March 4th - Clear-cut Plans

 

Snow Creek Road

I went to bed pretty early the night before, and I was up pretty early on a Monday morning. Well in advance of sunrise, I thought there might be some owls in the cards for me. I'd "camped" in my car at Dosewallips State Park, and planned to . . . well, there were a couple plans. They didn't all fit with each other. 

Plan A: Spend the morning on the southern end of Jefferson County, exploring areas that had fairly recent Mountain Quail sightings. This didn't happen. Sunrise was taking too long. I did actually drive all the way down to Triton Cove - tried for owls there, and had just as much luck as I did at Dosewallips. Ah well. 

Plan B: Head up one of the forest roads - Duckabush or Dosewallips and. . .  The lack of a good ending to that sentence was the biggest reason I didn't pursue these options. 

Plan C: Watch the sun come up at the Quilcene Fish Hatchery. This almost came to fruition! I got to the hatchery and picked up a Northern Saw-whet Owl (species 99 for the Jefferson year). Then I sat and waited for sunup, so that I could pick up American Dipper. Thirty seconds later, I got bored and continued up the road. 

Plan D: Watch the sun come up at the Mount Walker viewpoint, sharing my breakfast with Canada Jays. Nope. Road was closed. 

Plan E: Drive up into the clearcuts to watch the sun come up. 

Sold!

I had passed a road called "Linger Longer" and instead ended up on "Lord's Lake Loop". Bunch of alliterates up here, hm? (please look up alliteration before sending an angry email!)

The "lake" was a county water source. Signage clearly discouraged even parking near it. I'm okay with people wanting to keep their water supply safe, so I continued along the road north - Snow Creek Road. Google Maps had shown that there were some clear-cuts in the area, and March 4th seemed like a fine time to look for Western Bluebirds. Bluebirds do favor clear-cuts, but they do have some requirements, it would seem. Giant piles of cut trees and brush - I don't know if they *need* this, but they have sure liked posing on those piles when I've found the birds. Also, snags. Who doesn't like a good snag for a nest, right? 

As the sun came up, the habitat looked pretty C+ right around me. As I sat and scanned the area, I started hearing a new year bird: Steller's Jay (finally! Bird 100 for the year). Pacific Wrens were out in huge numbers, but very few birds were making noise: Northern Flicker, Golden-crowned Kinglets, and a single Bewick's Wren. 

It always feels controversial to think it, but I often think it, so I'll type it: clear-cuts have a certain beauty to them. Yes, I understand it's a big ugly gash in the landscape where there used to be a vibrant forest. Yes, I understand that the beginnings of life - shrubs, flowers, insects, and a few special species of birds - is just a slow start in a hundreds-of-years process that could bring the land back to the old, diverse forest that was once there. But those beginnings have their own beauty. I'll enjoy coming back out for House Wrens and MacGillivray's Warblers some time down the road. 

Continuing along, I came to another opening where I heard the call of another species I'd hoped to find, Hutton's Vireo (101). 

Sadly, you'll likely hear not the faintest hint of a Hutton's Vireo in this recording. My ancient phone has amazed me so many times in the past, with videos that capture faint audio of species I've found. On this particular day, the vireo was so easy to hear, but I didn't find its calls anywhere in this video! Still a beautiful March morning. Enjoy the robins!

I made it back down the hill and was feeling a little peckish. Certainly, the town of Quilcene would have a spot for me to buy a cup of coffee and a muffin - a place for me to plug in and see if any birds of note had been found in Jefferson? Had such a spot existed that morning, I may have seen that the Snow Bunting had made a glorious return to North Beach. But it still worked out to be a good morning. I set sail for Kitsap County. 

Seabeck

Certainly, the town of Seabeck wo... nope, they didn't either. I grabbed a big jug of drinking water, a small bag of Planter's honey-roasted peanuts, a sleeve of Oreos, and a sticker proclaiming that not all who wander are lost, Seabeck Washington. I was hard-pressed to pass on the laser-cut cribbage boards, one of which showed Hood Canal cutting up between Jefferson and Kitsap Counties. Had to make a few frugal mornings to save up for that. 

A frugal morning indeed. I pulled into Scenic Beach State Park. In the spirit of places like Island Lake, Lone Rock, Long Lake and Green Mountain, they keep it pretty simple around here. The scenic beach itself was a good way below my picnic table near the historic Emel House (built in 1911). Hot water, oatmeal, coffee, done. It was a little later than I like to do breakfast, but not a hardship. 

