4/26/2023   Seattle - Clarkston 325 miles  (link to here)
Today we embarked on our big road trip across the country to visit friends and family in Colorado, to attend Gabriel's graduation in Michigan, to visit my Mom and Sarah and Roger in New Hampshire and to visit high school friends in Maine and/or Massachusetts. We will of course do some birdwatching along the way including a visit to Magee Marsh in Ohio to see migrating warblers and stops in Idaho, Illinois and Montana to attempt to add a handful of species to my North America life list.
I prepared an itinerary a few days ago. Our only deadline is to be in Michigan nine days from now to join Darchelle's family for the graduation, but that deadline constrains us to keep moving for the first third of our trip, hence the itinerary. Driving to Michigan via Colorado will require that we average about 350 miles per day, but with Darchelle doing all the driving, we don't want to tackle much more than that on any individual day. Nonetheless we want flexibility to alter our route or linger a little longer than planned if we find a place particularly intriguing so we won't be booking motels in advance. We will just take our chances when we pull into town at the end of the day. Given that we can neither camp out nor sleep in the car that approach is not without risk, but like I said, we will take our chances.
Our priorities today are to reach Clarkston in the southeast corner of the state by nightfall and to pick up a last few year birds in Washington along the way. With 236 species, we are in third place in the eBird ranking for the state but that won't last long; close to 100 species will show up in Washington while we are away so we want to get as many as we can before we head into Idaho and beyond.
That turned out to be eight species by the time we settled into the Rivertree Inn + in Clarkston at 8:30 PM. We found Swainson's Hawks near Royal City L+, three new species at County Line Ponds L+, three more at the Washtucna sewage treatment ponds L+ and White-throated Swifts along the Snake River L+ Unfortunately we failed to find the rare Snowy Egret at Swallows Park. It had been there for several days but apparently was not home this evening.

4/27/2023   Clarkston WA - Jerome ID 422 miles  (link to here)
In the morning we drove back over to Swallows Park but did not find the Snowy Egret. Later we learned that it was seen that day, though perhaps not at the park. Too bad we missed it, but Darchelle had wanted to see the Great-horned Owl by the parking lot, and succeeded.
Crossing over into Idaho we felt that now we were really on the road. Heading south towards Boise we followed the Salmon River L+ up to Riggins, which I did not recognize despite having visited twice back in June 1981, both times after kayaking the Middle Fork. Continuing south up into the mountains we entered a broad flat valley which in Colorado would be called a park and started a checklist near New London + when we spotted a large brown heron-like bird and realized that it was a Sandhill Crane in breeding plumage. They are usually gray when we see them in Washington. Descending the Payette River into Boise, we stopped along the road at a fearsome-looking stretch of whitewater and texted a photo to Daniel who immediately identified it as Jacob's Ladder. Apparently it is famous.
I had two sights I wanted to see near Boise - Melon gravel + and Bruneau Dunes +. We didn't have time to detour to Melba to look for melon gravel bars, which in any case are not that different in origin or appearance from the boulder fields east of Ephrata in Washington.
The huge sand dunes near Bruneau are a different story. The last time I visited +, back in 2010, David and I hiked to the top of the tallest dune but this time I sat in the car and watched Darchelle ascend one of the smaller ridges. It was reminder of how much we have lost.
Our motel, the Crest in Jerome, smelled worse than any other place we stayed during the entire trip but at least it was cheap.

4/28/2023   Jerome ID - Price UT 449 miles  (link to here)
In the morning we drove east and south through irrigated farmland L+ in the Snake River plain to the South Hills, encountering more Swainson's Hawks than I would have expected in that habitat. As we turned onto Rock Creek Road L+ two Red Crossbills flew over us towards a small pond in a gravel pit but we could not relocate them. Crossbills were what we were looking for, Cassia Crossbills in particular, which frequent Lodgepole Pines high in the mountains of Cassia County in southern Idaho. Recently separated from Red Crossbills, they would be a new life bird for us.
Dramatic scenery arose around us as we followed Rock Creek Road up into the South Hills. Dark basalt colonnades framed slopes of arid grassland glowing golden in the morning sunlight. Canyons and ridges begged to be explored. Sadness overwhelmed me, pain so acute as to be almost intolerable. I think it had been building since we embarked on the trip and this morning it came to a peak. I could not now and would never again hike these hills, survey the views, discover the birds, photograph the flowers, learn the flora, collect the rocks and generally immerse myself in the myriad variations of terrain and habitat through which we were and would be traveling. Now I just sit in the car and look out the window. It is hard to settle for so little, and hard this morning to imagine ever being content with it.
At an elevation of about 6000 feet we began to encounter snow, and birds L+. One of the first was a Dusky Grouse which clambered up a bank and into the woods before I was spot it. We passed a ski area +, apparently closed for the season despite a couple of feet of snow still on the ground, and a mile or so after that reached our destination, the entrance parking lot of the Diamondfield Jack Campground and ground zero for the Cassia Crossbills. The sky was very blue, the snow very white, the trees very dark and the two raptors overhead, very pale. We immediately thought Goshawks but they were just Red-tails, as usual. A few minutes later though, another raptor soaring high overhead actually was a Northern Goshawk, an exciting bird for those of us from Washington who rarely see them.
The crossbills were a bit anticlimactic. We saw one in the top of a Lodgepole Pine; it appeared to have a large bill; we could not get a photo; we counted it as a Cassia.
Our Idaho missions accomplished we picked up lunch at Nostalgia Coffee in Burley + and ate in a park along the Snake River before heading into Utah. Anticipating that we might not be able to get many Utah birds during our brief visit, we exited the freeway at the first opportunity and followed the Highway 30 L+ west across the Curlew Valley. It was a good move. we picked up our first 20 species for the state including a Burrowing Owl and appropriately, a Long-billed Curlew.
We drove south past Ogden and Salt Lake City as the sun was setting on the Wasatch front. We had planned to stay in Spanish Fork but missed the motel district in the dark and ended up driving another hour to Price where all of the motels seemed to have closed for the night. Darchelle called all around and when she finally found a room at the Greenwell, we were both grateful.

4/29/2023   Price UT - New Castle CO 378 miles  (link to here)
In the morning we drove south through a broad arid valley with naked in-your-face geology in all directions and I kept wondering how old it all was, not so much the rocks themselves as the landscape - the mountains, the cliffs, the mesas, the flat valley floors - and how this dramatic landscape developed. Lots of questions, no way to ask them. We stopped briefly east of Green River to look for birds but found few. At the entrance to Arches National Park we stopped again and considered taking the scenic drive but did not have reservations. Darchelle photographed Sparrows from the parking lot instead.
During the summer of 1978 when I worked on the Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project in the Paradox Valley of far western Colorado, I never did the half hour drive over the hill to Moab, nor did I ever hike up into the La Sal Mountains which loomed snowy and cool on the western horizon every hot dusty afternoon. It is too late now to do the hike but today we at least did the drive. I showed Darchelle where we used to camp and where the Peregrines used to nest on the sandstone walls high above the valley. They probably still nest there but we were unable to find them during our brief inspection of the cliffs. The place hasn't changed much, just a few more fences and signs.
We followed the Dolores River north out of the Paradox Valley. The valley runs east-west but the river flows south to north directly across the middle of it - hence the paradox. The explanation of the paradox is that the river was there first. It had already incised its meandering course into the surrounding orange sandstone - you might say its route was set in stone - by the time the valley began to open up over a disruptive bed of buoyant salt. The salt apparently exerted enough upward pressure to lift the sandstone 1000 feet or more and fracture it so that weathering and erosion could do the slow work of creating the valley. Who knew common salt could do that, right?
BTW, how exactly did those incised meanders, so characteristic of rivers flowing over the flat-lying bedrock along the west slope of the Rocky Mountains, begin and persist as the land underneath them slowly rose? Did the banks of boulders and soil accompany the river throughout the whole process? How long does it take for a winding river to carve a canyon 500 feet deep? How old are rivers anyhow?
Leaving the Dolores River at Gateway Rock, a spectacular island of angular sandstone where Peregrines also used to nest and probably still do, and where our ondometer hit 100000.0, we drove up into Unaweep Canyon + another geology mystery. Unlike other canyons, which cut through moutain ranges, Unaweep Canyon (map photo +) between Gateway and Grand Junction extends up over and down the other side of the Uncompaghre Ridge. U-shaped in cross section, it looks as though it was carved by a glacier but traverses a mountain range which has no other evidence of glaciation. Forty-five years after I first wondered about that, I found this article + which proposes an explanation of the canyon's origin.
The story begins in the Permian period, prior to the deposition of the Mesozoic strata which currently blanket the Colorado Plateau, when a river carved a canyon into the crystalline rocks of an ancestral Uncompaghre uplift. Fast-forward 200 million years. About 5 million years ago the Gunnison River, then as now flowing northeastward along the north margin of the Uncompaghre Ridge as it began to rise again, turned to the southwest following the trace of the ancient canyon. Over the next 4 million years the river eroded up to 4,000 feet of Mesozoic sedimentary rocks to exchume the Paleozoic canyon. About 1.4 million years ago landslide dammed up the river at the west end of the canyon, forming a lake which rose high enough that the river found an alternate route north from the east end of the canyon. Sediment deposited after the formation of the lake filled the canyon to a depth of more than 1,000 feet giving it the level floor reminescent of a glacer-carved valley.
Anyhow, when we arrived in Grand Junction we found all the motels fully booked. Apparently the city was hosting a statewide lacrosse tournament. Go figure! We had to continue east to New Castle to find a place to stay.

