January 18 - Off to the Okanogan

I got up at 3:50 a.m., and picked up Kyle Leader at his apartment at 5:30 to begin our expedition.  Traffic was light at that hour on I-5 to Highway 512, through Puyallup to Highway 167 to Auburn, where we took Hwy 18 over Tiger Mountain to Interstate 90, stopping at the North Bend Safeway to top off the Subaru’s gas tank and my coffee cup at Starbucks.

We met Shep Thorp, Scott Ramos, and Lee Barnes for the scouting trip to the Okanogan.  Shep leads a Washington Ornithological Society field trip to the area over Presidents’ Day weekend, and next weekend is also leading a field trip for the Clearwater, Florida Audubon Society.  Our goal is to check out the area ‘hotspots’, and attempt to find some of the target birds for each group.  The bird fauna in north central Washington is somewhat different to that in western Washington, due to the influence of the Cascades Mountains’ draining much of the moisture from weather fronts passing over, and due to the higher elevations.  The bird species are significantly different to what the folks from Florida are used to seeing.

We continued over Snoqualmie Pass to Cle Elum, then up to Blewett Pass.  The name of this pass was originally Swauk Pass, but in 1956, the Blewett Pass Highway was rebuilt to go through Swauk Pass and is now the current US 97.  In 1991, Blewett Pass was renamed Swauk Pass by Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and, just a year later, in 1992 Swauk Pass was changed back to Blewett Pass by State and Federal Boards.  You can learn more history by reading the Old Blewett Blog.

We stopped at the Blewett Pass trailhead and immediately heard Red Crossbills calling from the treetops, as well as finches and Mountain Chickadees.  We got our spotting scopes on the finches and found that we were looking at a large flock of Cassin’s Finch.  The eBird program ‘flagged’ the observation, as a high count for the finches.  We also made a stop at the Camas Meadows,

where we saw yet more Cassin’s Finches, heard two types of Red Crossbills, and had a good look at a Hairy Woodpecker. Along the Camas Creek Road Kyle and I saw a Pacific Wren, which is always a fun sighting for the area.

Continuing down the mountain to Wenatchee and across the mighty Columbia River into Douglas County, we stopped at a few side roads and pull-offs to scan for birds.  At the Highway 97 overlook to Entiat Reservoir, the pool behind Chelan PUD’s Rocky Reach Dam, we stopped to scope the river for water birds, seeing flocks of Ruddy Ducks and Coots, and viewed the first pair of Golden Eagles for the day.  We continued up Corbaley Canyon on US Hwy 2, and found yet another pair of Goldens,

and then another, which brought our count to 6 Golden Eagles in about a 10-mile drive.  In Waterville itself,

we worked our way through town giving close looks at folks’ feeders, and found a cooperative Sharp-shinned Hawk ‘sunning’ itself in a birch tree.

But most of the birds seen in town were House Sparrows.

Our winter birding began in earnest as we topped out of the canyon onto the Waterville Plateau,

and sorted through numerous flocks of Horned Larks looking for Snow Buntings or Lapland Longspurs.

I figure that most of the larks are the pale grey Eremophila alpestris arcticola/alpina/lamprochroma subspecies, although maybe 10-20% of a flock would be individuals of the local yellow-faced populations (E. a. merrilli).

Each one of these dots were checked to see if they were anything except Larks

We passed into the small town of Withrow,

where we had seen Bohemian Waxwings in previous years, and indeed found a flock of 14 of these handsome birds.

The locals came out to meet us,

although some were curious about what these out-of-towners were doing here.

We drove north up Heritage Road, looking for a rumored Snowy Owl, but to no avail.  Often, the owls might be seen perching on rock piles or glacial erratics to gain a view over their wind-swept domain.

We did stop at an abandoned farmstead along Heritage to look, also unsuccessfully, for Long-eared Owls,

People actually lived here, back in the day

but did find our first flock of American Tree Sparrows.

A bit further on, we found a flock of larks that had a number of Snow Buntings accompanying it, as well as our first sightings of Mule Deer and California Quail for the trip.  As we dropped off the plateau toward the Okanogan Valley, we sighted our first Great Horned Owl at dusk.

After 13 hours of driving, it was a relief to get out of the car.  We checked into the Omak Inn, which is a little older and worn around the edges, but is a local establishment, as well as being $20-40 a night less expensive than the nearby "name brands".  Supper this evening was at the Bread Line, which has good suppers, and they make their own breads to complement the meal.