The Sounds of the Sage

Guided by ebird, we drove toward a section of road where groups of over a hundred Sage-grouse had been observed. Dom was obsessed with Sage-grouse. If we didn’t see one, he would explode.

Dom eating beans, consumed with madness:

Not sure what to expect, we just drove there. We were exhausted from getting our asses kicked by those owls. At one point when I was driving, I actually fell asleep. Driving at 40 km/h and approaching a sharp bend, Dom took the wheel. I wonder why my foot stayed on the pedal.

Just as I started driving again, we saw it! An EXODUS from the sage, the road was littered with grouses!

Hooting into oblivion

Wow, how did we get from the Cascades to northeastern Idaho? Loyal Nissan, you continue to serve me well! This night, we were hoping to redeem some owling failure on a road which ebird had promised Boreal Owls and, a bird that constantly mocks us in our dreams…the Great Gray himself. It was off to a good start. Just before dark, a Boreal responded to the tape. Then two!!! Then three……wait a minute. So apparently Wilson’s Snipes displaying sound identical to a territorial call of a boreal owl…will have to remember that. We owled until about 11 o’clock. None of our targets, but a surprise one or maybe three Long-eared Owls responded to the Great Gray call…they made several passes over our heads! 3 am, I turn off my alarm. So dark. Cold. Alone. We began. In order to conserve energy, we took turns being the one go get out of the car about every half kilometer and play the owl calls. By morning’s light, all we had heard was one stubborn Saw-whet Owl. Now 6:30, it was time to retreat out of the forest. We turned off the music and lowered the windows to hear the sounds of the sage.

Massacre at Wenas Creek

Excited to get away form that cold, God-forsaken forest, we decided to do some real birding at Wenas Creek (pronounced weenis). We got hela lost in Ellensburg (number of times lost so far = 2). On the way, we made love to Umtanum road (pair of sage thrashers, 3 white-headed woodpeckers, dozens of bluebirds, and a hybrid Dusky/Sooty grouse displaying form a tree). Unlike the dismal damp, cold, snowy forest north of Cle Elum, Wenas Creek was a spring paradise. Flowers were blossoming, birds were singing. A calliope hummingbird zipped by. With white woodpecker heads rolling in out path, we now sought a strange green and pink woodpecker that thinks it’s a flycatcher: the Lewis’s. As we were turning back to the car, I spied the bird flying from a snag half a kilometer away up a hill. We mounted the hill, laid siege on its parapet and saw the shit out of it.

Owling North of Cle Elum

It was a complete failure.

The Majesty of the Emperor

If I had checked Washington Birds the night before I left, I would have known exactly where to find the emperor geese. I drove within 10 km of Dungeness Wildlife Area, on my way to the pelagic in Westport. A guy on the ferry even mentioned it as if he’d heard they’d been seen there, but that had been a long time ago, he thought. In any case, I did check Washington birds, long after passing the geese, having driven all the way to Westport, and it appeared they had been seen. I picked up Dom at the Seattle airport. We were to embark on a journey of wild America from Seattle to Sarnia, and survive to tell the tales. The emperors were only 1.5 hours plus a ferry in the opposite direction. Shall we twitch? A very dumb question. After getting lost at night, we finally found the spot. We celebrated the first night out the trip with a candle-lit bean dinner in the back of my car (not with real candles – that would be so dangerous!!) Escorted by a Eurasian Wigeon, there they are, in all their MAJESTY!

After battling Red-breasted Sapsucker and Dipper in the mountains, Dom falling into a snow-hole, and being pulled over by the police (luckily he missed my expired license sticker), we went for some owling north of Cle Elum.

Sail of the Don Carlos

A fitting name for a vessel full of sea dogs ready to plunder each and every livin’ being that dare come within a nautical mile of our deck. On the aft deck, the capn’ prepared us for our voyage, with a copy of ol’ redbeard’s Guide to storm petrels, petrels and shearwaters of North America. It be the best book on any one group of birds ever to be written, said he. And so we set sail, tallyin’ seaworthy number o’ loons (7000 pacific ‘uns to be precise) several ‘undred brant and even a parakeet (o’ the sea-farin’ variety), rather fitn’ for a sea voyage. Ensnared by the monstrous one-eyed peeper of none oder‘n the scallywag Charlie Wright. AVAST ME HEARTIES!!!

We set port in the nearest diner, where we plundered two oyster burgers and buried their treasure deep in our gullets. From the pre-pelagic: