January 2, 3: Kickoff!

Happy New Year! 

It makes a lot of sense to explain a few things before I dive in on a new year of birding. Take a peek on the sidebar at right. You'll see the "Klickitat County Birding" page, which lays out the rationale for a year of birding in Klickitat County. My "Running Tally and Needs List" is exactly that - outlining what birds I've seen, and what likely birds are still on the table. 

I also often start the year with a "By the numbers" page, but I can kind of sum up the numbers here:

I think I'm going to see just north of 205 species for the year, and maybe 210. No records will be set. Washington Birder lists the highest reported total for a year in Klickitat as 182. I'll report my yearlist, and may have my name next to something on there, but I know from eBird that a half dozen people or so have recorded more species in a year, with the high mark at 240. 

I don't have the geography, the time, or honestly the skill to hit that mark! But when I'm in the county (about monthly) I'll do all I can to see all I can. Hopefully the transparency will help others find birds here down the road. It's a neat county, and I'm excited to explore!

205-210

So, math. The very top of the Running Tally and Needs List has a county checklist from Washington Birder. If you carefully count the times you see "(1)" next to a bird on the list (or just use Ctrl + F on the checklist as I eventually figured out to do. . . ), you'll see it's got 111 Code 1 birds. These are your American Crows, your Song Sparrows, your Bald Eagles. They're generally easy to find, and I'll likely find all 111 during the year. 

Red-tailed Hawk - a code 1 bird in every county in Washington

Code 2 birds are not quite as easy to find, but with a little effort, they should nearly all make it onto my list this year. What makes a bird harder to find? There might be fewer of them, they might be very skulky and hide in marshes, they may only show up at specific times of the year. Klickitat has 60 birds at code 2. I'll likely miss one or two. For easy math, we'll say I'll miss 1, so 111 + 59 = 170 birds between the first two codes. 

Wood Ducks - a Code 2 bird in most counties in the state, including Klickitat

Code 3 birds are tough to find, but can be seen annually. With the kinds of efforts I make, it almost always works out that I find about 80 percent of the code 3 birds in a county during a year like this. 36 code 3 birds, so... let's say 28 or so for a total of 198.

From a spreadsheet available on Washington Birder. Ruddy Ducks are clearly a little picky!
Code 3 (yellow) in Klickitat, and a handful of other counties, but much more common
(blue or green) in most other counties in the state. Ruddy Duck was one of my big misses in 
Mason County during my year in that county. 

Code 4 and code 5 birds are not seen annually, with code 4 just having some regular pattern of occurrence (5 or more sightings). If I pick one or so of these up every month, then the grand total should be right around 210. I'm not likely to hop in the car and drive down to Klickitat just to make it 210 instead of 209 at any point! Balance is just too important, so when I'm not there, I'm not there.

When I AM there, some of these code 4 and 5 birds will get a lot of my attention, most often when there's a good chance that they are actually in the county and findable every year. Sometimes birds are underreported, or just increasing in abundance, so you might find me looking for Flammulated Owls, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, and Harlequin Ducks fully expecting to find them this year.

January 2nd

The long way 'round

My original plan was for this to be January 3rd and 4th, but a trip over Snoqualmie Pass was not going to happen on the 3rd. I shifted plans to get my son to college in Ellensburg on the 2nd and stayed with my folks in Yakima. Ten inches of snow overnight meant a lot of forecasting, negotiating, shoveling, and shifting to just get out on the 3rd. Again, going over Satus Pass would have been the original plan, but I would have had to chain up, and my folks were pretty anxious about the weather, the ice, etc. 

So, I went around. 

This may be the only time I do this, but who knows what the year may bring! I at least know now that driving from Yakima to the Tri-cities, and then to the little town of Lyle on the Columbia is about 5 hours on a snowy day. 

Tradition

First step in

I like getting these pictures. It's fun looking over a map and stepping through which roads may or may not warrant a county sign. As noted, I'm not entirely sure that I'll enter the county from this direction again, but it was definitely a stretch of road that I've never driven before! 

Raft of American Coots

Snow was coming down on a generally clear road, and my GPS was telling me that I'd be getting to the Lyle hotel a little after the sun went down, so no focused birding happened along the way. Still, some of the first birds of the year rolled in: Common Goldeneye (1), American Coot (2), Belted Kingfisher (3), and Common Raven (4) were among the very first ones.

I was able to find a couple nice places to do a quick pull-over, picking up Red-tailed Hawk (5), and Bald Eagle (6) along the way.

A few of these stops looked like they would be great. There were stretches, however, where the Columbia beckoned, with birds speckled across the river, but the road offered no place to pull over. In other places, the railroad was elevated enough to obscure the view of the river. In terms of scouting, it was a pretty good trip, taking me almost the entire length of it before the sun went down. 

Highway 14

In the last 20 miles or so, fog rolled in, and it became honestly pretty dangerous.to be on the road. I dropped the speed, dropped the high beams, and let my white knuckles keep me as safe as possible. It didn't fully clear until I was ten miles or so from my stop. 

