Prepacking for the win
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| Trees above my campsite on Radar Ridge |
Of the trips I've made out to Pacific County this year. Heck, for any of them I've made in recent years, this was the one where I probably did the best pre-packing. I have late Saturday nights, so it was nice to get a *little* sleep while waking up to a car that was nearly ready for me to leave. Out the door, down the highway, and a first stop at the Willapa Bay Airport about 2 hours later.
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| Violet-green Swallow |
My real destination was Tokeland, but I figured why not stop at a good spot along the way? I found all five bazillion geese were still present (although no Snow Geese or Greater White-fronted Geese as I'd found here on previous trips). I'd found my first swallow of the year here in February, a single Tree Swallow. Today I found many more swallows, including some Violet-green Swallows (Species 117 for the year - a number I'll keep parenthetically).
March is really the start of it, the influx of summer birds. And I am hoping to knock them out as soon after arrival as possible, so that I can focus on some of the tougher birds out there - or even engage in some imaginative birding - going places where more unusual birds would at least be more likely to show up.
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| Turkey Vulture |
As I drove towards Tokeland, a Turkey Vulture (118), joined the list as well - one of many I saw on the trip. I picked at some left-over pizza (it was also a more frugal trip, all in all) as I drove and arrived at Tokeland Marina a little after noon. I got many of the same birds here - plenty of gulls at the marina, but none that really warranted a longer look.
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| Probably Dunlin? Can't say I checked every one of them lol |
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| Pigeon Guillemot |
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| Red-necked Grebe |
I'm basically down to Glaucous Gull, gulls with black heads, and gulls with very dark mantles. By the end of February, I'd found the other common gulls. Out at a distance, I did get a flyby Common Murre (119). Not a rare bird by code, but a relatively rare one by frequency of sighting. One had been seen in the marina recently, so I was happy to land on it. Distant swans were... distant. If there was a Tundra Swan mixed in with the Trumpeters, I would not have been able to tell you from this distance. Other things that had been seen at the marina (whimbrel, curlew, Long-tailed Duck) appeared to be no-shows, so I went and tried Graveyard Spit.
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| Belted Kingfisher dozing off on the job. |
I scanned quite a bit with nothing of note appearing (some dowitchers, some Mallards), but a handful of Whimbrels came flying in just as I was thinking of moving along. (120) I pretended to start leaving again. When this brought no curlews in, I actually left.
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| Whimbrels! I guess we're calling them Hudsonian Whimbrels now |
Washaway Beach was my next stop. There have been reports of rocky shorebirds in this area, so I thought it worth a try. I stopped at a pulloff before Washaway Beach - giving some rocks a careful look, and finding some Brandt's Cormorants (121) mixed in with the Pelagics.
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| Pelagic Cormorants, mostly, with one Brandt's at far right |
Here, and from Washaway, I also tried scanning the ocean in hopes of finding more than just Surf Scoters (I found just Surf Scoters). But I did find something that was not on my bingo card - surfers!
I talked to one of them at length. A guy around my age who had been surfing here for decades. He was actually able to talk a bit about how this beach is being lost to the sea. Damming on the Columbia has drastically reduced the silt that flows out into the Pacific, "It's all stuck up behind all those dams. On the Columbia, and even the tributaries." As a high school PNW history teacher, he was well prepared to lay out the history of this spot - the fastest eroding point on all of the west coast. <--- Do watch this video for more, including a pretty fantastic recovery effort for North Cove!
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| Washaway Beach - a pic from back in January |
"And it's nothing to do with climate change. I'm not a denier or anything, but this is totally different," he added, certainly a point he needs to address often at his rural school district in Lewis County. This whole story - the interaction between the Columbia and the Pacific - is one that I'd actually been reading about, thanks to my daughter. She grabbed me a book for Christmas: The Good Rain, by Timothy Egan. The entire first chapter talks about this whole area as the author worked to retrace the route of an explorer from a century and more ago.
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| 11 counties that have had focused years from me that all touch the Columbia And somehow, there are still 7 of them left! (Benton, Franklin, Grant, Okanogan, Lincoln, Ferry and Stevens!) Nearly half of the counties in Washington send soil directly into the Columbia |
And how interesting to have, over the years, focused on other counties all along the Columbia: Douglas, Grant, Kittitas, Yakima, Walla Walla, Klickitat, Skamania, Cowlitz, Wahkiakum, and Clark. All of them have this river passing by it. Something that people can waterski in, or casually paddle in canoes in kayaks, but near its exit into the ocean (and certainly even more so years ago!) things are a bit more violent.
