The girls and I hiked to Black Lake on Friday. This hike is more about the trail than the destination. It follows Lake Creek which is really roaring with white water now. I was pleased that the girls stayed away from the rushing stream. The area burned about ten or fifteen years ago and is a recovering forest with standing silver snags, numerous species of shrubs and wildflowers and in some places there are thick stands of small pine trees and aspens. Every year lots of those silver snags fall, often across the trail, and it hasn’t been logged out yet. According to the information at the trailhead, there are 48 downed trees along the route. This certainly slows a person down. Most I could get across; some I had to go under and in at least one case I had to go around a big log.
Another feature is a series of beaver ponds near the lake. These efficient engineers have dammed up a tributary creek and created some really good habitat but also have flooded the trail in places. It proved to be a bit of a challenge for me to get across a series of downed logs over the pond to return to the trail.
The flowers and bird song slowed me down too. I was able to identify four different warblers by their songs alone. I stopped many times when the trail was away from the stream, so I could listen to the birds and photograph the flowers. Needless to say, I did not make good time on this hike but like I said, it’s more about the trail than the destination.
And here’s the list of birds I heard and saw:
Ruffed Grouse
Mourning Dove
Calliope Hummingbird
Hairy Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Hammond’s Flycatcher
Dusky Flycatcher
Warbling Vireo
Common Raven
Black-capped Chickadee
Pacific Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
American Robin
Nashville Warbler
MacGillivray’s Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Chipping Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Song Sparrow
Spotted Towhee
Black-headed Grosbeak
Red-winged Blackbird
Pine Siskin
