Observations of the passing seasons |
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rob@whiterabbits.com
2003
- July - 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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We didn't expect to spend most of a day under heavy cloud cover and rainy conditions when we planned for this weekend trip to northeastern Washington, but that was what we found as we set out this morning to explore part of the Little Spokane River Natural Area and then to drive north to explore the Little Pend Oreille National Wildlife Refuge. We didn't spend a lot of time in any one spot, so we didn't get too wet in the spotty rain showers, but we did cover a lot of ground from Spokane north to Colville and then west up and over Sherman Pass on our way to spend the night in Omak. We had some nice sightings in today's travels - Gray Catbirds on the Little Spokane, Hairy Woodpeckers in the Little Pend Oreille NWR - but the biggest highlight was seeing hundreds of White-faced Meadowhawk dragonflies like the one in the photo above. The dragonflies were gathered near the top of a 3,500-foot mountain on the edge of the refuge, in an area we didn't mean to explore. I took a wrong turn and drove up some fairly rugged roads in Natalie's parents' car to get to the area. When we realized our mistake I opted to head back out to the highway and start heading west on Highway 20 toward Omak. 
As I suspected may happen, after we drove over the top of 5,000-foot Sherman Pass, shown in the photo above, we broke through into the sunshine for the last part of our drive. It rained on us as we drove up the pass, but once we reached the area that burned in a 20,000-acre wildfire in 1988, where young trees seem to be climbing up the poles that were once pine and fir forest before the fire hit, then the sunshine shone through the pass onto the trees around us. I want to explore this part of the state more in the future, since it is so far north and at such a high elevation that it could hold some interesting birds during late winter and spring. Just how easy it would be to reach the area is another story... 
Natalie and I set out on our last long research trip in the process of writing Birding Washington, this time heading east with her parents for a three-day weekend of birding in northeastern Washington. Although we needed to get to Spokane on this first day of our trip, we still managed to squeeze in some birding and research along the way, and even a couple of stops for butterfly photography. The shot of the Becker's White butterfly above was taken just east of the town of Moxie, near Yakima. The butterfly was nectaring from blooms right alongside the highway as we continued east past the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, through sections of the Hanford Reach, and then north through the Seeps Lakes Wildlife Area en route to Interstate 90 for the quick trip to Spokane. It was warm and muggy in Eastern Washington during our trip today, with temperatures hovering in the 90s, but we still managed to see a few good birds on our way through - a Loggerhead Shrike on the Hanford Reach, five Swainson's Hawks including a dark morph form, a dark morph Red-tailed Hawk near Othello, and Common Nighthawks both near the Hanford Reach and flying over the Seeps Lakes Wildlife Area. All in all, it was a excellent day to be out birding, despite the heat! |