4/30/2023   New Castle CO - Boulder CO 200 miles  (link to here)
We had arranged to meet my cousin Sally for lunch and we did not have far to go so we slept in. That felt good after two long days and late nights. Sally fixed a delicious meal featuring bean soup with salmon (for me) and mushrooms (for Darchelle). We ate in her driveway, more pleasant than it sounds, and heard so many birds that we did a checklist.
We both really enjoyed our visit with Sally and vowed that we would stay in touch, so easy to do via Facetime we agreed, and yet five months from now we will still not have done so.
On our way to Boulder we drove over Loveland Pass; it was much more scenic than the tunnel. We looked for Ptarmigan on the snowy slopes but spotted only snowboarders and hikers with dogs. Down in Boulder spring had arrived with leaves emerging on the trees and dandelions flowering in the median strips. As soon as pulled up in front of Silas and Salwa's house we heard a Blue Jay call so of course we did a checklist, noting that both Silas and Blue Jays are relatively recent transplants from back east.
The evening was warm enough that we were able to eat outside under the apple tree in their backyard. Salwa served an appetizer, a soft cheese which she had made, and Silas served steak and vegetables which he had grilled. For dessert, Salwa brought out a custard tart with fruit on top. It was all very good and I regretted not being able to eat more but I eat so slowly that everyone else was finished while I was still working on the steak. When the stars came out we moved inside and talked for another hour or more in the comfort of their living room while I continued to nibble.

5/01/2023   Boulder CO - Limon CO 190 miles  (link to here)
Billed as a boutique hotel for the budget-minded traveler, the Basecamp + was the most expensive place we've stayed so far and did not even have a fridge in the room. Not only that, but I found the bed quite uncomfortable and slept poorly. In the morning we went out of our way to visit a coffee shop named for Stephen King's epic novel The Stand which we listened to for over 40 hours last year around this time. The coffee was good and the hand pies even better.
I think it has been 9 years since I last saw my close college friend David S, when we drove out to Aurora Reservoir L+ on a chilly January afternoon to look at a couple of rare gulls. Since then we have let our friendship lapse but today we reconnected over lunch in his backyard. David, or maybe Monica, fixed me salmon and it was delicious but once again I left too much on my plate because I can't eat and talk at the same time and sadly, we left my leftovers behind. But it wasn't about the food but about the conversation which I am sure involved geology, about which David is never at a loss for answers and I am never at a loss for questions. Regarding our friendship, we just picked right up where we left off, and hopefully we will be better about staying in touch going forward.
From Denver we drove south on I-25 to Colorado Springs to meet my longtime friend and former girlfriend Liz N at the Garden of the Gods +, a spectacular city park where I used to birdwatch and paint when I lived in Colorado Springs during the late 70s. As we approached town, Pike's Peak was shrouded by a spring storm which cleared in time for us to see the view I painted during my independent study in painting under Bernard Arnest + in March of my senior year in college. I never did get the foreground right on that painting.
With Liz at the Garden of the Gods L+ we rolled around easy trails between the orange crags, taking selfies and attempting to photograph the swifts crowding into crevices in the rocks. The trails are new since my last visit, as are nearly all of the swifts.
Photographing swifts is not easy but Darchelle managed to get a few good shots. We followed Liz over to her house for supper, which she served on a folding table in the driveway since her house is not accessible. Liz gave Darchelle a tour of her house then brought out the Garden of the Gods painting which I almost completed but forgot to photograph back in 2014.
With a long day scheduled for tomorrow, we decided not to spend the night in the Springs but instead drive east to Limon. Our stay at the Safari Inn + was memorable only because we lost our room key and had to pay five dollars for it in the morning.

5/02/2023   Limon CO - Kansas City KS 526 miles  (link to here)
We drove across the Great Plains today from the short grass prairie of Colorado to the edge of the eastern hardwood forest in Kansas City. I had prepared for this crossing by stocking up on audiobooks before we left to Seattle but intrigued by the changing landscape and engaged in looking for highway birds, we never found time to listen to them. We didn't find the time for photos either, once we left the Colorado-Kansas border.
Leaving Limon we were impressed by the size of the grackles. Both Great-tailed and Common Grackles are rare in Washington but are apparently common around towns on the high plains. At a rest area just over the border in Kansas, we found male Great-tailed Grackles displaying for the females, who appeared less impressed by their poses than we were. The Common Grackles on the other hand were just looking for lunch.
Enticed by the opportunity to pad our Colorado list before leaving the state, we detoured a mile south of Burlington to visit the wastewater treatment plant. Our view of the ponds was somewhat obstructed by a dike along the road so we were eyeing a gravel access road prominently signed "No Unauthorized Vehicles" when a white pickup truck pulled up next to us. Darchelle explained that we were birdwatching and were wondering if it was possible to drive in behind the ponds. "Follow me", the driver replied.
He turned onto the access road, stopped, got out of his truck and walked over to us. Although we talked with him for perhaps 10 minutes, I unfortunately don't remember now what he looked like or much of our conversation. My impression was that he was in his late 40s and reminded me of a police officer, perhaps because he told us he was one. He also volunteered that he was the city dogcatcher. Although he had some connection with the Pacific Northwest, he had been in the Burlington area for quite a while, long enough to notice the growing population of Great-tailed Grackles and an occasional very large snake. We appreciated both his historical perspective on local natural history and his parting instruction that if anyone stopped us, tell them he said it was okay for us to be there.
The Burlington WTP ponds L+ proved well worth the hour we took to tour them. Our species count of 29 was our highest since leaving Seattle and included our only White-faced Ibis sighting of the year. We found lots of Wilson's Phalaropes and Vesper Sparrows and increased our Colorado list by 20%. Twently minutes later and 20 miles to the east we kicked off our Kansas list with 26 species at the I-70 eastbound rest area L+ near Goodland, where we again found Phalaropes and lots of sparrows along with the above-mentioned Grackles.

5/03/2023   Kansas City KS - St Louis MO 310 miles  (link to here)
Mary and Larry M had graciously offered us their home in Kansas City for the night though unfortunately they were out of town. Mary even made granola for us. We arrived late, ate a bit of granola for supper, slept in and ate more granola for breakfast. Darchelle's friends and former students Tasha and Gina dropped by in the morning. We sat outside on the terrace and talked (I noted birds L+) until Gina's parents came by then we moved inside and visited some more. We dodged a bullet there because Gina's mother had a bad cough but we did not catch it.
It was approaching midafternoon by the time we hit the road but before leaving the neighborhood we photographed a few Redbud flowers. We had begun seeing small trees covered with deep pink flowers around the same time we had begun seeing bedrock again, outcrops of layered yellow sandstone somewhere near Hayes. I had assumed the trees were Redbuds but wanted to make sure.
Instead of hurrying east out of Kansas City to make up for lost time, we expended several more hours birdwatching along secondary roads l + about 40 miles southeast of the city. It was a beautiful spring day and recently arrived migratory songbirds were singing and foraging all afternoon in patches of woodland between the farm fields. About a third of the 35 species we encountered were new for us but the bird we were particularly excited about was a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. The previous day one had been discovered in Westport Washington, the first one to show up in the state in at least five years, and we were missing out on seeing it. We checked eBird and discovered that one had also recently been reported not too far off of our intended route, so we were headed in that direction when I spotted one on a utility line along the road L+. When we turned around for a better look it had disappeared but we waited a few minutes and spotted it again in a distant tree. By playing calls we managed to lure it in for our closer look and a photo.

5/04/2023   St Louis MO - Berrien Springs MI 393 miles  (link to here)
Given our late departure and birding excursions yesterday afternoon, we did not intend to drive all the way to St Louis, let alone to our original destination of Springfield Illinois. Shortly after dark we stopped about 70 miles west of St Louis but all of the nearby motels were fully booked. We continued on to St Louis and the Wayside Motel which we selected for its proximity to Blackburn Park where Eurasian Tree Sparrows had recently been reported. Close cousins to the common House Sparrow, they have nested in the St Louis area for decades but I have not had the occasion to stop in St Louis to look for them since I was in college, when I couldn't be bothered to do so, so they never made it onto my life list.
We found Eurasian Tree Sparrows as soon as we pulled into the parking lot for Blackburn Park but failed to get a decent photo so drove around to the other side of the park where the trails looked more accessible. Darchelle got me out in the wheelchair and we strolled around the grounds. The park consists mostly of mowed lawns and shade trees but birds were plentiful and we accumulated a decent list L+ along with a few photos. We left Missouri with 56 species on our state list, of which 20 were new for the year
In part because we devoted so much time to birding stops in Missouri, in Illinois all of our birdwatching was along the interstate except for one late afternoon stop at Funks Grove Nature Preserve L+, where highlights included singing Eastern Towhees and a beautiful Rose-breasted Grosbeak.
Illinois was also the first state in which we drove on toll roads using the Pay-by-plate system to pay the fees. In Illinois, as in the other states with toll roads, we forgot to pay the toll online in time, and when I later attempted to use the the past due toll site + to pay our toll, it had no record of our passing.

