird #111. Who made that owl-sized hole in the cliff, I wonder?

The drizzle started falling and the fog moved in again, which slowed down the birding during the mid-afternoon. While in the area, we made a brief stop at Lower Monumental Dam - one of the four Lower Snake River dams that have received so much attention lately among the whale and salmon community. I can see how people living in the area aren't aware of the connection between these dams and the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales that live so far away, but the river that runs from one to the other is the direct link. To learn more about why these dams need to go, check out this blog post of mine on the topic. 

Lower Monumental Dam - of the four Lower Snake River dams that are largely obsolete and among the best candidates for removal to help recover endangered wild salmon and killer whale populations

We also made a stop at Palouse Falls, a state park that provided a stunning vista!

Palouse Falls

Next we weren't lucky in turning up any more saw-whet owls, but we did find a flock of wild turkeys.

Wild turkeys - photo year bird #112

While the focus of the trip was birds, we also saw a fair number of mammals throughout the weekend, including huge herds of elk and both white-tailed and mule deer.

 

We have our fair share of deer on San Juan Island, but we don't see them in congregations like this!

With the light fading, we made another trip up to higher elevations where we had been in the morning, to a peak where locals have seen several pairs of great gray owls this year. The great gray owl is also known as the phantom of the north; it's the largest North American owl but very elusive, and a species I have dreamed about seeing for many years. The snow started to fall and it got darker and darker, and with all of us scanning we made several trips up and down the road to no avail. Hope started to fade as it was nearly getting too dark to see when, on our last pass, Khan spotted it. Like a vision through the snow, this male great gray owl lived up to its nickname as a phantom. We all got a good view of it and then it spread its massive wings and disappeared right before our eyes.

Great gray owl - the phantom of the north. North American life bird #370 and photo year bird #113

We headed back to town for dinner, abuzz with the excitement of having lucked out to see this incredible owl species. After dinner, we decided to go for owl species #7, and sure enough, we found a pair of calling western screech-owls in a nearby neighborhood. Too dark for photos, but 7 owl species in one day is, I'm pretty sure, a personal record I'll never break!

At the end of day one I had added 2 life bird and 11 photo year birds, but we still had another full day of birding ahead of us!

October 28th ~ From Goldendale, WA to Mitchell, OR

The Yakima River side trip was such a success the day before, that I wanted to do another one. After leaving Goldendale, we again went off the highway and followed the 10+ miles of gravel Dalles Mountain Road towards the Columbia River Gorge. Again, it was an awesome side trip! Before we got to the gravel road, we passed through the small town of Centerville. It's amazing how many small towns there are like this all over the region, many of them almost ghost towns.

As we left Centerville, the birding really picked up for the first time on the trip. Lots of western meadowlarks and American pipits joined all the blackbirds in the farm fields. I also spotted the first of two prairie falcons (188)!

American pipit

One of the reasons we wanted to take this road is because as it goes over the ridge, you get amazing views of the Columbia River as you wind your way down towards Highway 14.

The Columbia River

The sun even came out a little bit!

Even on this side of the Cascades, the orcas aren't far from my mind. The Southern Residents feed on Columbia River Chinook salmon a lot, particularly during the winter months. While a good fall run of Chinook salmon is expected this year, in general Columbia runs are just a fraction of their former selves, in large part due to dams.

The John Day Dam

One reason dams are/were hugely important is as a source of hydroelectric power. On the ridgeline in the above photo, however, you can just make out what might be a good replacement for hydroelectric power: wind.

Wind turbines near Centerville, WA

 

[Side note: to learn a lot more about how dams impact salmon runs, and why we should start to seriously consider removing some dams, I highly recommend the movie DamNation. You can watch the trailer here, and the movie is available on both Netflix and iTunes or you can purchase the DVD from the movie's site.]

We also stopped at the replica Stonehenge before crossing into Oregon, because, why not? But to see what I'm thinking in the photo below, watch this video.

I actually don't think this one looks too much like the real thing, and we do know why they built this one: as a war memorial.

We wound our way down into Central Oregon away from the Columbia River, going through all kinds of very small towns and lots of wide open fields. In addition to spotting a small herd of pronghorn antelope, I saw a single mountain bluebird (189). I thought I might see more, but that ended up being my only bluebird on the trip! On our way to Mitchell, which would be our home base for the next couple days, we stopped at the Clarno Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The John Day Fossil Beds were the main attraction that drew me to this region, and the Clarno Unit is the smallest of the three units in the monument.

While we did the hike along this cliff face, we actually got a little rained on, but that didn't stop me from spotting some birds!

Rock wren (year bird 190)

Canyon wren (year bird 191)

In fact, this would also be the only place I would see rock and canyon wrens! We also saw rock pigeons in more or less their natural habitat, rather than on the city streets.

I would add one more year bird just outside of Fossil, Oregon as it was getting dark on our way to Mitchell: wild turkeys (192)! Next up: more hiking, more birding, and more amazing geology! The Painted Hills of Oregon.

Elwha River and Hurricane Ridge

This last weekend we went over for some camping in Olympic National Park on the Olympic Peninsula. The weather report was a wet one, and indeed in rained for the entirety of the drive and two ferry trips it took to get to the Elwha River valley where we decided to camp. Luckily, once we arrived, the rain ceased giving us a chance to set up camp and take a walk around looking at the flora and fauna before cooking dinner.

