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.