5/05/2023   Berrien Springs MI 3 days, 30 miles  (link to here)
Despite our late arrival in Berrien Springs Thursday evening, Richard and Donna were still up so Darchelle wrapped me up in the electric blanket and I visited with them while she unpacked the car. They had flown in that afternoon so were still on Washington time. Ricardo's parents had arrived a few days earlier. Susan and Marcos drove over on Friday morning and spent the weekend, giving us the opportunity to get to know Marcos better. I particularly enjoyed our conversations, though regrettably do not remember much of what we talked about.
The occasion for the family gathering in Michigan was of course Gabriel's graduation from Andrews University. Concerned about COVID, Darchelle and I did not attend the indoor services but watched the graduation on the phone over closed circuit TV while sitting in the parking lot. Afterwards Darchelle mingled with the graduates and their families on the lawn while I watched from the car.
Being only peripherally involved with the festivities, I sat outside in the yard birdwatching on both Saturday L+ and Sunday L+ afternoons, accumulating a yard list L+ of 36 species. Darchelle took a nice photo of one of them.
Sunday afternoon after the graduation Gabriel and several friends gave a house concert, playing classical pieces on piano, violin and clarinet. I had a front row seat just a few feet from the musicians. It was pretty amazing!
The house on the Hillcrest Drive has been home at various times for Darchelle, for her sister Alicia and her family, including Gabriel, and for her parents. Now that Gabriel has graduated and Ricardo and Alicia rent it out on AirB&B this is probably the last family reunion there.

5/08/2023   Berrien Springs MI - Paw Paw MI 99 miles  (link to here)
After a pilgrimage to Baguette de France to pick up sandwiches for lunch, we got back on the road again, although only to drive to Susan's house in Paw Paw today. On the way out of town we stopped to say goodbye to her folks then took a detour down to Kesling Preserve L+ on the Indiana border just inland from the lake. I particularly wanted to visit that spot because it was the last stop of my Warbler Safari with Ed Newbold back in 2014 and we had heard Yellow-throated Warblers there. I thought we had heard cuckoos there as well but I guess I was mistaken about that. Anyhow it began to rain shortly before Darchelle and I arrived and the mosquitoes were bad in the flooded bottomlands along the creek so we stayed in the car and listened out the window with Merlin. Merlin picked up a Louisiana Waterthrush song and although Darchelle could hear it out her window, I could not distinguish it so she played the recording for me and I counted it. It was our only one of the entire trip.
Continuing across the border to Indiana we did a quick checklist L+. We added 18 species for the state but our new total of 21 still left Indiana as the state with the lowest species count of the entire trip. Rain again precluded photos.

5/09/2023   Paw Paw MI - Oregon OH 188 miles  (link to here)
Susan fixed us a breakfast scramble with avocado along with stuffed French toast before leaving for work. We watched birds out the window L+ and picked up our 49th species for Michigan for the trip, a Ruby throated Hummingbird. Marcos lingered to help us out of the house, a tricky operation involving a tight right turn while stepping down out of the front door. We could not have done it without him. He sent us off with a prayer around 11:15 and we drove about three hours east across Michigan and south to the Pearson Metropark L+ just east of Oregon, a suburb on the east side of Toledo.
Pearson Metropark is a 600 acre multiuse park containing an old-growth remnant of the Great Black Swamp, a forested wetland which once spanned Northwestern Ohio from Lake Erie to the Indiana border. Gravel trails, easily navigable with the wheelchair except for occasional puddles in low areas, meandered through a diverse mixed-age hardwood forest which despite extensive standing water was nearly free of mosquitoes. I doubt that would be the case a little later in the season. I don't remember which bird was the featured attraction there, perhaps a Cuckoo, but we did not find it although we did come up with 37 species including 8 warblers. I felt we did pretty well considering it was the middle of the afternoon. Darchelle even got a few photos.
Our options were limited by the time we began our search for lodging but we found a comfortable if pricey room at the Towneplace & Suites by Mariott. Darchelle bought take-out at a nearby El Sol Azteca and we ate into our room while watching Ted Lasso + on Darchelle's laptop.

5/10/2023   Oregon OH 42 miles  (link to here)
Darchelle has for a long time wanted to to see a big fallout, which is when a large number of migrating birds all stop at once in a small area to feed and recover before moving on. Magee Marsh Wildlife Area + at the southwest end of Lake Eyrie is one of the best spots in North America for that and the middle of May is the best time to be there, but it depends on the weather. Today was not an ideal day and our arrival time of early afternoon was definitely not the ideal time. We managed to find 46 species l+ including 9 species of warblers but it was not the experience Darchelle was looking for. On the other hand, we did manage to avoid the crowd. Since it had been a slow morning most of the birders had gone elsewhere for the afternoon.
That is not to say that the boardwalk was empty. The boardwalk meanders about a third of a mile through wooded wetland and is famous for offering close views of warblers and other migrants so it is almost always busy during the migration season. We encountered numerous knots of people but the way was wide enough that we rarely had difficulty getting by with the wheelchair. Everyone we met, with the possible exception of an occasional photographer focused on his target, was friendly and helpful, eager to share that they had seen and where they had seen it, or to identify a bird which was too distant for my unaided eye. It was my kind of birding though, and we more often found ourselves pointing out and identifying birds for the other birdwatchers. That was fun!
A few warblers nest in the marsh, among them the Prothonotary and Yellow and perhaps also the Black and White. They were singing and easy to find. The Prothonotary has to be the star of the marsh; showy, colorful, loud, and unusually tame, they were hard to miss. Not so the migrants, which were not singing, at least not in the middle of the afternoon when we were out there looking for them, and were often difficult to spot and track in the dense foliage.
On our way back to our motel we drove the Ottawa NWR Wildlife Drive L+ through marshes, fields and woodlots near the lake. With Merlin's assistance we identified our first Sedge Wren of the trip and with Sibley's assistance we enjoyed close-up views of an Ohio Virginia Rail and a Swamp Sparrow.
Photographing the Rail and Swamp Sparrow (even though the rail was blurred) made for a nice conclusion to a satisfying day. It began with a delicious breakfast of an omelette with apple sausage, biscuits and gravy. We spent an hour this morning working on the camera configuration and I think it paid off. Darchelle got very good photos of several species including the Eastern Screech Owl, the Orchard Oriole and the Blackburian Warbler.  

5/11/2023   Oregon OH 40 miles  (link to here)
Today was forecast to be a really big day for migrants, and while it did not prove to be as big as predicted, it was better than yesterday. In six hours at the marsh L+ we saw or heard 62 species including 19 warblers. Once again, we did not arrive until after noon. We would have tried harder for an early start but we had decided yesterday evening to stay an extra day in case tomorrow turned out to be the really big day instead.
As we pulled up to the main entrance to the boardwalk to claim one of the handicap parking spots we found a crowd of birdwatchers and photographers peering up into a Bald Cypress. Inquiring, we learned that Cape May, Bay-breasted and Tennessee Warblers were currently foraging in the foliage of the Cypress. "Get photos!" I urged Darchelle. Although we would probably see a Tennessee in Washington in the fall, this would probably be our only opportunity to see the other two.
The Scarlet Tanager was in the crown of a tree behind us while we were watching the Cypress. I recall it as one of the first birds I noticed as a boy in New Hampshire, maybe 60 years ago. The Woodcock was on its nest within 10 feet of the boardwalk and within a few feet of where I photographed one back in 2014. It might even have the same bird.
While the Woodcock may have been the same individual (or more likely a close relative), the marsh itself is quite different. Two years ago on August 10, a powerful storm uprooted or snapped off many of the trees which formerly shaded the marsh and boardwalk. I don't know how the reduced tree canopy has impacted the migrants but for birdwatchers, the dense regrowth of the understory has made the birds more difficult to see and photograph.
It was an intense afternoon of birding so before heading back to the car we parked ourselves in one of the boardwalk cul-de-sacs near the main entrance, probably about where the observation tower used to be. The willow trees looked familiar, as did the collection of warblers foraging in them. During the half hour that we rested there we spotted American Redstart, Cape May, Northern Parula, Nashville, Tennessee, Orange-crowned, Chestnut-sided and Yellow Warblers among the willow catkins. We shared the cul-de-sac with Sandy Bouma and three generations of her family who like us, had spent the day together birding Magee Marsh. She knew the birds; she and I identified the songs of the birds singing around us. That was fun.  

