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.

January 19 - Okanogan Highlands

The alarm went off at 5 a.m., so that we could breakfast at the motel.  The Omak Inn’s offerings consist of waffles and/or biscuits and gravy, along with cereals, yogurt and fruit, breads and bagels, and such.  Not bad at all, except for pretty weak coffee.  My Dad used to tell me that “… most people camp too close to the creek to make decent coffee.”

We arrived along Fancher Flats road at dawn, which has been a good spot to see Chukars in years past.  We waited for a while, hearing the morning song of a Canyon Wren from the rimrock above the road.  Then, a pair of Golden Eagles landed on a ponderosa pine snag on the ridge and vocalized with their ringing calls.  Kyle spotted a ‘chicken’ high up on the ridge line, but it was just a silhouette against the mist & gray sky.  This was his “Lifer” sighting of a Chukar, but a fairly unsatisfying one.  Then, the eagles launched from their perches and as they flew, nearly 40 Chukars flushed from the hillside, and several settled close to us for very nice views.

Leaving the Flats, we drove up Siwash Creek Road.  Siwash is a pretty derogatory term for a Native American here in the Pacific Northwest, and I’m a bit surprised that the leadership of the nearby Colville Tribes has not petitioned the County for a name change.  Siwash, is an Anglicization of the French “Sauvage” or Savage!  Perhaps they take pride in it?  Who knows?

Stolen from Dr. Robertson’s Chinook Jargon page at
https://chinookjargon.com/2013/03/27/racially-insensitive-verb/

In any event, we had been successful in previous years in finding the Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse feeding on the buds of the water birch (Betula occidentalis) in the area.  But, it was not to be today.

We scouted around the Okanogan Highlands throughout the morning, and picked up Pygmy Nuthatches, and finding several more large flocks of Cassin’s Finch.

Finches in the Birches

These large flocks of the finches seem pretty unusual, and makes us wonder whether there had been a lack of feed in other areas that resulted in the species making such a good showing here.

At 10 a.m., we pulled into the Highland Sno-Park to call for woodpeckers and a purported Great Gray Owl.  We did not hear an owl, nor see one through the ground fog, but a Black-backed Woodpecker gave us a brief visit.

Why is it always foggy when I'm in the Highlands?

Besides the snow, there was rime ice on the trees, giving them a very “Christmassy” look.  Among the pines and firs, there are a number of trees that appear dead.  But they’re not!  These are the “tamarack” or Western Larch, which lose their needles every fall, and are a deciduous conifer.

Frosty Western Larch Larix occidentalis

Driving out of the Sno-Park we saw a doe and yearling White-tailed Deer of the Columbia Basin subspecies, and a curious Red Squirrel.  The ‘red’ squirrels around here are mostly grey in color, but are all Tamiasciurus hudsonicus.

Red Squirrel Tamiasciurus hudsonicus - not all that red around here

Checking a couple of farmsteads where the residents put out bird seed to feed the winter denizens gave us good looks at species we’d already seen on the trip.

Downy Woodpecker male

Black-capped Chickadee

American Goldfinch male in winter plumage

Suet for lunch . . .

Hairy Woodpecker male

Mountain Chickadee

Shep graciously provides bags of bird seed to several of these folks in exchange for their good will in allowing us birders to stand in their yards to observe “their” birds.

Gifts are Good

The fog lifted here and there, and besides seeing the scenery revealed, we had views of more of the local residents.

We came into the town of Chesaw,

Chesaw History

which often has some of our target birds at feeders and in the habitat along Myers Creek, but it was pretty quiet this afternoon.

We did find our first Northern Shrike on a utility wire above town, which is always a good bird for us West-siders.

We birded around the area until the sun went behind the hills, and headed back toward Chesaw, finding a nice Pygmy Owl

Our Smallest Owl

and a lone Ruffed Grouse.  We drove back toward the Sno-Park.  As the sun set

and the moon came out

Shep’s sharp eye spotted a beautiful Northern Goshawk atop a fir tree, shortly before it headed for its night roost.

Highly enhanced Goshawk photo

The Sno-Park was still fogged-in, and again we did not hear any owl vocalizations.

Still foggy . . . still no Great Grey Owl

We drove back down the mountain and stopped in the town of Tonasket to eat at the Rancho Chico for Mexican food, before returning to Omak for a good night’s sleep.