Olympic National Park contains three distinct habitat zones: the rocky coastline, the Olympic mountain range, and the lush temperate rainforest. The latter is where we were - and the amount of green everywhere is sure impressive. Trees, ferns, mosses, and lichens abound.

There were lots of snails and banana slugs about:

There was also a pair of deer out browsing, perhaps also enjoying the break in the rain:

We also saw some of the regular avian visitors to the campground: American robins, dark-eyed juncos, song sparrows, Vaux's swifts, and, most excitingly, evening grosbeaks and red crossbills.

The drizzle resumed during our post-dinner campfire, and after entering the tent the night-long torrential downpour began. This gave us the opportunity to find all the less-than-waterproof portions of our tent, and the optimistic camper in me insisted it was only appropriate to be experiencing heavy rains while in the rainforest. 

Our camp site was right along the Elwha River, which is making headlines right now for its historic dam removal project aimed at revitalizing the salmon population. There were two dams on the lower Elwha River, and one of them failed to have any fish passages, which was illegal even when the dam was built in the early 20th century. The result was the 70 miles of relatively pristine river habitat protected within the National Park have been cut off to native salmon populations for the better part of 100 years. In 1992, a bill was passed saying the salmon runs had to be recovered, even if it meant taking the dams down. Years of study indicated that dam removal would be the best option for salmon recovery, and in September of 2011 the dam removal began.

This is the largest dam removal project to date in the United States and the second largest restoration effort undertaken by the National Park Service in its history (after the Everglades). It's a monumental event, and one that I hope will start a trend of dam removals in the Pacific Northwest - places like the Lower Snake River and Klamath River are ideal sites to remove dams where salmon runs would also benefit. It was inspiring to visit the Elwha amid all of this going on. One of the park rangers said, "The river is changing every day," and already there are signs that it is only becoming healthier. 

The 108-foot Elwha Dam was fully removed by March, and the lake behind it was fully drained in April. Here's what the whole structure looked like:

And here's what it looked like on Sunday, June 24th, 2012:

 On the surface it looks like a mud pit, but a recent post on the Dam Removal Blog explains how life is already encroaching on the barren sediment that covers the remains of an old forest. Sandpiper and otter tracks crisscross the mud, and seedlings of native trees are taking root on the stumps of 500 year-old cedars that have been buried under the reservoir for the last century. Very cool stuff.

Back to our trip....The weather broke again first thing on Saturday morning, just long enough to cook a delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, and potatoes. Then, the clouds moved in and the rain continued as we decided to make our way up Hurricane Ridge. At 5200+ feet elevation, it is known for its stunning views of the interior mountains the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Those vistas were not to be enjoyed on this day! Here's what we were supposed to be looking at:

But this is what we saw:

The 17-mile drive up to the ridge was even treacherous, with the fog severely limiting visibility:

But the weather conditions didn't stop us from seeing some really cool wildlife! First stop was to look at this very tiny fawn, which must have just been born as it was still wobbly on its legs:

We also saw a couple of sooty grouse, a species I only heard while in Winthrop the weekend before:

Somehow, the wilderness seemed even larger, looming there in the unknown:

Up at the summit, feet of snow still blocked off many of the trails, and sub-alpine wildflowers were just beginning to bloom where the snow was beginning to fade away during this colder-than-average spring in the Olympics. A horned lark (208) and an American pipit foraged right along the snow line - species that prefer open habitats but which I've never seen at these elevations before.

Drenched by the time we left the summit, we decided we might as well keep exploring and stopped by Madison Falls:

There were lots of maidenhair ferns - my favorite fern species - in this part of the park along the creeks and waterfalls:

We also walked about three-quarters of a mile up the Griff Creek trail, which was narrow and wound its way up through the woods. Here's what part of the trail looked like:

Upon our return to camp, we discovered our tarp had fallen under the weight of all the rainwater, drenching our chairs and firewood. With damp clothes and a damp tent, this was the low point of the trip, but it quickly turned around when 15 minutes later the sun peaked out for the first time, and the rain stayed at bay for the rest of the evening and another enjoyable (if hard to get going) campfire.

Sunday morning it was time to pack up and start heading home, but with the weather clearer it was too tempting not to make another jaunt up Hurricane Ridge to see if we could see the views this time. It was well worth it:

 This time the vistas matched the signs:

We didn't see as many birds this time, perhaps because there were a lot more people around, but we did see this deer and these ravens that nicely posed in front of the mountainscape together:

Back home, it was a challenge to get everything clean and dry, but over a late dinner one more cool weekend wildlife moment awaited. It was almost dark, when I heard and then saw a very distressed violet-green swallow. A pair nests nearby, but they're usually roosting by this time of night, and I went outside to see what it was upset about. It was circling right around the houseboat, so I walked up the dock to see if something was on the roof. I thought it might be a Cooper's hawk, which we've seen around here a few times before, but I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a barred owl perched right on our gutter! Before I could return with my camera to try and get a dim-light photo it had disappeared back into the trees on the bank. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't see it among the narrow strip of woods here between the marina and the road. It got me thinking about how many natural wonders lay hidden within the Olympic National Park forests - 95% of which are designated as wilderness. It didn't matter if I didn't see the mountain lions, black bears, and spotted skunks that make their home in the Elwha River Valley. Just being in the same forest with them was enough.