The Lyle Hotel

"I didn't think I was going to see you - that showed some determination!" I smiled and nodded at what was, for better or worse, an apt enough description of me. I have to say, I made the reservation in a bit of haste, and I was pretty pleasantly surprised. 

what counted as legal parking

The hotel is an historic building in a cute little town along the Columbia. There's nearly nothing in Lyle. Nearly! There are two restaurants (one open for breakfast and lunch, one closed and ready to reopen as a Chinese restaurant down the road), an antique shop, a grocery store, and a laundromat. The hotel itself sported a restaurant and bar, also both closed for the time being. The current owner and wife lived in the basement of the hotel, wrapping up a 5–10-year stint as owners. 

The signs around the place, the decor, the setup of the rooms, restaurant, and bar. . . it all has me excited. Who could expect much from a hotel this far out of the way in the dead of winter and Covid, sitting under a half foot of snow? And yet I had found a comfortable place to sleep in a quaint hotel with friendly, responsive ownership. 

warm bed for the night

I made the walk up to the grocery, (picking up bird 7 for the year on the way - a Great Horned Owl hooting from the East end of town) with a belief that some deli Chinese food was waiting for me. Unfortunately, the snow had kept the chef at home, I was told. I grabbed a bottle of wine and a little box of cheese/crackers/salami to settle in and check emails. 

January 3rd

I was looking over a map, and thought, "Yaknow. . . there's a lot of habitat within walking distance of the hotel. . . " The ground was still under a nice blanket of snow, so I figured a nice walk around town would be at least the safest way to start exploring Klickitat County. I got some coffee and granola downstairs at the breakfast bar, sparse as it was, and stepped out. 

Columbia River from Lyle

As I got my camera out of the car, there was a puzzling moment where I heard a nasal call that didn't quite register. I turned and looked at the tree four feet from me. Red-breasted Sapsucker (8). I stared at it. It stared back. I started reaching for my camera, and it started slowly shifting around the tree. I got my camera out, and it flew. 

I'll have to apologize for a dearth of pictures. The flakes were still falling down, and they were big fat flakes. The binoculars were nearly useless, so I figured the camera would not be much better. Walking the East-West road that runs along the North side of the hotel, I immediately hit a house with a feeder, and a whole lot of birds to pick through. 

At this particular time, most of the birds were Dark-eyed Junocs (9), with a good number of House Sparrows (10), White-crowned Sparrows (11), and Spotted Towhees (12) mixed in. I stayed through the flakiness long enough to see a couple Golden-crowned Sparrows (13), and Brewer's Blackbirds (14) join the party. This person had clearly dumped a lot of seed out for birds on an unusually snowy day, and if I was a bird, it would be hard to imagine not being drawn to all of the sound. 

The binoculars weren't much better - certainly a morning made for unaided eyes and ears

As I continued walking, some birds made themselves heard that would turn out to be almost omnipresent during this trip: Northern Flicker (15), Common Raven, California Scrub-Jay (16), and Varied Thrush (17) were just always there.

Maybe a road on another day?

There's a little wetland, it would seem, at the East end of town, which this road led me right to, although there was nothing wet about it on this particular day. Just a shallow bit of ice, although it was at least still inviting for a Killdeer (18) Some of the blackberries along the road held Song Sparrows (19) and a Bewick's Wren (20). 

California Quail (21) started flying out of the blackberries and off to a vacant lot, about 50 of them in the end. 

The walk actually took me under the railroad tracks, allowing for some walking closer to the Columbia. At one point, I got a nice view down and was able to find Mallards (22), Ring-necked Ducks (23), Green-winged Teal (24), a Common Loon (25), and a Western Grebe (26).

The snow eased up a little bit as I returned to town. Eurasian Collared Dove (27), and House Finch (28) were new adds. I peeked again at the feeder and found nothing new. 

Slightly less obscured picture on the way back to the hotel

After getting back, I went ahead and tried the local diner for a heartier breakfast. Nice place. They had your standard breakfast special - eggs your way, hash browns, choice of meat, and toast. My favorite eggs are poached, but I have found that they are not all that commonly asked for at your typical small-town diner. 

The heart of Lyle, on the highway - Market and
Country Cafe at right. The hotel was left and a 
couple blocks down.

"I don't think we do them that way anymore, but would basted work for you?" 

I didn't confuse the issue by asking what basted eggs were, but I've looked it up since, and may have to try cooking them that way at home. 

The signs in town made the political leanings of Lyle pretty clear, and any small-town diner is the place to hear all about it on nearly any morning. However, it's a little different when it's. . .

". . . the first big snow we've had in 4-5 years."

"Three."

I smiled at how quickly the fact was produced. I know we had some of the worst snow in the Seattle area a few years back but would have been hard-pressed to state the year without some thought. Some people just track things better than others. 

Most of the talk that morning was about who was available to shovel/plow driveways, roads, and lots. When I did head out, I saw that one road of interest, the Centerville Highway, was not looking even half-safe for me to drive. So, I continued my morning explorations.