5/12/2023   Oregon OH - Syracuse NY 469 miles  (link to here)
Today may have been the biggest day of the migration season at Magee Marsh, both for birds and for people. Thanks to our early arrival this morning, it was our best day L+; in 4 1/2 hours we had 73 species including 20 different warblers. The boardwalk was packed. Crowds of people collected at every interesting bird and even between the crowds we rarely had more than 10 feet to ourselves. In one section near the east entrance we navigated through about 50 yards of rail-to-rail people who graciously squeezed together to allow us to pass. That was typical. People were very accommodating of the wheelchair, most notably at the Whip-poor-will where a man with a vantage point at the rail cleared a path for us to cut through the crowd then lifted me up from the chair so I could see over the nearby foliage to get on the bird. I was grateful; though Darchelle and I had heard one in 2018, I had never seen one.
Before leaving Magee we decided to check out the Crane Creek Estuary trail. I don't recall what prompted that decision. Perhaps we had tired of the crowds and the low-level anxiety we felt when in close proximity to so many people. Perhaps we had heard a rumor about good birds over there. Whatever the reason, we were rewarded almost immediately with decent views and good photos of a pair of Brown Thrashers on the beach. Fortified by the thrashers we were motivated enough to persevere across 100 yards of sandy beach trail in order to reach the dike trail.
Up on the dike trail we joined a loose group of birders which included a celebrity of sorts, Greg Miller, the model for Brad Harris (played by Jack Black) in the movie The Big Year +. We did not actually speak with him but Darchelle managed to position me so as to include both of us in the same photo. Meanwhile there was some buzz about a Mourning Warbler, a relatively difficult bird to find at Magee Marsh. I was gratified to be the one to relocate it and pleased that Darchelle was able to get a photo.
Hoping to reach New Hampshire tomorrow evening, we had to get going, but in three days at Magee Marsh we had seen or heard 89 species including 26 species of warblers. By way of comparison, in 2014 Ed and I had 90 species but only 23 species of warblers. Also worth noting, our friend Wayne S was apparently present at Magee Marsh at some point in the past three days but somehow we missed him.
Andy had suggested that if the crowds at Magee were too much, we should try Presque Isle State Park L+ in Erie. Since it was on the way we detoured out there and poked around for a couple of hours. The trees were beautiful but the traffic was a bit loud. The Baltimore Orioles at the nature center feeders were brilliant. On our way out we stopped at Sally's Diner, where the decor was better than the food.
Leaving Erie around 7 PM, we put in 240 miles before stopping for the night near Syracuse where the first several motels we tried were full so we ended up at the overpriced but underwhelming, and now defunct, Rodeway Inn.

5/13/2023   Syracuse NY - Jackson NH 336 miles  (link to here)
Seeking coffee in the morning we tried the Hope Cafe + around the corner in Liverpool. Darchelle ordered coffee and several kinds of Peruvian pastries while I sat in the parking lot L+ overlooking a small stream and patch of lawn with bushes and shade trees on either side. After Darchelle returned with the goodies we counted 19 species while we drank our coffee and ate our delicious arepas and empanadas.
By 3 PM we had reached the Vermont border but we only had 33 species for the state of New York so we made an impromptu stop to pick up a few more. Turning left off Hwy 4, we followed Chapman Road L+ for about a mile and stopped just before Carlton Road when I noticed a Solitary Sandpiper in a little marsh along Mud Brook. After Darchelle photographed the sandpiper we turned left onto Carlton Road and pulled over in an area of brushy habitat near the top of the hill because it looked promising for warblers. We chose well. Right away Merlin reported a Prairie Warbler so we had Sibley call it in to verify the ID. Merlin was right but unfamiliar with the Prairie Warbler song, I had not noticed it. I did recognize the Northern Parula, which responded to playback by flying in and perching at eye level within five feet of my window.
I did not realize it until months later but had we turned right on Carlton instead of left, we would within a mile have come across the home + of William Miller +, whose preaching about the second coming of Christ in the mid-19th century inspired the Millerite movement from which the Seventh-day Adventist church subsequently emerged. Despite never becoming a Seventh-day Adventist himself, Miller was one of the most important figures in the history of the church. We would have loved to visit his home, now a museum, and learn about his life in the area almost 200 years ago.
Our transit of Vermont took about three hours during which, with highway birding and a couple of brief stops, we accumulated a bird list of 33 species. I had not been that way before and found the route through the Green Mountains at Jay Peak more impressive than I had expected of that range. In New Hampshire Google Timeline shows that we came down from Gorham through Pinkham Notch with its dramatic views of Mount Washington but I do not remember that. We had hoped to arrive in time for Roger's birthday supper and we did, but only because they stretched out the hors d'oeuvres in order to accommodate us. For his birthday I gave Roger a can of Even More Jesus and we drank it together over dinner.

5/14/2023   Jackson NH  (link to here)
On this visit to New Hampshire we stayed at the Eagle Mountain House + for the first time. That worked out well. Our room faced east with a view of Doublehead over the ninth green of the golf course. The bed was comfortable and the toilet accessible. Rick had stocked the fridge with beer and cheese for us, a thoughtful touch he was able to pull off thanks to his connections at the "Eagle". Another connection was the woman servicing our room, whom Eric back in the day christened "Hot Rod Sally".
With no need to check out, we slept in. According to our notes we showered and I cried, though we did not note why. I suspect I was anticipating that this would be my last visit to Jackson and my last time see Mom and Sarah and Roger in person. We made it over to the house around 1 PM, brewed some coffee, ate some lunch. The day was sunny but cool so I spent much of the afternoon the PT room with Mom. Once the afternoon sun reached the side porch we moved out there and I did a checklist L+, birding is mostly by ear.
An Ovenbird was singing down by the brook, probably within 100 feet of where I first heard and learned that song during the summer of 1976. I was painting the house in Jackson that summer. Having just begun birding that spring in Colorado with my girlfriend Anne, most of the eastern woodland bird songs were unfamiliar. I made slow progress on the house because whenever I heard a song I did not recognize I would climb down off the ladder, grab my binoculars and dash into the woods in search of the bird. The Ovenbird was one of the first ones I found.

5/15/2023   Jackson NH  (link to here)
We passed very pleasant morning with Mom, Sarah and Roger sitting on Sarah's deck overlooking her back yard L+. Cool at first, the air warmed up as the sky clouded over. Sarah and Roger brought out coffee, toast, cheese and other tasty tidbits, maybe even some leftovers for lunch, I forget. I don't remember our conversations either, but I remember watching the Bluebirds and the Phoebe chasing insects around the flowering fruit trees. Those two species are longtime summer residents in Sarah's yard but we did see two species which I have never before recorded on the property - a Baltimore Oriole and a Brown Thrasher.
When we heard a trilled song from the edge of the field I suspected it might be a Pine Warbler. Darchelle played a recording to see if I was right. The warbler came in immediately, then flew through the open door behind us into the house and perched on a flowerpot in front of the large exterior window of the indoor greenhouse. Fortunately it did not attempt to fly out through the glass but instead just sat there as if considering its options. We too just sat and considered our options. I think we ended up using playback to entice it back out again after a minute or two.
Later that afternoon we watched a big Black Bear amble up the road after two Wild Turkeys out in the field caught our attention. Seeing a bear at some point during our visit has become a tradition over the past decade. Although the human population of the region has also increased during that time, the bears have learned that the newcomers are more apt to feed them (albeit inadvertently) than to hunt them.
For supper I think we had Red Fox leftovers from the night before. Rick and Gail stopped by and showed us the ramps and fiddleheads they had just foraged. I knew about the fiddleheads, baby Ostrich Fern fronds, which have been growing down along the Wildcat River since before the American Elms died back when I was in high school. I didn't know about the ramps, small wild onions which taste like leeks only stronger.

5/18/2023   Brownfield Bog ME 65 miles  (link to here)
Today we went birdwatching at Brownfield Bog L+ south of Fryeberg with Rick and Gail. The bog, now officially known as the Major Gregory Sanborn Wildlife Management Area, lies within the prehistoric, if not the historic, floodplain of the Saco River and consists of marshes, shallow ponds, seasonally flooded woodlands and upland deciduous forest. It is recognized + as one of the better places in Maine to find more southerly species such as Yellow-throated Vireo and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, both of which we heard and saw today.
It was a beautiful spring day, sunny with the temperature reaching the low 60s though it felt warmer than that. Mom and Sarah and Roger joined us; Mom and I stayed in the car while the others walked part of the time. We continued past the parking area all the way to where the road dead-ends at the shore of a lake. Although partly flooded and composed of cobbles in places, it was passable and fortunately for me, not gated. The birds were active and singing despite our mid-morning arrival and we found 53 species in four hours.
The Yellow-throated Vireo was a highlight. Having not read about the bog in advance, we were not expecting it but I recognized the song as we were driving through a patch of flooded woods so we stopped and Darchelle was able to get photos. I think Mom also saw that one; she had difficulty spotting some of the birds but I hope she enjoyed getting out with us nonetheless.
Later in the afternoon Rick stopped by and gave us some fiddleheads (and ramps?) and also fixed the pull chain on the overhead kitchen light. Sautéed in butter, the spring greens tasted of new leaves sprouting after the snow melts. The Red Fox provided the rest of supper; I had ravioli.
After Sarah and Roger left, Darchelle and I sat in the PT room for another hour with Mom, enjoying the warmth of the propane stove and reading (Mom), perusing her phone (Darchelle) and just sitting (me). We said good night at the front door and Mom turned out the lights behind us while Darchelle wheeled me down the ramps Rick set up from the porch to the driveway and pivoted me into the passenger seat of the car. As Darchelle backed out of the driveway I looked up to see Mom peering solemnly after us from the darkened window, only her face visible in the dim glow from our headlights.

5/19/2023   Jackson NH  (link to here)
Forgot to mention, at my request Mom made Maple Custard for dessert yesterday evening. It was one of my favorites from childhood.
Sarah and I met with Jackson Ski Touring Foundation today to grant them use of the property for Alice's Alley and their ski trails in the lower field. The weather being sunny and warm, Sarah set up a table in her backyard and we all sat around it to review and sign papers. Not until later did we notice the ticks. After finding one crawling on my shirt, we discovered two embedded in my lower leg and a couple more on Darchelle and Mom. I had forgotten about them by the time the bites began to itch the next day.

