January 21 - Snow Day!

We breakfasted again at the Inn, checked out, and headed out at the crack of dawn toward Bridgeport, across the mighty Columbia, and up to the WDFW’s Wells Wildlife Area.

This has been our best chance in previous trips to find Sharp-tailed Grouse.  Back in 2016 we’d even seen a Sage Grouse flying over the West Foster Creek valley.

We got out and made a walk down through the bottom to see if we could find a Long-eared Owl sheltering in the willows and junipers.  No luck there.

Washington Fish and Wildlife manages the Area

It was a fun walk, but once again, we weren’t successful in finding an owl.  We did hear a Sharp-tailed Grouse, but of course it’s not as fun as seeing them.

We retraced our path back to Bridgeport, and drove into the State Park there, where we had been successful in previous years in finding Northern Saw-whet Owls roosting in the thick foliage of the spruce trees planted in the camping area.  I noted that there was much less snow on the ground this year than in the previous three, and that the Park staff had done some tree trimming.

Bridgeport State Park

Between the two issues, despite diligent searching we were lucky to find the one and only Saw-whet in the Park.  Scott got a quick photo, taking care not to disturb the little guy, and posted it on the eBirdReport.

We continued back up onto the Waterville Plateau, where we’d started on Friday, to continue our search for the Snowy Owl.

Lots of snowy fields to search . . .

We spent a lot of time zig-zagging back and forth on the section-line roads, including travel on farm roads that hadn’t been plowed (or much travelled) since the last snow, and we were plowing through a foot to a foot-and-a-half of snow.

We looked for perching raptors – and owls – on the rock piles built by the farmers, and on the glacial erratics.

These rocks were either deposited by the Ice Age floods or are remnants of the rocks that had been there before the ice dams broke up north.

Occasionally, we'd see a hawk or eagle perched up, surveying the fields for a tasty morsel.

Golden Eagle 'way out there . . .

Scott had a general description of an owl sighting, but there is an awful lot of open space in this part of the County.

We stopped to put the scopes on many of the rock stacks, but white snow against a dark rock sure fooled us many times into thinking we had a Snowy.

Finally, we spotted a white dot against a dark rock that somehow looked a bit different.  I radioed to Shep that we might have the bird.  We piled out of the cars and got our scopes on it

There was a big, white dot that looked owl-shaped

Are you real?  Move!  Turn your head, or something . . .

Then it turned its head and I had a Snowy Owl staring back at me!  These beautiful birds are regular in the State in the winter but this is one of only two I know about in Washington at this time.

The best kind of Snow!

We continued scouting until the end of the day,

Miles and Miles of Miles and Miles . . .

ending up in Wenatchee at dark. We stopped for supper at the Salvadoran Pupusas restaurant (wonderful food!!), and drove back to the Puget Sound after a really fun trip.

January 20 - Conconully to Chesaw

We had another 5 a.m. start today, with the alarm going off on a 25° partly cloudy morning.  We breakfasted at the Omak Inn with folks from the Tacoma Audubon, who were also in town for their winter birds field trip, led by Ken Brown, Bruce LaBar and had about a dozen folks.  Then, out past the feeder at the motel, which we never saw in the light of day.  We suppose that they get mostly House Sparrows, but who knows?  This may be where the rare birds congregate while we’re out in the field . . .

Birding in the dark?

We started up the Conconully Road in the growing light

Still too dark to see birds?

and checked out Happy Hill Road and took a side trip down Woodward Road to call for woodpeckers, but the Hairy ‘peckers were the only ones that seemed interested.  We stopped at WDFW’s Scotch Creek Wildlife Area, where we have often seen Sharp-tailed Grouse coming down from the foothills along Hungry Hill Road.

But, there were no “chickens” seen this morning.

The only 'chickens' we saw were on the signs

Back to the highway and up to Conconully, we drove to the west end of town to check out the feeders, and saw several of the expected species.  The woods were alive with the sound of Turkeys gobbling, and one of the locals stopped to ask if we’d seen the ‘Albino Turkey’?  We hadn’t, so he pulled out his cell phone to show a video of what looked to be a leucistic Wild Turkey amongst its normally-colored cousins.  The only turkeys we saw were the normal brown

We walked around the town, and found yet another large flock of Cassin’s Finches, although we missed hoped-for species, such as Townsend’s Solitaire, Bohemian Waxwings, and Pine Grosbeak.  The State Park there was snowed in & closed, except they leave some of the restrooms unlocked, which is necessary and appreciated when we’re spending the day in the cars.  One of these times, I’m going to have to check out more of the area History.

Perkins Ranch cabin

Having ‘dipped’ on some of our target birds, we considered our options.  I suggested taking the road north to Loomis, as few folks bird the Sinlahekin in the winter, but considering that Shep was scouting for the Clearwater, Florida folks, we determined that our best hope was to head back to Chesaw and check out the habitats up Pontiac Ridge Road, and try that area again for the Great Grey Owl in the Highlands.  On the way into Chesaw along Hungry Hollow Road, we bumped into our friends from Tacoma Audubon along the road, scoping out a cattle pasture, where they were finding Snow Buntings feeding among the distant livestock.

How many birders can stand in the road?  Good thing traffic is light . . .

Continuing out of town, we passed local folk art humor

Chesaw Reformatory

We drove until the road got too snowy, checking out each mixed-species flock of passerines and checking every Golden Eagle, Red-tailed and Rough-legged Hawk, just in case we might discover a Gyrfalcon, large owl, or some other good find.  We did flush a large owl from the timber along the road, but could not get an identification on it, nor find it again.  Surely, this might have been our Great Gray Owl? . . . . but . . .  they don’t count unless you get a positive ID.

You just know there's a Great Gray in there somewhere . . .

We came back to the Highlands by the way of Beaver Creek Road, where we were surprised by evidence of a recent blow-down of timber.

Nearly a mile of blow-down along the hill side

Along Beaver Lake, we were delighted by the sight of an American Dipper feeding in the springs at the west end of the lake.

There was also a beaver or otter at the far side of the road that dived under the ice and we didn’t see again; it had obviously found a den hole or some other way to elude our scrutiny.

En route back toward the Sno-Park, we did find another flock of Waxwings,

Need to get a scope on these . . .

Oh, yes!  Bohemian Waxwings!

and noted that the skies were clear enough for a beautiful mountain sunset.

Mountain sunsets are the best

Our last attempt this evening again failed to reward us with an Owl,

so we dropped back down to the Okanogan valley to Omak, where we had supper at the Red Rooster Grill.  As we finished our meal, we came out to the wondrous view of the “Blood Moon” total eclipse.

They called this the "Blood Moon"

We’d been worried that the fog & clouds would have precluded our view of this celestial phenomenon, but views through our binoculars and spotting scopes thrilled us and some of the other customers from the restaurant.  Back at the motel, we packed to leave tomorrow and sank into blissful slumber.