February 13th - SuperOwl Sunday

Forgive me that. It was that or Superbird Sunday? But in the end, the owls won. Why? It's February, which is always owl time for me. I nearly always head out in January for owls, but over time I've come to realize that it's not the peak time to catch them calling, with the possible exception of Great Horned Owls (which I'd had without even trying in Lyle back in January. 

Swale Creek

The moonlit drive down the Centerville Highway - 4:32 AM, according to the file info

This was a much-looked-forward-to stop. Looking back through records, there were so many different species of owls that had been seen here. The drive was beautiful, with a waning gibbous moon hanging low in the sky. I wanted to give myself plenty of time to explore, so I hit the road shortly after 4. 

In light of what I had mentioned regarding solo birding in the post from the previous day, it should make sense that this hike checked all the right boxes:

• Before 5AM
• Below freezing
• Coyotes calling in... a few different directions.

What more could a person ask for! I grabbed the headlamp, but mostly went without it, as the moon was able to light my way down the Klickitat Trail quite well. In fact, the moon provided one of the only scares of the morning. I was walking along when... I saw a dark figure moving on the far bank of the creek. I paused... waited holding my breath... then continued. I didn't see anything and kept walking, periodically catching a glimpse of the dark figure out of the corner of my eye. Just my shadow, of course! I had a good laugh about it at the time, at any rate. 

The only owls I had at first were distant Great Horned Owls, but I did eventually come across a stretch of the trail where I got some nice single low hoots from a Long-eared Owl (78 on the yearlist). This was a fun find - I definitely wanted more, but in the last year in Douglas County, March had been my best month for owls. 

Side excursion towards Hartland Lake. I wanted to find places to come across Short-eared or Barn, but nope!

When I'd made it back to the car, I thought maybe it would be worth trying the more wooded area to the South for Northern Saw-whet Owl. I stopped several times along the road, gradually making it to Hartland Lake, which had nice wetlands that I thought might be good for a few different types of owls. But nope! As that gorgeous book, Owl Moon, states, "Sometimes there's an owl, and sometimes there isn't." 

This didn't capture it. I tried. The entire morning, the sun was catching little
bits of moisture *everywhere*, lighting every humble shrub up with countless colored gems

And yes, likely due to some brain injury, standing in the still freezing air, watching the moon set, and eventually watching the sun rise without adding a single new owl suited me just fine. I was in a beautiful place, which of course is the only reason that I go on these trips, right? On my way back from the area near Hartland Lake, I did spy a small raptor in a tree - Sharp-shinned Hawk (79)!

The sun had risen, and I retraced my steps on the Klickitat River Trail, hoping to find an American Tree Sparrow that had been seen there. The sunlight hitting the millions of drops of melting ice was amazing. The fun new add for the year was a Northern Shrike (80). My camera certainly had different ideas on what I was excited to see...

Camera's got its own ideas, clearly - Mount Adams (back), Northern Shrike (front)

A flock of Red Crossbills (81) flew overhead, sounding very much NOT like the local crossbills I get to hear. Reviewing the recording I got, as well as other recordings online, I settled on Type 2 for these guys. All of these Red Crossbills are (somehow) the same species, but there are distinct types that use distinct trees to feed. These guys use Ponderosa Pines and have bills to fit the situation. 

I got back to Harms Road, where I had parked, and decided why not try the trail to the South/West from there? 

Nothing new on this stretch, but I did get some fun. I came to a stretch of the trail that was lined with young Ponderosa Pines and was startled as a Great Horned Owl flew from the tree right above me! It flew up the trail and out of sight. 

I walked farther and flushed the thing again. And again, and then returned up the trail and flushed it again. And another time. I kind of lost count, but. . . as owls go, this did not seem like it had a very good routine in place for these situations!

At this point, I'd put in... 4? 5?? miles of walking and decided - let's go find a hike!

Catherine Creek

I'd heard good things from Karen about the trail from the previous day, so I thought I'd give this trail a try. I'd passed the trailhead from Old Highway 8 on Saturday and thought it would be well worth visiting. This walk was splendid. Splendid! 

Everywhere. There were like... nearly always 6 or more Lewis's Woodpeckers nearby.

I've seen Lewis's Woodpeckers in other parts of the state, so I understand they're not some super-rare bird, but there was a ridiculous number of them on the trail. Literally. I am thinking of the number, and I am ridiculing it for being a big number. 