5/20/2023   Jackson NH ~140 miles  (link to here)
Our last full day in Jackson. We did a bird list L+ while driving over from the Eagle then spent most of the day indoors because it was cool and cloudy outside.
Two of my childhood friends came by to visit at the same time today; Doug drove over from Farmington and Andy walked over from across the brook. Their mothers, now deceased, were college friends of Mom who shared her love of hiking in the White Mountains so family hikes with Andy and Doug are among my earliest memories. Our passion for finding interesting minerals, particularly Black Tourmaline, on the rocky summits eventually developed into a career in geology for Doug and a hobby of cutting and polishing agates for me. Andy's father John and my father were fishing and hunting buddies so Andy and I tied our own flies and fished for trout before we went our separate ways in high school. Four years after high school in 1976 we drove up to Newfoundland together to visit Dad and did a three canoe trip during which we caught one Atlantic salmon and a handful of trout and ate them all while we waited for Dad to come pick us up. We have not fished together since.
The house in Jackson was not only my childhood home, but also my grandmother's childhood home. Her mother (Nana) and father (Leonard) built it in 1903 and ran it as a farm and boarding house until Leonard died 40 years later. Mom spent summers there as the girl and moved back into the house with Dad and me when I was a year old.
That was almost 70 years ago. This evening we celebrated Mom's 95th birthday, a month early. Roger prepared dinner - Swedish meatballs, roasted vegetables, asparagus with boiled eggs and a fancy tart, with almonds maybe, for dessert. I don't remember exactly so am going by the photos since I apparently had given up trying to keep voice notes on the phone. Darchelle bought her flowers, blue Iris and crimson Peonies, I think, which she appreciated.

5/21/2023   Jackson NH - Marblehead MA 145 miles  (link to here)
We checked out of the Eagle reasonably early and spent the morning in the PT room visiting with Mom over coffee and breakfast. Aware that we were leaving in a few hours, we didn't talk about that or anything else significant that I can recall but it was a pleasant time of just being together. Sarah and Roger joined us after a while. Around noon we all went out to the front porch, took some photos and hugged goodbye.
Before leaving Jackson we stopped by Rick Davis's Farm Stand L+ up by Black Mountain to pick up some maple syrup for Daniel. Waiting in the car, I picked up our last two bird species for New Hampshire which still only gave us 41 for the visit.
Arriving in Marblehead we found Donna's house and lingered just long enough to get organized before driving over to Little Harbor L+ to look for the American Oystercatcher which Donna has been seeing from time to time around Brown's Island. We got there just in time for me to order a lobster roll at the Little Harbor Lobster Company + next door to the boat launch. Although more expensive than I anticipated, the lobster roll was delicious. The Oystercatcher on the other hand was absent though we did see two more common birds which are uncommon back in Washington, a Tern and an Eider.
Ali and Stacey stayed for dinner and Stacey's husband Harry joined us. Donna fixed pasta with gigante beans in pesto sauce and I remember that it was very good but I don't remember anything else about our evening together.
I have been friends with the three women since 11th grade though we had little contact with one another for about 20 years after college. We reunited after Donna and Stacy drunk-dialed me one evening out of the blue sometime in the Oughts. Since then we have shared meals, memories, marital crises and even a little birdwatching. It continues to amaze me that I fell in with such remarkable and interesting women back in the high school and have had the opportunity to know them through the intervening years.

5/22/2023   Marblehead MA - Northampton MA 150 miles  (link to here)
I got up after eight (and after Darchelle) and meditated unproductively in Donna's attractive bathroom before lingering over coffee and granola with Donna, Ali and Stacey.
We all drove back over to Little Harbor L+ to search again for the American Oystercatcher and this time Donna spotted it out on the rocks at the south end of Brown's Island.
The guys in the boatyard allowed us to drive into the yard so I could get a better view while Darchelle took photos from their float. They were very accommodating, perhaps because they had known the women since grade school. They also mentioned that the oystercatchers were relatively recent arrivals to Little Harbor.
At 2:20 PM we emerged from the Ted Williams tunnel into downtown Boston, merged onto I-90 and began our trip back west across the country to Seattle. We could have stayed on I-90 all the way but we did not; after covering approximately 1% of the 3120 miles between Boston and Seattle we veered off into a tangle of business parks and nature preserves situated in a collection of towns differentiated by their compass directions from each other - Southborough, Northborough, Westborough, etc - because we were looking for warblers. We had a small bucket list of warblers (a bucket list of small warblers?) which we had not yet seen and still wanted to see before we left the eastern hardwood forest behind.
First up in the bucket list was the Blue-winged Warbler, a small yellow bird which had always been of particular interest to me because it did not seem to occur in Jackson where I first learned the eastern warblers back in the mid-seventies. For 40 years it and its close relative the Golden-winged Warbler taunted me from the pages of my various bird books until I finally saw them both on my warbler safari with Ed back in 2014, satisfying encounters which nonetheless left me desiring both better views and better photos.
Today we obtained neither. During the several remaining hours of daylight we visited four different locations in the boroughs and added 25 species to our Massachusetts list. Number 25 was our Blue-winged Warbler, singing at the edge of the woods behind the parking lot of the Red Heat Tavern in Westborough L+. Our distant view of it in flight afforded no opportunity for a photo so we left it on the bucket list for another day.  

5/23/2023   Northampton MA - Canastota NY 262 miles  (link to here)
Today was a banner day for warblers. We saw a dozen different species and removed four of them from our bucket list. Darchelle got good photos of those four and I saw and heard each of them. And we didn't even get started until three hours after sunrise, thanks to our late arrival at the Quality Inn the night before.
Attracted by recent reports of Worm-eating and Cerulean Warblers, we backtracked a few miles to Skinner State Park L+ across the river from Northampton. The park encompasses the west end of the Mt Holyoke Range, a forested ridge of basalt and conglomerate rock rising abruptly almost 1000 feet from the surrounding Connecticut River Valley. A narrow paved road ascending through several types of hardwood forest to the summit of the ridge provided us with some of the best opportunities of our trip for birding from the car. As we had feared, the road was gated but the gate was open and traffic was very light. Despite the objections of a park employee mowing the shoulders of the road, we stopped repeatedly to look and listen, and with Merlin's assistance and a little playback, succeeded in finding and photographing both of the warblers. The Yellow-billed Cuckoo at the summit was an unexpected bonus.
The Cerulean Warbler is a treetop species but thanks to the steep slopes along the crest of the ridge, the crowns of the trees below the road were nearly at eye-level so the warblers were too. That was nice because during my only previous encounter with them, in bottomland forest in Michigan, they had been high overhead.
The parking area at the summit was nearly empty. Hiking trails lead from there both down the mountain and east along the ridge. Apparently a paved trail also runs up to the summit house and distant views but in the interests of time we did not investigate.
We stopped at the foot of the hill when we heard an Ovenbird singing near the road. It was not our first one of the day - apart from Robins no bird had been more numerous - but it was our first photo-op on the trip. The photo we obtained suffered from the low light conditions of the forest floor. The photo of the Grosbeak on the other hand was by no means our first because they tend to prefer conspicuous perches, but this was our best.
Our proximity to Connecticut enticed us to drive down to Enfield L+ and do a checklist. We found a suburban street which dead-ended at the edge of the woods along the river and Darchelle napped while I listened out the window. I woke her up in time to se the Wild Turkeys in front of the car. The 27 species on our list left Connecticut with the second lowest state count of the trip, but then again we only devoted an hour to the effort.
The second half of our day was no less exciting than the first. We stopped at the Guilderland Cemetery L+ about 10 miles northwest of Albany to look for a Hooded Warbler and found it quite easily, singing in the crown of a large oak tree at the back of the graveyard. The Blue-winged Warbler was a quarter mile northeast of the cemetery along Stitt Road.
I don't recall what inspired us to check out Stitt Road but as soon the trees gave way to an open and somewhat brushy field, I recognized Blue-winged Warbler habitat. We played a few songs and the warbler responded immediately.
The Field Sparrow also responded to playback, which we tried on a whim because I don't really know the habitat for that species. I have photographed it only once, in Juniper Woodland in Texas. The Eastern Towhee is another species with which I am not very familiar since it rarely occurs in north-central New Hampshire. This male volunteered to participate in the photo shoot while Darchelle was taking pictures of the sparrow. She accepted his offer.
By the time we left Stitt Road we needed a motel. Darchelle had a phone appointment early that evening and we wanted to be settled in for the night beforehand. Having burned the bulk of our daylight birding without making much westward progress, we did not want to backtrack to motel-rich Albany so we pressed on. We stopped at the Budget Inn in motel-poor Canajoharie only because we ran out of time. Darchelle paid for our room before she realized how bad it smelled. For the sake of privacy she did her phone call in the room anyhow while I sat in my chair overlooking the back yard from one end of the concrete pad fronting the rooms.
I tried to do a bird list in the quiet of the evening but though the birds were quiet, the evening was not. Between the freight trains rumbling by on the tracks along the Mohawk River and the tractor-trailer trucks growling along the frontage road below our parking lot, quiet was hard to come by. Even the clip-clop of the occasional horse-drawn carriage improbably sharing the road with the semi-trucks contributed to the din. I settled for watching an almost-teenage girl playing with her dog in the yard until she suddenly became aware of my presence and drifted away.
About that time a lean young man, mid-thirties perhaps, walked across the parking lot to ask me if I needed any help. When I declined his offer he lit a cigarette and lingered to chat. He was staying in room 6, two doors down from us, and told me that it was a decent place but he was only there until he could find an apartment he could afford. He'd broken up with his girlfriend but was sticking around because he had part-time construction work in town. Come fall he'd be heading up to Buffalo to be closer to his kids who lived with his ex-wife whom he had divorced because he could not handle her drinking. He thought maybe work would be easier to find up there too. Things were pretty slow here in Canajoharie.
I agreed with that. Pretty slow would pretty well describe my evening so far in Canajoharie - minutes ticking by until Darchelle would be finished with her appointment, orange sun sinking past the sparse new foliage of the locust trees across the yard, my head sinking out of my headrest despite the Theraband intended to constrain it. We each have our challenges.
When Darchelle emerged from our room I wished my companion luck in finding a place and he walked off to find some supper after urging us to drop by if we needed anything. We assured him that we would but as soon as he was out of sight we concluded that what we needed was a different motel. Darchelle loaded up our stuff back into the car and we bid Canajoharie good-bye, abandoning our room payment as a contribution to the local economy.  

