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Week Fifty-three, March 18-24, 2002

Sunday, March 24, 2002

We saw some amazing country after waking around 6:30 this morning from a night of fitful slumber in our tent, in the rain at Potholes State Park. The variety of birds we saw as we scanned the trees and marshes along Potholes Reservoir and then drove through the heart of the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge before taking a side trip along the length of Crab Creek and driving home was amazing. We saw a Tri-colored Blackbird at Potholes State Park, more Western Meadowlarks than we could count along the whole length of the drive, heard a Canyon Wren in the wildlife refuge and watched a pair of Loggerhead Shrike hunting in the sagebrush along Crab Creek on the road between Smyrna and Beverly.

The first photo above offers a small bit of the grandeur of the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge. We toured down a rough gravel road that cuts a north-south swath through the heart of the main refuge, and I took a short trail to a bluff that overlooked the marshes and wetlands formed below as a result of water seeping through the Potholes area, which itself is a reservoir formed to aid irrigation in what would otherwise be a barren area of the Columbia Basin. Thankfully, some of that Basin remains largely barren and in a natural state.

The bluff I stood on while taking the photo above, and the bluffs made up of pillar basalt in the second black-and-white photo along upper Crab Creek below were all formed by one of the world's most amazing floods in history. During the last Ice Age, multiple floods poured millions and millions of gallons of water over Eastern Washington. A huge lake built up behind an ice dam in Montana unleashed the Missoula Floods each time that the ice dam broke, and scientists estimate that the water volume in just one of those floods was 10 times greater than the combined flow of every river in the world today. That water tore through Eastern Washington and formed the unique land formations here near Othello and Moses Lake as well as other places along the entire length of the Columbia River

Natalie and I walked along Crab Creek inside the refuge and then drove on to watch Northern Harrier hunting in one marsh, to hear a Marsh Wren and watch Red-winged Blackbirds in another marsh, and then to stop for food and gas in Othello before starting our drive home around noon. I wasn't satisfied with just the visual overload of viewing the scenery at the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge, so on the way home we took a gravel road that I wrote about in my mountain biking guide, Mountain Bike America: Washington, that skirts along the banks of Crab Creek and the northern edge of the Saddle Mountains on our way downstream to the Columbia River. Along this route we saw a Golden Eagle, more Harriers, a Sharp-shinned Hawk and a pair of Loggerhead Shrike - which were actually first-time birds for both of us. We also caught a couple glimpses of a small reddish colored butterfly toward the end of Crab Creek, but it got away before I could get a real look or a photo.

It feels odd to be back home after this whirlwind weekend of nature watching, book research and learning. I never get over the feeling of awe that last night I was sleeping in a tent in the rain along the edge of a man-made lake, and now I am on the other side of the state, listening to the wind make the chimes sound on our front porch. The drive home was stereotypical. It was clear and dry until we made the climb from the Columbia River back up to the Cle Elum area. Then there was still snow on the ground along the freeway. And as we neared Snoqualmie Pass I could tell it was going to be a typical greeting back to Western Washington. There was obviously rain in the air and the cars coming down the mountain the other way were wet. It started raining within a couple of miles of the summit of the pass, and it rained hard enough at the top that it was hard to see the lines on the road that denote where the lanes are located. But the rain slowed as we made the way down to Puget Sound country, and now it is good to look forward to a night in our own bed.

Saturday, March 23, 2002

What an amazing evening! Natalie and I drove across the state this morning to experience the Sandhill Crane Festival in Othello, Wash., and the lectures during the day were great. But it was during our field trip, when we were packed onto a school bus like sardines - but with spotting scopes and binoculars - that we had the highlight of our day. We drove around for more than an hour and found very few cranes until we settled on a spot along the highway that leads into the small farming town. While the sun set behind the Cascade Mountains to the west, creating a brief bright light in the sky as it peeked between incoming clouds and the tops of the mountains, we watched and heard the cranes flying overhead. More than 100 of the birds were riding the thermals and getting ready to head out on the northward migration.

The amazing sight came a little later, as the light faded to a point where it was impossible to take decent photos with our digital camera, then we watched thousands of waterfowl - ducks, geese and wigeon mixed with the Sandhil Cranes - circling in a huge whirlpool of birds over a large corn field. We watched the spectacle for at least 30 minutes before darkness and other scheduled events for the festival required that we hop back in the bus and return to Othello High School.

Looking through the binoculars at this swirling mass of birds, it was hard to fathom how many birds might be there tonight. The guide for our trip, Mike Denny, mentioned how on some nights in cases like this there have been estimates that up to two-thirds of the migrating populations of specific species have gathered and swirled over the fields in one night. Those kinds of statistics boil down to thousands upon thousands of birds.

Friday, March 22, 2002

Sometimes the best way to get a fresh perspective on this town is to hop on my bike and take the camera along, and just look at the world from two wheels. Today's trip downtown to retrieve our old SLR camera from the shop gave me a chance to bike up Stadium Way and to look down on the business end of Commencement Bay, where a tug boat was pulling up to the grainary along the shore below - probably to pull the ship and its load of grain free and set it on its way to points around the world.