Klickitat River Mouth

On the East side of Lyle, where I was starting, there is a little park along the river where the Klickitat Trail begins, following the Klickitat River from there. Boots and all, I still wasn't going to try to negotiate it. I still found a way to get to some good river views, finding some Common Goldeneyes from the park, as well as a Great Blue Heron (29), and a Double-crested Cormorant (30).

The park had Dark-eyed Juncos, Varied Thrush, and my first American Crows (31) of the year in the county. Heading out to get a view of the river mouth, I also added a Herring Gull (32). At this point, I started on my way back towards the hotel, making my way through town. The town continued to give me a few birds here and there, including a Downy Woodpecker (33), and an Anna's Hummingbird (34).

I got back to the hotel room, warmed up briefly, and made plans to bird close to the Columbia for a bit. 

Spearfish Park

Spearfish Park

This park near Dallesport did have some water that was clear of ice, and a good mix of ducks. The road out was hard packed snow, but flat, and very drivable. Birds seen during this fairly brief visit included Canada Goose (35), Gadwall (36), American Wigeon (37), Mallard, Ring-necked Duck, Greater and Lesser Scaup (38, 39), Bufflehead (40), Common Goldeneye, Common and Hooded Merganser (41, 42), Pied-billed Grebe (43), American Coot, and Double-crested Cormorant. 

That was just the water list! Throughout the park, wherever brushy patches existed, there were sparrows with equal parts juncos, white- and golden-crowned. A Red-tailed Hawk, a pair of Bald Eagles, a Northern Flicker, and a California Scrub-Jay were present in trees here and there, and a pair of Canvasbacks (44) flew overhead as I was getting ready to leave. 

My morning in the Dallesport area

It was encouraging to get 4 different birds from the Aythya family: the two species of scaup, Ring-necked Ducks and Canvasback. Tufted Duck would be a fun bird to find during the year, and Redhead should not be hard. It's just always nice to know where ducks of the same family tend to congregate. 

Dallesport

Ring-necked Pheasant 

What a neat area. I'd not really driven the country roads near Dallesport before, and I'm excited to come back here several times during the year. Early in the drive, I picked up Ring-necked Pheasant (45), with a male and female right at the road's edge. They did fly, but not out of sight, so I was able to get a few pictures of them in the snow.

Female Ring-necked Pheasant

Male Ring-necked Pheasant

A pair of Western Meadowlarks (46) also made a roadside appearance, although in my haste, I let the camera decide where to focus. Still, for laughs, here we go:

The Columbia River, with a yellow smear of Western Meadowlark

The other typical farmland bird that I found here was a Rough-legged Hawk (47) right before entering the town of Dallesport itself.

Rough-legged Hawk

Tidyman Road

There wasn't much to this road, but I could easily imagine finding a lot of geese using the fields in migration, or even on a day like today. The road did take me past a home with a pretty active feeder, and a bush full of berries. The birds were feasting here, including California Scrub-Jays, Varied Thrush, Dark-eyed Junco, White-crowned Sparrow, and California Quail. 

Unadjusted Varied Thrush photo

Adjusted for light and color

I'm not entirely sure where I sit on photography here. In the pictures above, the bottom one better shows the details on the thrush, and the bright colors of the berries, but I'm always suspicious of any photo that's been tinkered with. Are photos here to document? To remember? To impress/affect? It's likely some stew with all of those thrown in, but these birds really were beautiful as they chowed down on the berries.

Other snowy endeavors

Horsethief State Park is right up the road from Dallesport. I innocently pulled over at a roadside pulloff overlooking some water. I could see ducks and gulls below and wanted to view them from my window. The snow was a little thicker than I had anticipated, and I quickly realized that my car was not easily going to be removed from the spot where I had come to a stop. Fortunately, I was very much off of the road, and also had a camping shovel with me. With a little bit of digging around the tires, I got enough clear pavement to get out, although it did take a pretty significant push to get it into my newly dug tire tracks. Probably a good place for this to happen, but I took it as a sign to head back towards Lyle, Bingen, and White Salmon. 

Bingen Pond

The Bingen Pond trail - "pond" at left, Columbia River at right

This is going to be a great spot during the year, although on this day, it was just iced over, and the trail was pretty deeply covered in snow. I walked it anyway, and picked up a few new birds for the year, Red-winged Blackbird (48), Northern Harrier (49), American Kestrel (50), and Belted Kingfisher (51). A little cove below the path had most of the ducks, which also included Gadwall, Mallard, American Wigeon, Ring-necked Duck, and Common Goldeneye. 

Varied Thrushes continued to be plentiful, and I had still not seen a single American Robin on the trip - strange!

Afternoon/evening

I got to White Salmon, hoping to find a place to sit down, warm up, and type. Unfortunately, the snow had closed any of the places that might have served those purposes. I turned it back around towards Lyle, and the hotel bar, despite being closed, substituted quite well. 

To capture the decor, and the 
feeling of transition, as the hotel
will be changing hands soon

I checked with Richard, the owner, to make sure it was fine to set up with my laptop at a table as he worked on bills and dishes. I was able to secure some beer from Everybody's Brewing (yum) and some General Tso's chicken from the Lyle market (um. . .) to fuel me as I got some work done late into the evening before heading to sleep.