5/24/2023   Canastota NY - Avon OH 447 miles  (link to here)
Our target today was a Kentucky Warbler skulking in the understory of the Beaver Meadow State Forest 35 miles south of Canastota. As we approached the area, the local roads dispensed with street signs and pavement, the local farms dwindled in size and proximity to each other and horse-drawn carriages shared driveway space with the horseless kind. A woman in cap and skirt waved at us from her roadside garden plot. I reminded Darchelle, who was contemplating which way to turn at the next "T" intersection, to wave back.
We consulted a couple of birdwatchers parked at the turn onto Gibson Taylor Road L+ who had not seen the warbler but told us where to look. We found the spot, pulled off onto a short spur, shut off the car and listened. We may have played the song a few times to familiarize ourselves with it, and to familiarize the warbler with the possible presence of a competitor. Darchelle heard the response first, then I was able to pick it out. It was definitely the bird, and it was definitely some distance away in the woods, and it was apparently not inclined to come make our acquaintance.
Darchelle went looking for it. I waited in the car and listened. The bird continued to sing, though after a while I could not tell which songs were live and which were recorded. It seemed to me that Darchelle was gone a long time though perhaps it was no more than 45 minutes. When she returned she told me that she had only played the song a few times because the bird was singing consistently unprompted. She had crept carefully closer until she was within a few feet of it but she had never been able to spot it in the dense underbrush.
For the rest of the day we made tracks westward, stopping only in Liverpool to revisit our favorite coffee shop. I did a checklist L+ while Darchelle purchased their delicious empanadas and arepas, and probably some coffee, for the road. We reached Cleveland around sunset then carried on for another half hour to Avon and a spacious suite at the Wyndham which was so comfortable that the next morning I would poop for the first time since leaving Jackson six days earlier.  

5/25/2023   Avon OH - Ann Arbor MI 162 miles  (link to here)
After a late morning departure from our Wyndham penthouse we drove over to the Vermilion River Reservation, a natural area and park along the Vermilion River in Vermilion OH. Navigating to an eBird hotspot where Yellow-throated Warblers had recently been reported, we pulled into a sunny and mostly-empty parking lot framed by a border of neatly-mowed lawn and enclosed by tall hardwood forest. We could see birds in the trees and apparently navigable trails leading into the woods. We hoped the trails would lead us to the pin for Bacon Woods L+ where the warblers had been reported, and they did.
While Darchelle was unloading me from the car two men emerged from the woods carrying fishing poles. They were parked behind us so we got to talking while they were packing up their gear. I forget what they were fishing for but I remember they were also looking for "turtle rocks". One of them offered to show us one of their turtle rocks but after searching his truck for a minute or so, conceded that he could not find it. Apparently the Vermillion River is famous for them, whatever they are.
The air was cool so Darchelle draped a blanket over me before we headed into the woods. Though surfaced with dirt, the trail was smooth and dry. Tall forbs and a few flowers blanketed the forest floor. We identified more bird by song (with Merlin's help) than by sight but we did get good views of several species including those pictured above. We did not get any views of the Yellow-throated Warblers, which sang regularly but remained out of sight high in the tree canopy.
When we had arrived in Jackson, we had been thinking that we might return to Seattle via Canada. Not only would it have been shorter than returning through Ohio and Michigan but having never traveled that way we thought it might be more interesting. When it turned out that we could only see friends in Marblehead immediately before heading west we settled on the southerly route, and quickly recognized the opportunity it provided us to see the half dozen or so warblers species which we had missed on our trip east. One of those was the Blackpoll Warbler, and our best opportunity to see it would be this afternoon at Magee Marsh L+.
What a difference from two weeks ago! While not exactly over, the party was definitely winding down. Comparing checklists from the two days, we had only eight more species on the 11th, all of them warblers, and about a third more individual birds, so not a huge change in bird activity. Birder activity on the other hand was much diminished. The parking lot seemed to be almost empty and for the most part as we were walking the boardwalk, we had to look for our own birds rather than just stopping at each crowd of people and asking what they were looking at.
After exploring most of the boardwalk we did find one small crowd of both birders and birds at the east entrance. The birds included female Cape May, Black-throated Green and Black and White Warblers along with a male Blackpoll Warbler and a couple of other warblers representing in all more than half of our 11 warbler species for the day. They were active, as warblers tend to be, but I managed with the help of Darchelle and other birders to at least glimpse all of the ones I had not already seen.
Sometime after 7 PM we pried ourselves away from Magee Marsh and drove north as far as Ann Arbor, where we stayed at the Red Roof Inn because the Days Inn had no available handicap room.  

5/26/2023   Ann Arbor MI - Manistique MI 389 miles  (link to here)
Kirtland's Warbler is one of the rarest warblers in North America. It breeds only in second-growth Jack Pine forest in north-central Michigan, where its continuing existence is managed by scheduled clearcutting of the pine forest and ongoing extermination of the Brown-headed Cowbirds which parasitize the warblers' nests. It took about an hour of driving sandy tracks through jackpine stands of the Manistee Forest L+ east of Roscommon before we were able to locate one of the warblers. Darchelle got photos and I had decent views without getting out of the car.
Before crossing the big bridge over to the Upper Peninsula, we stopped near Cheboygan L+ to search for a Golden-winged Warbler, and we found one too but were not able to get a photo. I had barely glimpsed the one two weeks ago at Magee Marsh and had failed to get a satisfactory photo during my Warbler Safari with Ed back in 2014, so I did not want to miss it on this trip. As it turned out, I needn't have worried because over the next two days we would be traversing the center of their breeding distribution.
As we drove off the bridge onto Michigan's Upper Peninsula I had the impression that we were entering a foreign country, Canada perhaps. I don't know why. Maybe it was the long stretch of empty highway ahead of us, the unbroken forest trimmed well back from the shoulders on either side reminding me of the TransCanada in Newfoundland. Maybe it was the White Trillium, drifts of ghostly white flowers glowing like snowbanks in the shadow of the woods. It could have been the leaves just merging on the maples and birches, as if the calendar had been set back a couple of weeks. Along the north shore of Lake Michigan the south wind in springtime does little to dispel winter's chill.
In Manistique Darchelle wanted to look for late warblers so we poked around in a couple of parks along the water but found only a pair of subadult Redstarts before the sun gave up the ghost. We retreated to a local motel where I took refuge under my electric blanket.  

5/27/2023   Manistique MI - Ashland WI 286 miles  (link to here)
In the morning I tried to do a checklist in front of the Colonial Motel L+ while Darchelle packed up but traffic noise made it difficult to hear the birds. We fared better after we wandered onto county roads L+ through a mosaic of farm fields, conifer forest and hardwood stands northwest of Gladstone.
A small group of Sandhill Cranes in a field caught our attention. When we stopped for photos we spotted the turkeys and heard a nice mix of birds singing in the woods across the road. For the next several miles we stopped every minute or two to listen and add to our list. With a little playback we even persuaded a few birds to pose for photos. Conditions were perfect for us - soft air, gentle sunshine, a quiet road, a variety of habitats and lots of bird activity during the middle of the day.
We explored county roads for another hour or two, in the absence of GPS using the sun to maintain our generally northwestward bearing, until we stumbled back onto US 2. We followed that to Ashland with a couple of brief detours to look for a Golden-winged Warbler, and perhaps also a marsh sparrow or two. The light had gone flat and the wind had picked up and we did not find much.
Despite it being late afternoon by the time we reached Ashland, the prospect of augmenting our Wisconsin bird list inspired us to spend an hour birding the waterfront L+ and a local college campus L+. Five more species on Maslowski Beach L+ brought our total for the state up to 40.  