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| Orange-crowned Warbler habitat |
After we wrapped up our conversation, I headed back to my car, and eyed the shrubby mess on the back side of the lot. "Ought to be Orange-crowned Wa..." I started to think, my thoughts interrupted by the song of an Orange-crowned Warbler (122). Just the kind of place I'd expect them - shrubby stuff near the beaches and clearcuts seemed to be among their favorite haunts. And what a fun, slurred song! It did my heart good to hear them (plural - as a second one joined the first in singing).
Back to the Airport again
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| Band-tailed Pigeon |
Band-tailed Pigeon! (123) This was another one of those birds that just isn't in the county in February, but by late March is easy enough to find. I'd already peered at all of the potentially productive puddles, so I continued onward, hoping for bluebirds in Nemah!
Well, I didn't find bluebirds in Nemah
Lynn Point Road had bluebird sightings several times during the last few weeks as I waited to make my March trip down to Pacific County. People had mentioned nest boxes, and there was no shortage of nest boxes in the huge open field! But they all seemed to be attended by Tree Swallows. I kept an eye out for the lazy, playful flight of a Western Bluebird, but it was all American Robins, Tree Swallows...
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| Semipalmated Plovers dodging high tide |
... and a pile of 20 Semipalmated Plovers sitting on a dry-ish gravel country road. I ran through all of the times when I've seen these birds in the past, trying to come up with some kind of analogy, but I just came up empty. It could be that the tide was just high, and this was a nearby waiting spot for them before they returned to some shore on a receding tide? Fun find, anyway!
Home base
Forest roads always feel like a gamble. Will they be closed? Will they be in awful condition? Will they be much different from the maps I'm looking at? None of the above. I took C-2000 up Radar Ridge, stopping briefly at a busier lake below before finding Snag Lake above. A family was fishing and otherwise recreating on the lake, and it was otherwise pretty quiet. I grabbed campground 1 (campground 2 had been littered into oblivion), and set up my tent.
What a neat little spot! I chose it for grouse in the morning (hopefully some Ruffed on the way down) and owls at night - Barred, Western Screech (?), and Spotted (??). The latter of the three hadn't been seen or heard in the county for 40 years or more, but this was the general area where they had been found in the 80s. Romantically, it felt right to set up camp here during their peak calling season.
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| Hammered-sheild Lichen, I think? Tangled up in a bare Red Huckleberry, with Salal below. |
The trees certainly didn't seem thick enough to do any interesting work for a Spotted Owl! Clearly second growth at this point. The lake had the snags that gave the place the name. While stopping to get a picture of some skunk cabbage, I was saddened by the discovery of a beaver - dead and submerged in a lakeside puddle. The site was otherwise fairly unbirdy, although a Rufous Hummingbird (124), rattled past me, apparently using some of the salmonberry blooms in the area.
Sufficiently set up, I made a run down for some food and a look at the area around Bay Center. Food came at Hunters Inn, where I got one of the meals that I seem to be able to find a lot of places: mixed greens and grilled chicken. I did my usual sit and listen. Not much to report from Naselle, beyond people spinning stories with each other.
I'd been to this beautiful meadow where South Bend-Palix Road descends near Bay Center back in February. I was led to... well, okay, I led myself to believe that this meadow was flooded at high tide, and that good timing could put me here nearing sunset as the tide fell. And why wouldn't a Short-eared Owl come and work the fields in those circumstances? But it may not have been, it did not, and they did not. I didn't mind too much! It's a beautiful spot.
I did a lap around Bay Center, thinking that the fields and shoreline might be of interest to a shortie if the aforementioned meadow was not. No luck here either. I slowed down a few times, with half a mind to look at some backlit ducks but thought better of it. Black-bellied Plovers worked the shore, and I scanned casually for some golden-plovers.
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| Dunlin - one transitioning into breeding plumage |
And then it was just back up the hill for bed. Bed at... 8 PM? Still a little light out? I gave a quick Barred Owl call when I got out of my car. Five minutes later, as I was climbing into the tent, a pair of Barred Owls called right back, with "Who Cooks for You?" and also the monkey like calls that they give. 125! What a nice round number to sleep on.
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