As I worked on my breakfast, I heard and saw many birds I'd already seen for the year (Fox Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Chestnut and Black-capped Chickadee, American Robin), as well as a few new ones, (Brown Creeper, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and Hairy Woodpecker - birds 77 through 79 for the year). Far below in the water, I enjoyed watching Surf and White-winged Scoters, Red-breasted Mergansers, Horned Grebe, and Common Goldeneye. As an extra treat, Trumpeter Swans called as they flew overhead, obscured by the canopy. 

Fox Sparrow

This was a nearly perfect morning, and the setting was pure Western Washington Bliss, with Salal, Oregon Grape, and Rhododendron all in the understory. I had the little area to myself under clear skies on a peaceful wind-free morning. I even got to watch Common Ravens flying back and forth with nesting materials. I used the last of my boiled water to clean out my bowl and headed vaguely in the direction of Green and Gold Mountains.

Gold Mountain

This. . . was poorly researched, but I did some iterative direction-asking. You get closer and closer to the trailhead and people give clearer and clearer directions to the end goal. I landed at a joint trailhead for Green and Gold Mountains. The map seemed to only show the trails for Green Mountain, but I wanted to hit Gold - a place that had reports of Western Bluebirds in recent weeks. 

At the parking lot, I checked with a woman and daughter who were getting ready for a trek on their horses. The daughter had been up Gold Mountain with her father once before. "There's no trees, and it's really ugly." I tried not to seem too excited about the clear-cut description of a clear-cut. The directions seemed to be - go up the Tin Mine trail, keep taking rights when possible, and take the logging road when you get to it.  

Dog's Paw Lichen

Striking out, I shared the trail with two women taking their dogs for a walk. Again, one of the women had been up all of these trails, having grown up in the area. So, for a good bit of the first stretch, I knew that if I was in doubt I could stop and wait for them to catch up and clear up my path forward. 

Fortunately, the path was never particularly unclear. The first bit passed through more thickly forested habitat. It eventually broke out into the first clear-cut. It had been climbing pretty steeply, so I initially doubted my decision regarding layers. In the end, t-shirt-sweatshirt-rain shell worked out just fine. My hiking boots also seemed perfectly appropriate. Occasionally, tiny streams cut across the path, and it simply required stomping through a little water. My trail-runners would have gotten a bit soggy!

The first stretch eventually let me see over the trees, giving views of Tahuya Lake below. As I got higher up, I occasionally caught glimpses of Hood Canal even farther in the distance. 

Tahuya Lake - Olympic Mountains in the distance

Hey Tim. . . birds? Well. . . there weren't many! Similar to my early morning clear-cut explorations, the cast of characters mostly consisted of Bewick's and Pacific Wrens, Spotted Towhees, Song Sparrows, and Common Ravens. 

I finally reached a logging road that ran north-south. I took it south as the sky started to drop some hail on me. As weather goes, I decided hail was not too bad. Even with my hood down, it just meant the occasional bloink off of my head - nothing that would get my head wet. 

The snow got a little deeper as well on this road. I stayed mostly in another person's tracks, but even so, I'd sometimes find snow working its way in through the top of my boots, sinking down to my warm feet, and melting there. Nothing uncomfortable, per se, but a little squooshy at times. 

On any hike, "how were the bugs?" is a key question. 
Um. . . the few I saw seemed optimistic. 
Look closely, and you can see some of the hailstones and imagine what they could do to this lil fella

This stretch along the road was also quite flat. It left the clear-cuts and took me briefly through some forested patches before opening back up to open habitat. The whole time, the weather shifted. Sometimes hailing harder, sometimes less. Sometimes giving little bits of blue sky and sun. Sometimes revealing some threatening clouds. 

In the forested areas, I gave some whistles for Northern Pygmy-Owl. In the openings, I scanned for bluebirds. Neither of these two efforts were successful. I was admittedly losing a little hope. 

At one point, I saw the radio tower marking the top of Gold Mountain. I was getting pelted by some good hail at the time and saw more of those threatening clouds. Somehow, it took this long (about 2 miles of hiking up the mountain) for my brain to make connections between hail and another more troublesome form of weather - lightning. 