5/28/2023   Ashland WI - Big Falls MN 239 miles  (link to here)
In the morning we returned to Maslowski Beach L+ to get a few more photos of Ruddy Turnstones and to see if any new shorebirds had shown up. Two Soras calling in the marsh on the other side of the highway and a flyover bald Eagle were new for the state.
Five miles south of Duluth we took a little side trip over to South Lyman Lake Rd L+ near Parkland. Golden-winged Warblers had recently been reported there on eBird and they were still present when we arrived. I had good close-up views and Darchelle got the photos I had been hoping for. The warblers appear to favor marshy areas with tall willow and alder brush near stands of Aspen and other deciduous trees. They usually prefer in Minnesota though the birds we found had settled for Wisconsin.
About an hour northwest of Duluth is a broad marshy area famous among birders for owls and other species usually found farther north - the Sax-Zim Bog. As its name implies, the area features open and forested bogs in which Black Spruce, Tamarack and Paper Birch are the common trees, but (per the website +) other habitats include "upland aspen/maple forests, floodplain forest, sandy upland pine stands, rivers, lakes, farms, meadows, and towns".
Access to the area is mostly by wide, smooth and lightly-traveled gravel roads though there are a few trails near the Welcome Center. There were also lots of mosquitos near the Welcome Center so we did not venture out onto any of the trails, but instead drove the roads L+ for about five hours stopping to look and listen for birds in promising habitats. We were particularly looking for Great Gray Owls and Connecticut Warblers but did not encounter either species. Missing the Connecticut, the last eastern warbler on our target list, meant that we would have to devote another day to the search if we wanted to find one. Andy and Ellen had seen them last summer at Toomey Williams Road up near the Canadian border and with their assistance we would have a reasonable chance of success, so we decided to spend the extra day on the effort. Andy and Ellen had mentioned that there was a town named Big Falls nearby. We decided to stay there so that we could get an early start in the morning. With "Big" in the name, we assumed the town would have a motel.
The namesake falls may have been big but the town m+ was not. When we pulled into Big Falls shortly before 9 PM we found a gas station, a liquor store and a rustic-looking hardware store with a sign in the window which advised inquiring inside about rooms. The hardware store was closed. The nearest motel was at least an hour away. A couple of men standing outside the store suggested asking the clerk in the liquor store who in turn suggested asking for Joslin at the tavern next door. Joslin turned out to be a friendly woman dressed in jeans and a T-shirt who immediately asked Darchelle "What can I do for you?"
When Darchelle explained our situation Joslin replied that she had a couple of rooms above the store but the one with a bed was already rented. Perhaps someone in town might have an extra room they would be willing to rent to us for the night, Darchelle speculated. Joslin hesitated then acknowledged that she had a spare bedroom that her parents had used just the previous night but that she was remodeling her house and it was stripped down to the studs. She could make up the bed for us though. The house was just across the street and she would meet us there.
I waited in the car while Joslin showed Darchelle around the house. When they returned Darchelle opened my door and within 30 seconds there were 30 mosquitoes buzzing around inside the car. After spraying a cloud of bug dope around me, Darchelle explained that there were steps but she thought we could handle them and between the her and Joslin and the ramp, we managed. Joslin returned to the tavern and after getting me settled in Joslin's kitchen, Darchelle followed her to pay for the room. When Darchelle tried to pay, Joslin insisted "Absolutely not!" so Darchelle tucked the $100 bill down the front of her T-shirt and they both laughed. They arranged to have Joslin's friend Jason help us down the steps in the morning then Joslin gave Darchelle a bottle of the tavern's best (only?) IPA to go with my supper. It was a nice treat.  

5/29/2023   Big Falls MN - Badger MN 300 miles  (link to here)
Jason showed up around 6 AM and we made it down the steps without incident. He and Joslin then took us over to the campground to look at the falls. Jason's parents met at the campground when they were teenagers and he has lived all his life in Big Falls. Joslin is a much more recent transplant from the West Coast who became friends with Jason while working together on her remodeling project. We took a few photos at the falls then followed them out east of town to Toomey Williams Road m+ for the earliest (second earliest?) birding start of our entire trip.
Toomey Williams Road L+ traverses habitats similar to those at Sax-Zim Bog - mossy forests of Black Spruce, tamarack and birch, open bogs, alder swamps and drier uplands forested with fir, aspen and other deciduous trees - but is wilder and more remote. As at Sax-Zim, we drove slowly down a long gravel road with frequent stops to listen for birds singing in the forest and marshes on either side, taking almost 4 hours to cover maybe 12 miles out and back. Thanks to our early start we heard/saw 48 species as compared with about 30 at Sax-Zim.
Our most exciting bird was of course the Connecticut Warbler; our most numerous species (excluding a flyover flock of Canada Geese) was the similar Nashville Warbler. Even with 18 we probably undercounted it. I heard our first Connecticut as we were driving with the windows open past Black Spruce and tamarack on our left and and a broad bog on our right. We stopped and looked for it but as I recall, it did not appear until we played a recording of the song.
Show more Connecticut Warbler images
Altogether we had 11 species of warblers including four Connecticuts and five Golden-wings but we missed both Canada and Mourning Warblers. We also missed two other northern species - Canada Jay and Boreal Chickadee. Definitely not complaining here though; we were particularly grateful for photos of the Connecticut.
I was surprised to see a Broad-winged Hawk flying over the bog; I think of them as a species of hardwood forests like the Northern Parula, which was one of many species which we found not in the spruce forest but in the upland deciduous forest.
The photo of the White-throated Sparrow pair illustrates a fascinating fact + about that species. They occur in two color morphs which are similar except for the color of the stripes on the crown. Tan-striped and white-striped forms are equally common across both sexes but a bird of one form will typically pair up with a bird of the other form. A tan-striped male strongly prefers to breed only with a white-striped female and vice versa. The two color morphs differs somewhat in other behaviors as well, differences which in anthropomorthic terms add up to white-striped birds being more assertive and aggressive, but less nurturing, than tan-striped birds.
Yellow Rails had been heard along County Road 7 L+ roughly due north of Greenbush. The county road was gravel with a deep ditch on either side, ditches apparently intended to drain the marsh so it could be converted to farmland. Fortunately here at least, the ditches had not been sufficient to destroy the habitat and the rails and sparrows were still present.
We arrived before sunset and played recordings of both LeConte's and Nelson's Sparrow in various places along the county road but heard no response until we turned south on a smaller gravel road optimistically named 160 Avenue on the map. Both sparrows came in from an area with tall grass and relatively fewer bushes than most of the surrounding habitat and despite the low light, Darchelle was able to get photos.
The sun took refuge behind piles of cumulus off to the northwest sometime after 8 PM but it did not really get dark until around 10. The sky was black overhead but lightning flashed silently along the horizon in all directions. We started another checklist L+ once the Whip-poor-wills began to call. Despite the persistent breeze we could hear them near and far out in the marsh. Closer to the road Sedge Wrens continued to sing along with winnowing Snipe and the distinctive sneeze of the Nelson's Sparrow.
The rails declined to join the chorus but Darchelle eventually heard one somewhere around here m+, about a mile east of where she had photographed the sparrows. The sound was softer than we had expected and so mechanical that we at first doubted it could be the bird. I had a very hard time hearing it. Darchelle took my ventilator mask off and propped up my head while I held my breath and listened, and even then we had to try several times before I could pick it out. "tiktik,tiktiktik tiktik,tiktiktik tiktik,tiktiktik", a sound so small it was hard to imagine it coming from anything larger than a mosquito. Darchelle tried to record it but we heard nothing on the recording until I amplified it with Audacity and realized that we had at least two of the rails.

5/30/2023   Badger MN - Crosby ND 406 miles  (link to here)
We drove most of the way across North Dakota today, mostly making up for lost time, but also hoping to come across two birds I particularly wanted to see in that state - Baird's Sparrow and Chestnut-collared Longspur. Ed and I had seen and photographed both species on my last visit to the state back in 2015 but Darchelle had never seen them and if we missed them in North Dakota, we probably would not have another opportunity. We missed them.
Our route ran along the northern edge of the state, never more than 20 miles from the Canadian border. We traversed mostly farmland, very flat for the first 30 miles across the Red River Valley (apparently once the floor of a vast glacial lake +) then low rolling hills of unknown (to me at least) origin. Birds were mostly confined to pothole marshes L+ though on several occasions we spotted pairs of earnest-looking Upland Sandpipers L+ along the road. Towards sunset we encountered male Ring-necked Pheasants in the road as well.
At a pond west of Rolette L+ we found shorebirds including White-rumped Sandpipers and a godwit which I thought might be Hudsonian but was just Marbled. Late in the afternoon I sat in a playground in Flaxton L+ and watched birds while Darchelle sat in the car and met with a client over the phone. When she was done I pointed out both Orchard and Baltimore Orioles and our first Franklin's Gulls of the trip flew overhead.
The Crosby Lodge at the edge of town was easy to access and quiet, with a nice mix of birds L+ in the morning.  

5/31/2023   Crosby ND - Scobey MT 140 miles  (link to here)
We hit the jackpot for prairie birds this morning in the northwestern corner of North Dakota m+ and just across the border in the northeastern corner of Montana. Google maps calls it Elkhorn and eBird references a school section along 151st Ave NW but the Baird's Sparrows and Chestnut-collared Longspurs which we had hoped to see yesterday call it home, at least for the summer.
We found the Baird's Sparrow in the prairie L+ along 151st Ave NW a couple of miles north of the highway by its song (Merlin might have helped) and called it in for photos.
We found the longspurs and other sparrows in somewhat sparser grass cover in the North Elkhorn School Section L+ a mile or two farther north. It was a lovely morning for birding, warm and sunny under a bright blue sky, quiet except for the occasional tinkling of bird song and nobody else around for miles.
Except for Bob and Barb B, to whom Andy had also recommended this patch of prairie as a good spot for Sprague's Pipits. They were headed east and we were headed west but we visited for a bit and played without success for the pipits before going our separate ways.
We didn't see as many flowers out in the prairie as I remembered from my last visit, perhaps because we were 10 days earlier this year. In the picture above are Lambert's Locoweed (Oxytropis lambertii) - the magenta flowers - and White Locoweed (Oxytropis sericea) - the white ones, I think.
We found a Sprague's Pipit along North Westby Road L+ across the Montana border in Westby, no more than 5 miles southwest of where we had met Bob and Barb. When we played its song one flew in and trotted out into the middle of the road right front of us but even at point-blank range it was not easy to spot.
Around Round Lake just north of town we found more shorebirds but nothing new. The small ones were mostly Sanderlings and the larger ones, mostly Avocets. The rain shower blasted over us, vigorous but brief, and nobody seemed to mind.
Having expended most of the day birdwatching, we only made it another hour or so before pulling up in Scobey for the night. Motel options were limited but we hoped to check out a couple of wildlife refuges not far to the west and did not want to have to backtrack to them. The big red Smoke Creek Inn on the west side of town did not work out, perhaps because we could not find anyone to check us in, so we returned to the Wheatland Lodge, aka the Juel Motel, in town. Thanks to a left turn off a narrow landing just inside the front door, our room was not wheelchair accessible but the man at the front desk, perhaps the owner, promised to make it work and so he did, helping Darchelle pull the wheelchair up the second step into the room in the evening then practically carrying me back out again in the morning. I remember being worried that he would hurt himself.  

