Observations of the passing seasons |
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2003 - May - April - March - February - January - Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge visit, March 2001
- Insiders' Guide to the Olympic Peninsula - Creeping with Utah Nature Study Society - Tidepool - Association for the Study of Literature and Environment
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After looking around in the mountains on a number of occasions for White-headed Woodpeckers last year, today Natalie and I stumbled upon one and had some great looks at one of these quiet woodpeckers in the small Wild Rose Campground along Hwy. 12 on the east side of White Pass. I tried in vain to get a great digital photo of the speedy woodpecker, but the shot above is enough to show that it was indeed a female White-headed Woodpecker. We were up and over White Pass today to do some book research along Oak Creek Canyon and in the Oak Creek Wildlife Area. Despite the fact that it was cloudy and we felt a few sprinkles, we still managed to see about 40 bird species in a whirlwind 380-mile trip. We drove up Oak Creek Road to about the 2,700 foot level, where we found the flowers pictured below. I had stopped and was looking down the steep, tree-covered sides of a canyon when I saw these blue bell-shaped flowers and decided that I had to go down for a closer look. Later on our way down from our turnaround point we saw and listened to a small flock of Red Crossbills in the tops of the pine trees, and further down the road alongside a beaver dam and riparian area we watched a pair of Red-naped Sapsuckers poking at the trees.
It was really interesting to see how the area at the bottom of Oak Creek Canyon had changed since we were there with our birding class from the Tahoma Audubon Society last summer. Later last summer a fire swept through the lower three miles or so of the canyon and then across the highway and up over the opposite hill, and the area looks much different without the underbrush that was part of the habitat a year ago. Many of the trees are scarred but seem to have survived the burn. I wonder if there will be new bird species in the area this summer, such as woodpeckers that love burned over areas? |