Thursday, March 21, 2002

Sunshine! Temperatures rose to around 50 degrees today, which was enough to entice the early blooming daffodils to open their blooms tentatively for a quick peek before nightfall. I even spent a few minutes surveying the garden, with hopes for more warmth next week and some spare time to finish weeding and get some peas planted before it is entirely too late for an early crop.

I took a quick drive into downtown Tacoma this afternoon, to drop off our Canon AE-1 SLR camera for repair - we will have to live without it this weekend on our bird trip to Eastern Washington - and on the way home I barely saw any waterfowl at all in Commencement Bay. It looks like the winter birds are moving out, which means that the terns will be back soon and I will need to reorient myself to spring and summer bird watching. Meanwhile back at home I didn't see the Anna's hummingbird that was feeding at one of our feeders yesterday afternoon. I keep looking for Rufous hummingbirds to find my feeders, but so far no luck.

Wednesday, March 20, 2002

Today has to qualify as one of the oddest spring equinox days on record here in Tacoma, Washington. When the clock clicked over from winter to spring officially at 11:16 a.m. PST there were big fluffy snowflakes flying through the air outside our livingroom. And the temperature didn't climb above 34 degrees all day. Compare that to this day over the last seven years that I have kept weather records for this location, when temperatures twice rose to 66 degrees and most of the low temperatures for this day were warmer than today's high temperature.

And so, while I read notes on my e-mail lists of Monarch butterflies starting their annual migration into America down in Texas and while I ache to get outside and plant some seeds in our garden, today has been another day to patiently wait for nature to run its course. This snowy equinox is a great treat! I'll enjoy the birds at the feeders and the flakes in the air while they last!

Tuesday, March 19, 2002

The one-year anniversary of my starting The Equinox Project is tomorrow, and to mark the occasion, today I am including one favorite photo from each of the last 12 months. So, here is the countdown, starting a year ago:

March 2001

The first photo of The Equinox Project from last year shows just how different the weather is this year. The sun was out and Mt. Rainier was showing itself in its snow-covered glory on March 20, 2001.

April 2001

I noticed throughout the last year that I take nature photos that fit in categories, and closeups of the interaction between water and plants is one major category. I snapped this shot of a large raindrop poised on the edge of an Indian Plum leaf near the top of Puget Gulch in April, 2001.

I liked this shot so much that it is part of The Equinox Project web page, right there in the upper left-hand corner of each page as an icon of the natural world here in the Pacific Northwest.

May 2001

Butterflies were a big interest in my nature photos throughout the year, but this Painted Lady found feeding on a dandelion in the meadows at the bottom of Puget Gulch was one of the best of the year. I snapped this shot on May 5 while Natalie and I were working on a habitat restoration project along Puget Creek.

June 2001

Once again, raindrops and plants. I wandered to the south side of our house on a rainy June 27 to capture the raindrops hanging on the edge of light purple foxglove blooms. The crispness of this shot makes it one of my favorites for the year.

July 2001

This shot, taken on July 2, is the butterfly photo that I almost didn't take. I was taking a walk near the site of the Tahoma Audubon Society office when I spotted this Western Tiger Swallowtail sitting in the sun on a leaf, and M convinced me to take a photo. I hesitated because I had taken so many photos of this particular species already by that point, but looking back, I am glad I took the photo.

August 2001

The shades of purple and blue in this overhead view of a cabbage in our garden was captured on August 7. The colors in the shot were amazing.

September 2001

Our part of the Pacific Northwest here in Tacoma is overrun by the non-native Eastern Gray Squirrel, but Natalie and I ventured to Point Defiance Park on September 30 where we found a small Douglas Squirrel scampering over the limbs on a fir tree.

October 2001

Spider webs are quintessential signs of fall, and I found this web on October 3 along the banks of Puget Creek in the early morning hours. I wish I could have captured the dew drops on the web from even closer range, but this shot is good enough, especially at full size, to show the individual dew drops.

November 2001

Our growing interest in birds and bird watching became apparent in this weblog as Natalie and I took an intermediate bird watching class at the local Audubon Society starting in October. On November 26 I found this pair of Barrows Goldeneye paddling along in the waters just off the mouth of Puget Creek.

December 2001

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge - the replacement for the famous Galloping Gertie bridge that fell into the waters below so many years ago - sits majestically in the foreground with the snow-capped Olympic Mountains in the background in this shot that I took while out on the bike ride on December 27, 2001.

January 2002

Natalie and I took a drive to Fort Flagler State Park in the cold and stormy weather on January 12, and we found a small flock of dunlin fluttering between the waves and along the surf line on a small sand spit that sticks into the water across the bay from Port Townsend. This was an invigorating photo to take.

February 2002

While on our first birding trip of the year into Eastern Washington, in a far off corner of the state, Natalie spotted this scene etched in the snow where it appeared that a hawk or eagle hand flown in and caught its prey, leaving behind the finger-like prints in the crusty snow.

March 2002

With the recent weather, it seems like this photo from just a couple of weeks ago was much older. I found this California Tortoiseshell butterfly sunning on one of our warmer days this month down in Puget Gulch.

Monday, March 18, 2002

Enough of the snow and cold. Today the weather returned to normal, with cool rain falling as the finches and sparrows jostled for position on the bird feeders outside.

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