6/01/2023   Scobey MT - Choteau MT 425 miles  (link to here)
Thirty minutes west of Scobey and a few miles before Glentana L+, we flushed my last ABA life bird of the trip, a Thick-billed Longspur, from the side of the road. Shortly afterwards, we flushed a pair of Sharp tailed Grouse, our only instance of that species for the trip. Sadly, we also flushed a female Wilson's Phalarope which did not quite clear the windshield. That was our second bird kill of the trip. Just yesterday evening, we hit a male Ring-necked Pheasant. We felt worse about the Phalarope because we probably would not have hit it had we not been driving a little too fast.
We had no chance for photos of either the Longspur or the Sharp-tails. Darchelle did get a photo of a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk, a bird I would not have expected so far west, flying over MT 248 south of Opheim L+. Then again, I would not have expected a Brown Thrasher or a Red-headed Woodpecker either, both of which we saw in the same area.
After submitting a checklist for Cemetery Road L+ for the woodpecker, we began working our way south towards St Marie. We were still thinking we might hit up a wildlife refuge for more prairie and wetland species but by the time we reached the turnoff to one of them, Medicine Lake I think it was, we had run out of time.
We stopped briefly on a side road near Malta L+ but the patch of prairie there wasn't as large as I had hoped and we did not find the Thick-billed Longspurs I was looking for.
At some point we decided that Choteau, where the Rocky Mountains abruptly terminate the westward stretch of the prairie, would be the place to find Thick-billed Longspurs. On our way up there from Great Falls, we stopped briefly at Freezout Lake WMA L+ along US 89 and added a few marsh birds to our Montana list. It was getting late but we were not concerned about finding a room in Choteau, until we arrived and found the motels all full. All but the Gunther, fortunately.  

6/02/2023   Choteau MT - Spokane WA 469 miles  (link to here)
Morning dawned misty and gray, or at least we presume it did because those were the conditions when we checked out of the Gunther around 8AM and drove southwest 20 miles on MT Hwy 287 to Spring Valley Road L+.
Spring Valley, if that is the correct name for where we were, is a broad plain of shin-high grass sloping gently down to Freezout Lake, which this morning was hiding in the gray mist off to our east. The subdued hues of green and gray and the hazy outlines of distant ridges were more suggestive of Ireland than Montana. Birds, and a few relict buildings, were dwarfed by the nearly featureless spread of the landscape. The few birds we flushed from along the road quickly settled into the grass and the songs they left behind faded into the grass with them.
The local hawks seemed unaccustomed to company and disinclined to relinquish their roadside perches. so we tried not to disturb them while taking their photos. After tolerating a few photos the Ferruginous, which had a nest in a cottonwood not far down the road, screamed at us to move on so we did. We were not there to look at hawks anyhow, but Longspurs.
The Thick-billed Longspurs, when I got a good look at them in Darchelle's photos, were scruffier than I had expected. I have been looking for them for a long time (almost four decades) but have never taken a good look at them. Unlike their more colorful cousins, they sport a disorderly arrangement of black, white and gray accented by a little patch of chestnut on the shoulder which is too small to help out much. Still, I was glad to finally see them and grateful that Darchelle, after traipsing around in the grass for a half-hour or so, was able to get a few photos.
Grass appears to dominate the undisturbed prairie but where the grass gets sparse, as on old road cuts, flowers take over. We didn't spend much time studying them but enjoyed the show.
Before we left the longspurs the Gunther Motel texted Darchelle (or called, I'm not sure) to tell us that we had left the power cord for the ventilator in the room. Proceeding without it was not an option so we drove back 20 miles to retrieve it. Had we not had to do that, we would not have stopped at the Egg Mountain overlook and learned about the Maiasaurs which died and were buried there around the time the Rocky Mountains were beginning to form.
As we continued south on MT 200 the land around us began to rise and trees began to appear. One of the first trees we would see, Andy had told us, would be lanky Limber Pines, and so we did, where MT 200 crossed the Dearborn River m+.
About 90 minutes west of Spokane we stopped at I-90 exit 5 L+ to try for a few more Rocky Mountain species before returning to Washington. The several species we added to our trip list, included the three pictured above, are all common summer birds in our home state as well. This and our previous stop at the Blackfoot Canyon Campground L+ paid off for us; we added 20 species to our Montana list.
Less common in Washington are the three prairie species we sought during the hour and a half of daylight remaining after we reached Spokane that Friday afternoon. We found Black Terns at our first stop, a small pond L+ a mile south of Cheney, and again at West Medical Lake where we got them last year. A few miles to the north we drove W McFarlane Rd L+ looking for Grasshopper and Clay-colored Sparrows, both of which we have found there in the past. We missed the Clay-colored but that was okay since we could get them at Chewelah tomorrow. The tern was the important bird to get because missing it would have required an extra morning in Spokane and with only two days left before we needed to be home, we could not afford that. During our five weeks away from Washington we had missed almost the entire spring migration and we had some catching up to do but if we played our cards right, we could pick up 40 more species before we got home.  

6/03/2023   Spokane WA - Davenport WA 177 miles  (link to here)
Returning to Spokane after dark, we had some difficulty finding a motel with an available room and had to pay almost $300 for a short night at the imposing Holiday Inn Express. It was the most expensive motel of our entire trip.
The cornerstone of our plan to make up for missing May in Washington would be a morning birding along the Westside Calispell Road L+ in Pend Oreille County 5 1/2 hours from Seattle but only an hour north of Spokane. Others have recorded more than 90 species in a day there; we found only 69, of which 26 were new for the year.
As we had hoped, we found and photographed a Clay-colored Sparrow at Hafer Rd L+ just south of Chewelah. After a pit stop at the Indian reservation gas station nearby, we continued south to Davenport with a stop to bird an unexpectedly lush strip of riparian cottonwoods and underbrush along WA 231 south of Ford L+.  

6/04/2023   Davenport WA - Cle Elum WA 337 miles  (link to here)
Our plan for this morning was to visit marshes, lakes and ponds across the Columbia Basin in search of Wilson's Phalaropes, Forster's Terns, Clark's Grebes, and maybe a stray Franklin's Gull. I suspect that all four of those species were named for white males with questionable perspectives on people of other races, and as a result may receive new names over the next few years. We have no problem with that, nor did we have any problem finding the first three of them. We would find the fourth a week later in Tri-Cities. Cow and Hallin Lakes L+ east of Ritzville were new for us but were not particularly productive. We did better at Lind Coulee L+, an old standby for both the terns and the grebes.
Common Poorwill and Flammulated Owl were on our agenda after nightfall and Maxine had heard both within a week or so near Camas Meadows in the hills northwest of Wenatchee between Cashmere and US 97. That was a new location for us and we were impressed with the variety of both birds and flowers up there. We birded NF 7200 L+ up to Camas Meadows first, where both the Nashville Warblers and Dusky Flycatchers were new Washington birds for the year.
With time to kill before sunset we followed Camas Creek Road L+ up over a ridge then turned around when it became too steep and narrow. Lots of good Calliope Hummingbird habitat and very nice views up there.
Camas Madows is a flat and well-watered field of forbs and grasses surrounded by mature mixed conifer forest, good east-slope Cascades montane habitat for birds and apparently for elk as well.
After admiring the flowers and attempting to photograph the elk we followed NF 7200 L+ up a couple of miles hoping to hear a Flammulated Owl, or maybe even a Spotted Owl. No such luck, but we did photograph a cooperative Common Poorwill.
Had we heard a Flammulated Owl we could have been home within two hours but instead we spent an extra hour driving the forest roads above Liberty L+ until we finally heard one. It would be our only one all year.
We pulled up to the Stewart Lodge, where by prior arrangement they had left our room open for us, around 1AM.

6/05/2023   Cle Elum WA - Seattle WA 123 miles  (link to here)
Looking for a Gray Flycatcher, we drove back to Taylor/Hart Rd L+ but failed to call one up. We did pick up one more bird though, for both the trip and the year, before we reached the end of I-90 3021 miles from where we had started west in Boston 14 days earlier. That bird was the Black-throated Gray Warbler which we heard from the Tiger Mountain trailhead L+ on the way into Issaquah.
Altogether we spent 41 days on the road, drove 8953 miles, traversed 20 states, saw or heard 295 species of birds and photographed 130 of them. Despite being out of state for the entire month of May, we managed to return home with 287 species for the year in Washington, 42 of them picked up in the past 3 days.