So, at this point. Yes. I said to myself "I'll just go until I find a single good bird, or until I get to the top." 4.72 seconds later, I decided to toss that plan out, and to start making my way down. As luck would have it, I did find another species as I started down - Sooty Grouse (80)! This is listed as a Code 4 bird for the county, and this makes sense. This is likely the only appropriate habitat for the species in the county. Normally, I'd only hear these birds. On this particular day, I only saw them - first flying from cover to cover on a trail below me - then flushing from that cover as I made my way down to that trail. 

Berry-bearing bushes were seen throughout the walk. 
It did make me laugh to see I was fooled several times by the hail stones, doing a berry imitation!

Shortly after this discovery, lightning hit the top of Gold Mountain. I was pretty happy with the decision not to continue up the mountain! I got scooting down at a pretty good clip, thankful for the fairly easy path back. I'd left some arrows drawn in the snow - none of them were visible by now. But the landmarks along the way were just very familiar, and the path choices fairly limited. 

Getting changed out of sweaty soggy clothes and into a dry change. . . this was an ordeal, but it was well worth it. Even in a trailhead bathroom. Even with the extra acrobatics needed because of the dog poop I'd walked through at some point on the trail. I came out smelling like roses and feeling 98.3 percent better. 

What now? 

I really wanted to sit down and plug in. I needed it to come up with a proper plan for the hours of daylight I had left. In the mornings, I want to do this alongside coffee. In the afternoons and evenings, I prefer a pint. A cruise through Silverdale left me unsure about how to do this. I ended up getting a 2-dollar lunch from Taco Bell (I've become a fan of the veggie soft taco!), and then I sat down at Starbucks - always a sure bet for plugging in a laptop. The strange green fruit-vegetable-juice-power concoctions still have power over me at Starbucks. I strongly suspect there's some sort of scam here, but I have continued to pay 5 dollars or so to give my brain a little sugar and 5 percent of my daily potassium. 

Looking things over, the first forehead slap came when I saw all of the Snow Bunting sightings. Snow Bunting in Port Townsend shaking hands with visitors. Snow Bunting signing T-shirts. If it had been earlier in the day, the information would have been actionable, but ah well! Next, I saw a bird that . . . I've had an interesting relationship with: American Coot. Years back when I started this odd little pursuit in Mason County, this was a devilishly difficult bird to find. They're so common in my neck of the woods, but these birds just don't seem to like this large swath of the state, running through Mason and Kitsap. 

But worse, there were sightings of them by the dozens from Kitsap Lake, where I'd been on the previous day. So, these birds were on my list - and my day would include a return to Kitsap Lake. I also considered Harlequin Ducks in Bremerton - seemingly regular at Lions Park. Lider Road was the other stop I wanted to make - I had seen a number of good sightings from this road, in wetlands fed by Blackjack Creek. 

Lion's Park

So, from Silverdale, I first went to East Bremerton (Tracyton? I don't know exactly where I was) to fill up the car with gas at Fred Meyer. From there, it was a short drive to Lion's Park. 

Yahtzee!

The Harlequin Ducks (81) were easy to find once I made it down to the beach. On a previous visit, I'd just not tried for them due to fading sunlight and increasing rain. The passage here had a nice mix of saltwater species, including some Barrow's Goldeneyes, and either a lot of Pelagic Cormorants, or a single bird that was just flying back and forth repeatedly. 

Kitsap Lake

I got turned around, and I ended up driving nearly the entire circumference of the lake. Some roads were dead-ends, and others seemed like they were going to logically lead to nice viewpoints. But in the end, it was just the South end of the lake again. I scanned for coots, but didn't find a single one. As a consolation bird, a Hutton's Vireo (82) called from the edge of the lake. 

Lider Road

Honestly - it was difficult to just pull over and look at birds. People often just drive around you if you're sitting on the shoulder nearly anywhere I've birded. But here, people slowed down, got out to see what their dog was barking about. It just felt weird as I sat and looked over a flock of Canada Geese, hoping to find another species in the mix. So, I didn't stay all that long. I'll be back, but likely only if I'm chasing a specific species. 

And that did it for me! The sun was down, and I was absolutely beat. I drove to the ferry terminal at Southworth and slept waiting for the next one to arrive. It wasn't a lot of birds, all in all, but I was happy with the new one's I'd found (and the new places!). It was satisfying to see that both counties were now over halfway to my end goals for the year.