There were a few points along the way where I saw what seemed to be granary trees for Acorn Woodpeckers. These woodpeckers drill a series of holes in the top of a snag, and will stuff acorns into the holes, saving them up for the months to come. I peeked at many of them, passed them, and kept walking up the kinda poorly marked trail. 

At some point, I dug in my heels. I saw another tree that looked like a granary tree - I think the third that I passed - and decided, no. This is where Acorn Woodpeckers live, and I will just wait for them to come here. This never works for me. I see mud and wait for shorebirds, I see shrubby patches and wait for sparrows. It rarely works out like this. Birds always need like... so many things. Apparently, for example, shorebirds don't eat mud! 

This time, however:

This was so much fun. I'd always thought it was part of bird's genetic complexities - this ability to mess with me and NOT show up where you'd expect. But there were two Acorn Woodpeckers (82) coming in, spending time at the granary, flying away, coming back. I sat for nearly a half-hour, just watching them do their thing. Despite any indications to the contrary, it really is the birds that bring me out to these places, clearly.

Bridge over Catherine Creek

I kept walking, and goodness, it's not 100 percent clear at times which way to go. A small group of Western Bluebirds (83) passed overhead, and a Hermit Thrush (84) started up a bit of a song as I started UP the wrong trail. I needed the workout, of course, so this was a good mistake. I was a bit behind another group and caught my breath for long enough to ask if they were heading back to a parking lot. 

"Oh! No... no parking lot this way."

So, I went back down the trail now. Still surrounded by Lewis's Woodpeckers, as well as Steller's Jays. I came across another group and was officially adopted for the rest of the hike. Understand - I'm an extrovert at heart, but I am a strategic extrovert! I will admit, I tried to speed up a little, slow down a little, but in the end, I was WITH this group, so I just gave up and drank them in. I'm actually disappointed, because I lost a business card I was given at the end of the hike!

The gentleman who I seemed unable to shake was the man who called everything splendid. "Splendid!" It grated on me for a while, but then it sunk in, I recognized the unfiltered joy he was channeling, and I also decided that everything was splendid. Splendid!

One splendid thing we discovered was the fact that a few species of wildflowers had found a way to star blooming in February. We didn't "discover" this per se. For me it was brand spanking new information. For many people on the trail, it was why they had come that day. It was why they would be coming back many times during the year. Catherine Creek, it would seem is a heck of a place for wildflowers throughout the year. 

For me, I appreciated that I wasn't overwhelmed by a super large number of wildflowers. There was a single bloom that most people were there to see - Grass Widows. I found a good number of them on the trail, took a lot of pictures, and all of them came out fuzzy. Fortunately, I caught some the next day at a rest stop: 

Grass Widow

Gold Star was another one I found fairly often: 

Within this image, I had one more flower I wanted to hunt down - the pink one! Looking over the pictures I could find, and bugging wildflower people, I think I'm leaning towards Bulbous Woodland-star Lithopragma glabrum. This was just a start, but... from all accounts, I need to come back here in other seasons to get a look at more wildflowers!

Western Bluebird - Splendid!

My new friends spotted a flash of blue, and we were able to hunt down a Western Bluebird. It took some trickeration to get my camera to try to get the bluebird in focus, but I succeeded with a solid B- attempt.

Raaaare author photo

Time Out

I'd put in a bazillion miles of walking, and added some good birds for the day, so it wasn't completely unwelcome when work called. I made one stop along the way to stare at backlit ducks at one of the roadside ponds, (but picked up a singing Canyon Wren (85)). I sat down at Everybody's Brewing in White Salmon, got through emails, and took some time to figure out, where next? 

These trips... I put so much planning into them, and those plans are put to death as soon as I find my first bird. Not to death, but there are shifts. I never really regret the roads I take, and I actually might if I went into the trips uninformed - if I didn't know what was possible - what my options were. 

At the time, my biggest group of missing birds were ones living in the more forested areas, and specifically over here on the West end of the county: Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Evening Grosbeak, Band-tailed Pigeon, Pileated Woodpecker, Northern Pygmy-Owl, Barred Owl, Pygmy Nuthatch, Purple Finch, Mountain Chickadee, Brown Creeper. These were all birds that I thought I might spy by heading up a back road, kinda northeastish out of White Salmon.

Heading up a back road, kinda northeastish out of White Salmon.

