March 22 - Mountain Bluebirds at Scatter Creek?

This morning, I went out to Scatter Creek Wildlife Area with Jay Stene and Ken Brown, a couple of the regulars from the Nisqually walks.  We’d heard there had been Mountain Bluebirds seen there by Dalton Spencer the other day.  It was foggy when we got to the Case Road site and birded around the north end of the prairie area.

How do you find birds in this pea soup?

We saw the usual Scrub Jays and a Western Bluebird, but otherwise not much exciting.

We birded until the fog burned off, then went to the main south unit, where an equestrian event was apparently going to take place.

One of the horsemen was decrying the issue that they had to get a permit from the Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife to hold their event, because “the property was given (sold) to WDFW with the intent that we could ride out here…”  In fact, the land was acquired to preserve the native oak-prairie savanna, which is a threatened habitat in western Washington.

Scatter Creek native prairie

At the parking lot, there is a historical monument and the ruins of what used to be the oldest house in Thurston County.  This house and adjacent barn once belonged to George and Marita Miller, who traveled by wagon from Oregon to settle at Scatter Creek in the 1850s. Later, the property was sold to Reece Brewer, a friend of Miller’s.  Brewer and his family farmed cattle, sheep, and vegetables on the prairie, and Brewer also was active in his community as a member of the territorial legislature, the postmaster, Justice of the Peace of Grand Mound, and Thurston County Commissioner.

Sadly, both this building and the nearby barn were burned down in a 2017 wildfire along with about 345 acres of land, and all that remains is the brick chimney and the wreckage.

We walked the trail though the prairies south of the creek, enjoying the early Spring flowers,

Blue-eyed Mary - Collinsia parviflora

and seeing a few birds.

Jay gets on the Creeper

While the Creeper got on with its day

We looped back to the parking lot, seeing yet more Western Bluebirds, as well as a flock of Western Meadowlarks.

The warm sun brought out the thatch ants.

The WDFW and partners have been cleaning up some of the burnt timber near the creek, where the killed fir trees will benefit the remaining Oregon white oaks, and doing some restoration on the open prairie, where the fire got pretty hot.

The fire burned right up to the edge of the fir timber along the creek

The oaks are generally resistant to fire, not so much the firs . . .

Curiously, we found several pallets of native plants that had been left unplanted, and died due to neglect.  With the cost of propagating the native prairie plants, one would think WDFW and the Center for Natural Land Management would take better care of their plants…

By early afternoon, the bird activity had died down, the Mountain Bluebirds could not be found, and we adjourned to Northwest Sausage and Deli for lunch.

Scatter Creek eBird Checklist is Here