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Category Archives: birds

Birding in Okanogan County

Our six days of camping were not really enough to cover all the ground in northern Okanogan County but we sure did make a dent in it. We left camp a couple times to drive out and do some exploring. Along the way we found more birds and some more interesting plants as well.

No doubt, seeing nesting Great Gray Owls was a highlight of our week!

We stopped along the Aeneas Valley Road to look for Bobolinks and were not disappointed. Two or three males were displaying on the fence posts.
We stopped along the Aeneas Valley Road to look for Bobolinks and were not disappointed. Two or three males were displaying on the fence posts.
More fairyslipper calypso orchids. I wonder if this is an especially good year for them?
Great Gray Owl on the nest.
Great Gray Owl on the nest.
The male Great Gray Owl watches from nearby.
Great Gray Owl male
Great Gray Owl male
Great Gray Owl male
Great Gray Owl male
Great Gray Owl male
Great Gray Owl male
Great Gray Owl male
Great Gray Owl male
This western larch snag was probably over 1000 years old when it died maybe hundreds of years ago!
Douglas maple
Interesting plant with fringed leaves
Pipestem moss. A new one for me.
Old larch used for making shakes.
Coralroot? If so, which one?
Coralroot? If so, which one?
A worn butterfly. Morning cloak?
Newly fledged American Robin
Last year’s nest. I wonder if it will be used again.
Willow Flycatcher?
Spotted Sandpiper nest alongside a roadway.
Spotted Sandpiper
Tree Swallows make it look painful
Wait up Mom!
Belted Kingfisher. I was pretty sure it had a nest across the road in a bank but ran out of time to wait for it to emerge again.
Robin’s nest?
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Barrow’s Goldeneye family
American Coot baby
Song Sparrows
Song Sparrows
Song Sparrows

Peeps on the Beach

There are a few species of small sandpipers that are often lumped together as ‘peeps’. The three species look similar and can be difficult to identify. I used to look at lots of shorebirds and got so I could remember the key things to look for but it’s been so long that I’ve lost much of that info. Groups of shorebirds are fascinating to watch as they run back and forth feeding and leap into the air and do it all as one big mass. I found this large group that had hundreds of birds at the Ocean City beach access a little south of where we were staying. We saw smaller flocks on our beach. The dogs stayed in the car while I watched and photographed the birds on the incoming tide. I stayed in one place and the birds came ever closer with the waves. There were other people walking and fishing and driving on the beach and nothing seemed to bother them. I think these birds are Western Sandpipers but I may be wrong.

An Owl Pellet

Just to prove that this blog is NOT about puppies all the time, I thought I’d share this owl pellet that I found yesterday. Ken and I were in the Okanogan Highlands (a work trip for him; a chance for me and the dogs to get out of the valley) and at the end of the day we were walking the dogs before the long drive home. I found this pellet at the end of a bench. Now that the busy summer season is past and hunting season too, the owl must have found it to be a quiet place to perch. This is the largest pellet I’ve ever found – nearly six inches long. What is an owl pellet? Owls don’t have teeth and swallow their food whole. They do not digest the hair and bones. These parts are regurgitated as a pellet. We picked it apart to try to determine what the owl ate. We found gray hair and the bones of a small mammal. Ken speculated that it was the back half of perhaps a rabbit since there were no scapulas or a skull. You can see the vertebrae on the bottom of the image, thigh bones and hip sockets in the middle, tiny claws on the right with perhaps some long toe bones above them.

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Red-breasted Sapsucker plus Red-naped Sapsucker

What happens when two birds of different species get together and make a nest? Hybridization. According to an article by Kim Romain-Bondi in North Central Washington Audubon Society’s newsletter, The Wild Phlox, “these two species are sympatric, meaning that during the evolution process, they became two new species while inhabiting the same geographic region. Generally speaking in Washington, the Red-breasted live on the west side, the Red-naped on the east side of the Cascades……. These two species of sapsuckers are known to hybridize in south-central Oregon, northeastern California, along the California-Nevada border, and in southern Nevada.”

Kim has located a nest near one of the trails on the grounds of the North Cascades Basecamp which she and her husband own. It includes a male Red-breasted Sapsucker and female Red-naped Sapsucker. I was lucky enough to have her show me the nest in a water birch tree. We observed both birds going to and from the nest, catching bugs and visiting sap wells before returning to feed young. On one departure I observed that the male was carrying a fecal sack. These birds like to keep their nest tidy.

Now I don’t do a lot of bird photography. I love to bird and I love to make images however it’s often challenging for me to both well. I lack the really long telephoto lenses to get the extreme sharp close-ups so my bird images are mostly for documenting a particularly striking or unusual bird or one that is otherwise noteworthy. I thought this situation was noteworthy and worth recording.

Red-naped Sapsucker female

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Red-breasted Sapsucker male

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The landing – feet first

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They always looked out of the cavity in all directions before exiting.

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Sapsuckers make ‘wells’ in trees to get to the sap. They are evenly spaced in neat rows and the birds return to them year after year. Hummingbirds will also sip from the sap wells. I saw a Black-chinned hummingbird at this tree.

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Yesterday, other birders observed that the birds were catching bugs; taking them to the sap wells and dipping the bugs before taking them to the youngsters in the nest. Sort of like coating cold cereal with sugar so the kids will eat it.

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Here is the female rocketing out of the hole.

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And here, the male is carrying a fecal sack away from the nest.

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And there he goes!

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Another Bird

Two birding posts in a row? I don’t think this is a serious trend.

This sweet Downy Woodpecker was very cooperative and allowed me to get close enough to make images of him with my small camera. He would get one sunflower seed at a time out of the feeder and then carefully wedge it into a crack in the snag, saving it for a future meal. The Hairy Woodpeckers do the same thing.

 

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