Snowden Road

I actually hit a few different roads that I took out of town, although I think that they took the name Snowden Road for most of the way. Chestnut-backed Chickadee (86), and Pygmy Nuthatch (87) were the new birds on this road. More importantly, the road was new. I loved winding through the deep forest, and occasionally popping out into open farmland. Snow was also still lingering on the ground more and more as I continued. 

This is why I choose to get lost.

That picture... it's hard to say enough about how beautiful it was there, so I won't. The picture almost does it. Not a Brown Creeper to be seen or heard anywhere. I was still on a paved road, but traffic was blessedly light. Magical stop.

Snow kept this from happening

What actually happened

Hooboy, I did try to follow Sleepy Hollow Road all the way to Appleton, and from there to Klickitat, and to Goldendale for the night. It just was not to be. I had enough sense to stop, turn around, and take Lyle-Snowden Road down to Lyle. 

I got to the Columbia at not a bad time at all. 

Sunset on the Columbia

Addendum: February 14th

This would have been nothing but a trip to Yakima if my brother had told me that my folks needed help after my mom's surgery. It actually started with more work from the hotel, and a meandering bit of bird-grabbing on the way home. 

Virginia Rail (88) - at a little marshy area between MP 109 and MP 110 on Highway 14. 

Ruddy Duck (89) - one had been reported at Horsethief Lake. I pulled over to check on my way, and found a dozen! 

Glaucous-winged Gull (90) - I stopped at Chamberlain Lake Rest Area, and had one fly by the river as I got a parting shot of the Columbia. 

The Columbia from Chamberlain Lake Rest Area

From here, I slipped out of the county, and back to Renton in time for an afternoon doctor's appointment. 

February 12th - On the Move

As tradition would have it - I got a pic as I entered the county

I've got to keep moving.

It's true for the year - I've got a lot of places to explore, and a lot of birds to see. But beyond that, I've got to keep my body moving. October... November... December had all landed me some great writing projects. They were so great that I spent a lot of time sitting and writing. This, friends and neighbors, is not part of the general plan for staying healthy. I started to come out of it in late December, setting up time with a trainer to get back in shape, but late January found me with an odd pain in my leg, that turned out to be a blood clot. 

It's under control now, but definitely has me looking at things related to this year - how much time in the car? how much time hiking/walking? how much time sitting and writing about the last trip, or planning out the next one? There's a lot of tweaking to do, and it even in part explains why I waited two weeks to get this entry done! It should be the last mention of this in the blog, I pray, but hopefully the reminder lands with someone else as well - You've got to keep moving.

Dark and early

One of my favorite times of day! I was up and packed for the trip well before dawn, choosing to head down from Renton and make it to Bingen Pond right around sunrise. 

I may have posted this elsewhere before, but I was struck again by how similar the times work out for the two easiest routes to Klickitat.

On this particular day, I wanted to get to Bingen in particular, as a few nice birds had been found there in prior weeks.

Define "nice birds"

I doubt a Swamp Sparrow has ever been listed as a "nice Swamp Sparrow". They are among the skulkiest birds I know. One had been reported at Bingen, and almost all of the reports read the same, "Heard only". I fared no differently! After taking a look at other birds near the little pumphouse, I had started to circle the pond counterclockwise, and immediately came across the bird. It gave 5-6 clear call notes, and was done. I never even saw *motion* in the area where it was hanging out. Not a nice bird at all! But a code 4 bird, I suppose, is always nice to add to the yearlist, which now stood at 67. 

Looking out to the Columbia, I added Horned Grebe (68). and Eared Grebe (69), the latter being a code 3 bird. On the pond itself, I added Northern Pintail (70), and some nice Tundra Swans (71). 

Tundra Swans - Bingen Pond

As the photos show, the day (and the whole weekend, it would turn out) was clear and sunny. It may even have broken 50, which is not bad for a clear February day. In the spirit of moving, I kept following the trail all the way around the pond, with plenty of Red-winged Blackbirds, Bewick's Wrens, and Dark-eyed Juncos as I walked. As I finished up the loop, I had a Yellow-rumped Warbler (72) as well. This is obviously going to be an important stop this year!

Old Highway 8

Old Highway 8 loops away from Highway 14 and passes by a few places I wanted to visit. The first of these stops was Major Creek (The green checkmark above the pin for Old Hwy 8 on the map). Here it was woodpecker sightings - Acorn Woodpecker, which is kind of a county specialty, and Pileated Woodpecker. Pileated Woodpeckers are enormous, loud, and a woodpecker I'd had nearly no chance of seeing in the last year in Douglas County. I had windows down and listened as I drove, seeing plenty of Lewis's Woodpeckers as I went. 

Lewis's Woodpecker - Old Highway 8

I slowed as I found someone walking along the road. She and I both did the birder's greeting - smile and hold up the binoculars. Karen, a birder from Vancouver WA, was up this road for woodpeckers as well, camera at the ready. She explained that she was on her way back down to her car, having walked up the road as far as she was comfortable doing, "As a woman alone." 

The statement hit me at the time. I. . . I mean if you've read the blogs at all, you know I have gotten away, like seriously away from it all on some solo excursions, sometimes to a fault. There was the incident with the cougar, the time with the ditch on Nobodyusesthis Road. There's always a set of red flags I look for that tell me it's best to head back. I take it for granted, nearly always, that my gender never has to be one of those flags to make me head back.

As you travel solo, being totally responsible for yourself, it is inevitable that you will discover how capable you are! - quote of unknown origin

I ran across this quote recently, and it tied a few of these ideas together for me. To all of the solo travelers out there - Cheers!

Karen and I talked birds a bit, and did both have Acorn Woodpecker as a target, so we swapped numbers and decided to join efforts after I had a chance to explore further up the road. I ran into some other red flags as I drove a little ways up - signage off of the road warning people that no trespassing was allowed. 

I stared at the signs, stared at the road, and tried to sort out what it meant. Was I okay on the road? Maybe? This may well have been a safe and legal place to continue, but I went with the better safe than sorry route. 

Lyle Balch Cemetery

Karen and I were in the same general area, but not in sight of each other. Nonetheless, we were likely both looking at a half-dozen Lewis's Woodpeckers - a reality during much of the trip for me. We eventually found each other at the Lyle Balch Cemetery.

I will pause and apologize for a moment for the dearth of photos in this little stretch. I had misplaced my camera charger, and was generally unsure about how long I'd be able to keep taking pictures, so I was hesitant to pull out the camera. So here, what was missed? A lot of oaks, rolling hills, and many typical birds - Black-capped Chickadee, White-breasted Nuthatch, Northern Flicker, Hairy Woodpecker, Lewis's Woodpecker, and a first for the year for me, American Robin (73). 

I had an 11:00 reservation for a tasting at one of the nearby wineries - the map at top shows that several are found along this road! So we parted ways there and moved to our next destinations: Catherine Creek for her, and Cor Cellars for me. 

A winding wining backroad

This is honestly the real reason I pretend to birdwatch. Not because of the birds. Pfft. Birds! I just realize that "looking for Acorn Woodpeckers" is a great cover story for why I'd travel 3-4 hours to find a winery I'd never visited, sit and taste wine with crackers and local cheese. 

Cor Cellars Chardonnay, crackers, and a rosemary fondue from Cascadia Creamery up in Trout Lake

Being outside in February on this particular day was not a hardship at all. Sunny, not windy, and I even got to watch a Golden Eagle (74) go contouring past me along the hillsides to the North. (Okay... the winery stop was just a cover story for wanting to find more birds. You caught me.) Not too long after, and Karen reported one as well from Catherine Creek! The winery itself was nice! They have a full range of Bordeaux Reds - Cab Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, and different combinations of the four. I was hoping to hit two more wineries, so I kept my tastings light throughout the day!

My next stop was at Domaine Pouillon. This place was a little smaller but was more interesting to me in a few ways. Their red focus was a little more Southern France (Pinot Noir, Syrah, and those other 50 varietals they get to use in the Rhone), and I also got introduced to a pet-nat. Short for pétillant naturel -"naturally sparkling" - it was described to me as an "analog alternative to making champagne". It's a little less controlled than the traditional champagne process, and produces... well, I mean, it's just tasty. Now you know a beautiful place where you can go try it out! 

On this particular day, it was a pet-nat of Pinot Noir, paired with a half-dozen oysters from Hama Hama. 

Hama hama oysters... in Klickitat County?

This surprised me. Klickitat County is a little out of the way. Old Highway 8 is a kind of missable backroad in Klickitat County. This winery is off on Lyle-Snowden Road, which shoots North from Old Highway 8. But they were doing really neat things here, and I mean hello, oysters! Hama Hama oysters were something I waited zero days to enjoy when I did my Mason County year back in 2015. These had been shipped out cold and tasted as fresh as you'd want. 

