Birding by boat

One of my favorite ways to bird is from my kayak. Patterson Lake in Okanogan County is an excellent choice for birding by boat. It has a posted speed limit for motorized craft and that limit is generally followed. Many people powered boats can be seen there as well, including other kayaks, canoes, sculls and row boats. If you don't have a boat, you may be able to rent one from Sun Mountain's Patterson Lake cabins.

young Black-headed Grosbeak

I put my boat in the water at the WDFW launch on the east side of the lake. This site requires a Discover Pass or WDFW parking permit issued with a hunting or fishing license. On weekday mornings it is never crowded. Weekends may be a different story.

This morning, after the busy Labor Day weekend, I nearly had the place to myself. The water was glassy, the sky - bluebird blue and the sun was warm. Summer weather in September. Birds know fall is coming and migration was evident. Few swallows remain of the summer swarms. White-crowned Sparrows have arrived. There was a big flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers. I did not see any Ospreys.

Canada Geese

Small birds near the lake shore seem to be less wary of a boat than of a person on foot or bicycle. By letting my boat drift slowly, I could get good views of tiny species that generally provide only a passing glimpse.

Mountain Chickadee

Here is my list of 28 species seen this morning:

Canada Goose 

Mallard 
Hooded Merganser 
Common Merganser 
Great Blue Heron 
Bald Eagle 
Red-tailed Hawk 
Spotted Sandpiper 
Belted Kingfisher 
Downy Woodpecker 
Northern Flicker 
Common Raven 
Violet-green Swallow 
Barn Swallow 
Black-capped Chickadee 
Mountain Chickadee 
Red-breasted Nuthatch 
White-breasted Nuthatch 
Pygmy Nuthatch 
American Robin 
Gray Catbird 
Yellow-rumped Warbler 
Townsend's Warbler 
Spotted Towhee 
White-crowned Sparrow 
Dark-eyed Junco 
Black-headed Grosbeak 
American Goldfinch 

June 20th bird walk

Only two of us turned out for the bird walk on Monday of this week. It was probably the nicest morning of the year, weather-wise. Perfect for a walk. We decided to go to the MVSTA Suspension Bridge parking area on the Community Trail and walk down valley towards the cottonwood forest in hopes of seeing some Redstarts and other specialties of that habitat. Neither one of us is good with calls of vireos and redstarts so it made hunting them down pretty difficult. The river is still running very high and there were no American Dippers in sight.

One of our choicest views was that of the Lady-slipper Orchid in a big patch next to the trail. Wild roses were also numerous and fragrant.

Here is our list of bird species.

Turkey Vulture - seen while driving

American Kestrel - seen while driving

Mourning Dove

Black Swift - seen while driving

Rufous Hummingbird

Northern Flicker

Western Wood-Pewee

Unidentified Empidonax

Common Raven

Violet-green Swallow

Black-capped Chickadee

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Veery

Swainson's Thrush

American Robin

Gray Catbird

Cedar Waxwing

Yellow Warbler

Spotted Towhee

Chipping Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Black-headed Grosbeak

Red-winged Blackbird

Cassin's Finch

Pine Siskin

Counting Butterflies in Chelan County

Sunday, June 26^th starting at 9:00 a.m.

Looking for citizen scientists! Join biologist Phil Archibald as he leads a group for the Annual Butterfly Count from Swakane Canyon to Chumstick Mountain. Similar to the Great Backyard Bird Count, this day focuses on citizen scientists helping conservation and greater understanding of butterfly health, habitat, and migration patterns. Plus, it’s fun!  Phil will help us to identify and understand butterflies and their habitat. Along the way, the group will also be birding and traveling through different types of habitat, including a recent burn. At the end of the day, the group will meet other counters and compare results.

This trip is open to all levels of birders and butterfliers and will be done by car on rough roads with short, intermittent walks. The trip is free and limited to 12 people. Please RSVP to Bridget Egan at mtnegan@gmail.com or 509-433-7306.

Horan Natural Area Bird Walk

Why we bird: Reminders from a Spring Bird Walk,
by Mark Oswood, NCW Audubon Society President
 
A few weeks ago, we had one of our traditional bird walks at Confluence Park and Horan Natural Area, in Wenatchee. We’ve had these bird walks, with a shared meal fore or aft, in spring and fall, for some years. You can never take the same bird walk twice, of course; every trip is a once-only.


We had more folks completely new to birding than in previous trips (yahooie!) so we needed more loaner binoculars and field guides than we had at hand. Question to Chapter members: should we construct a goes-anywhere, traveling kit of loaner binoculars and field guides, ready to deploy on any birding trip likely to have always-welcome neo-birders? On this trip, we had no Really Good Birders (RGB  someone who can casually identify immature gulls or who knows a bird’s song from a faint “fweet” high in a tree). Having a RGB on a trip is inspirational (we all yearn to have these skills) and educational (one can learn bird lore and identification tips, just standing downwind from a RGB). Even so, there is much value in the communal learning of average birders helping each other.

We were, to our surprise, joined by a reporter (Dee Riggs) and photographer (Kathryn Stevens) from The Wenatchee World. Here’s a link to their newspaper article: http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2011/apr/12/taking-flight/ . Dee asked participants why they like birding. Perhaps not surprisingly, the answers didn’t include amassing lists of birds seen but rather the ways in which birding gets us outside, slowed down, with our senses turned on and minds wide open. Annie Dillard pointed out the necessity of just showing up: “… beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”

For us average (or especially beginner) birders, even a common bird seen closely is a gift. There were Violet-green Swallows zooming about like tiny jet fighters in a dogfight. One swallow lit on a fence wire and tolerated the intense look-rays of all of our binoculars. An Osprey, on our edge of the Columbia River, caught the downriver wind and hovered in a fish scan, nearly overhead. Our bird list for the trip had no rarities but we did get some rare good views.
 
Canada Goose
American Wigeon
Mallard
Lesser Scaup (could not distinguish from Greater Scaup but location/habitat make Lesser Scaup much more likely)
Bufflehead
Common Merganser
Common Loon
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Osprey
American Coot
Killdeer
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Belted Kingfisher
Northern Flicker
American Crow
Violet-green Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
American Robin
European Starling
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Song Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Red-winged Blackbird
American Goldfinch