So... although I'd expected to shop around a bit more, I went ahead and got the membership at Domaine Pouillon. It was great to talk to the folks there about the land, the climate, the people, and the wine was yummy. Joining also made the day's stop pretty inexpensive given the amount of bliss it provided!

Stop three was Tetrahedron Wines, right on Highway 14.  "Light pours please!" was an honored request. Great choice, as the wines here... again... were not bad at all. The woman running the tasting that day actually had grown up in Lyle, gotten the heck out, and then come back with no regrets. This was not the only such story I ended up hearing during the weekend! Again, as we unpack the many layers of why I make these trips, maybe *this* is why I make them? Trying to understand the world around me, starting on small manageable scales. Why do people live where they live? Why do they live the way they live? I love bending people's ears. I'm sure I'll pick up a lot of the terroir by the end of the year!

Moving again!

A few minutes from Tetrahedron was my next birding stop - The Balfour-Klickitat Trail. Before I properly hit the trail, I got set up at a pulloff and looked down at the Klickitat River mouth, finding mostly California Gulls (75), with at least one Ring-billed Gull (76) mixed in. I have to say.... birding the Columbia in Klickitat County in winter, is a little frustrating! The Sun is low in the South, leaving the birds a bit backlit almost all day. Clouds are your friend! Fortunately, these birds were close enough in, and side by side with legs that were clearly yellow, making this a painless gull experience (gosh I love those...).

The trail was I didn't know what to make of the trail. It started with these:

My first thought - what interesting mushrooms! Then I went and picked one up... not a mushroom. They were like big... fruits?? My curiosity was piqued, so I squeezed and broke one open. What I saw inside wasn't looking particularly edible, so I walked away from my first osage oranges just puzzled. Osage oranges, as it turns out, are not oranges, but are members of the mulberry family. Who would eat these? Mammoths, apparently, or other megafauna that didn't quite make it to the present day. But they haven't disappeared! Squirrels and other animals have chomped into these, and poopulated the area, so to speak, spreading them across the country. I'd just never seen them in my life. What fun!

Then I got my next puzzle: 

Not Greater White-fronted Geese

They had me for a half a second, but these were not a new species for the year. The thing is, yes, I hadn't seen Greylag Goose this year, as a species, but they're not countable. Birding is definitely a kind of sort of rule-following sport. The three big rules for countable birds: The birds must be "alive, wild, and unrestrained". So nope, you can't count these escapees. It would be years of watching them to decide if they had actually established a permanent population in the wild. Alive and unrestrained are good safeguards against... goodness, what *would* people do for a list? 

As I continued, things became a little easier to figure out. I mean acorns are acorns, and there were plenty of them on the trail. 

Looking down - not an uncommon sight in this part of the Columbia Gorge

But even this was exciting for a family I passed on the trail - two kiddos had their minds *blown* every time they found an acorn. "LOOK WHAT I FOUND!" It made for a nice soundtrack on a walk that wasn't particularly birdy. 

I did finally come across a new bird for the year, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet (77). I've never seen one of these birds not acting caffeinated, and this one was no exception. The picture I got of it is breathtakingly unmemorable, but it's almost a field mark that the dang thing wouldn't stay still long enough for a picture, so here ya go.

Got it! barely....

The hike brought me nearly to the end of the day. Not much birding happened after this, as I was just making a beeline for the hotel up in Goldendale. Lunch had been some crackers, some cheese, and some oysters - it was time for real food! 

Goldendale

Sunset over Klickitat County

I got checked in at the Quality Inn in Goldendale, and settled on the Dirty Cowgirl for my dinner stop. Looking over their website, it looked like a Good Place. Started as a food truck a mere three years ago, it now had real walls. The food was nice and smoky (I had a Cuban, which was on special for the night), and the service was friendly. As with Tetrahedron, I ended up chatting with the waitress, and found that she was a local (Trout Lake), had left town quite intentionally, and had come back quite happily. 

I don't know if this means that Klickitat has changed over time, or if the people who have left have changed... both are certainly true. I wonder which was more responsible for these changes of heart. 

Enough moving for the day - I grabbed my lunch bag for the next day, and set the alarm for a wildly unreasonable hour in the morning.