1/01/2025   Summer Tanager  (link to here)
We began the new year with a backyard checklist L+ which included only two of the four species pictured above; the other two showed up a day or two later. The warbler, a bright male, was a special treat since we do not often see them in the yard.
Shortly before 11 AM Darchelle learned that a rare Summer Tanager had been discovered somewhere in West Seattle. It did not take her long to figure out where it was and by 12:20 we were there too. Other birders were already combing the neighborhood because the bird was no longer at its initial, officially undisclosed, location. I sat in the car and monitored that location while Darchelle joined them but it was Rafael who finally relocated the bird two blocks away L+ in a berry bush with a flock of robins. We all rushed over to see it and get photos and eventually even I got decent views.

1/3/2025   Home  (link to here)
Lots of bird activity in the back yard today L+ and yesterday L+. We've already seen 29 species in the yard this year. Sadly we are also kicking off the year with a window-killed bird, a Pine Siskin which flew into the French doors while I was looking out through them. It may have been fleeing from the Sharp-shinned Hawk which snatched another Pine Siskin off the feeder earlier this morning.
The Bougainvillea has come out with its winter flowers, perhaps not quite as many as last year but still a good showing. The crop of dark red summer flowers was also somewhat reduced from last year.

1/4/2025   Sequim  (link to here)
The Arctic Loon is still drifting around Port Angeles harbor so we teamed up with Kelly to chase it for the new year. When we learned that the Lesser Black-backed Gull would be a life bird for her we stopped on the way out at Maple Farm L+ in Sequim but the bird was not at the farm. At my urging we drove out Schmuck Road and found the gull in the field with a small group of Glaucous-wings, right where it had last been reported.
The loon was home as well, swimming at times with a more common Pacific Loon so we could compare the two. Well, Darchelle and Kelly could anyway; I could barely see them. We watched it from both the waterfront L+ and from Ediz Hook L+, in part because I couldn't see it from the waterfront.
Kelly brought us each a cupcake adorned with a hummingbird made of colored sugar. Very sweet of her.

1/8/2025   To Omak  (link to here)
This trip to the Okanogan with Marcus and Heather and Ed and Delia had been in the works since November but had it been just us, we probably would have deferred it a week. Over the previous couple of weeks birders hadn't seen much either in the Highlands or on the Waterville Plateau. That said, in addition to the usual suspects we did have a few good birds to chase and we knocked out two of them today.
Eastern Blue Jays are a rare winter visitor to Washington both east and west of the Cascades. We've seen them in a handful of counties over the past 10 years but not in Kittitas so the bird in Ellensburg would be both a year bird and a county bird if we could find it. That did not prove too difficult. Despite the cold and cloudy afternoon birds were very active in the Blue Jay's neighborhood L+ and we heard it within a.few minutes. Darchelle got photos and our trip was off to a good start.
Like the Blue Jay, the Yellow-billed Loon is a winter visitor which we do not see every year, but it is a large and conspicuous bird of open water so if it's close to shore, it's usually not too hard to find. I spotted this one shortly after we pulled off at the overlook above the bend in the Okanogan River where it had been seen a few days earlier. We called the rest of our group and they all raced over to see it too.
While they visited we ran up the Cameron Lake Road to search for the first Gyrfalcon of the season. We didn't find it. Everyone convened in our room for dinner for which Heather provided homemade soup and Ed and Delia an assortment of fancy cheeses. All very good.

1/9/2025   Okanogan Highlands  (link to here)
Fancher Flats M+ is a conspicuously flat valley trending northeast to southwest about four miles northeast of and 500 feet above the Okanagan River valley at Tonasket. From a topographic perspective it is an puzzling place. Two separate streams enter the valley, Antoine Creek from the northeast and Siwash Creek from the east. The topography of the valley would suggest that the two streams should merge and flow southwest out of the lower end of the valley but they do not. While Siwash Creek follows that expected route, Antoine Creek drains out to the west down its own well-defined valley from near the upper end of Fancher Flats.
Based on the terrain map the two streams draining Fancher Flats cut through bedrock as well as alluvial terrace deposits, implying that they predate the most recent glaciation of the area. The situation and topography of Fancher Flats suggest that during that period the valley hosted a lake formed when the Okanagan Valley glacier dammed up Antoine and Siwash Creeks. The lake was subsequently filled with sediment carried down from the surrounding hills by the two streams. When the glacier melted the lake drained away but the nearly flat lake bed retained enough of a trace of the original topography to allow the two streams to resume their original courses.
However interesting its geology, few people visit for that reason. Among birders Fancher Flats L+ is known for Chukars and Golden Eagles, both found around the large cliffs on the west side of the valley. Darchelle spotted an eagle and heard Chukars within minutes of our arrival this morning and was able to get everyone else on the birds shortly afterwards. We spent what felt like another hour trying for Chukar photos and discussing our sightings, time I thought would be better spent looking for Sharp-tailed Grouse but Darchelle wanted to stay with the group, so we did.
The Sharp-tailed Grouse on Siwash Creek Road L+ were waiting for us, though not idly; they were scrambling delicately through the lacy crowns of tall water birch shrubs along the creek, browsing on catkins. In our experience they only do that when the ground is pretty well covered with snow; otherwise they apparently retreat into areas of grass or sagebrush and remain out of sight. Given the patchy snow cover typical during most winters in the lower Siwash Creek area, the winter diet of these birds must not include much water birch, but since they do not seem to winter in areas without it at least some must be necessary. Birds of the World + states that their winter diet consists mostly of buds from deciduous trees and shrubs but at least here in the Okanagan, that does not seem to be the case.
The Ruffed Grouse were also feeding on buds of riparian shrubs along Siwash Creek but in a more wooded area. They were the first of ten Ruffed Grouse in four locations which we found during the day, a remarkable total given that we've searched for them in Okanogan County every winter for the past ten years and seen a cumulative total of only nine.
Intent on feeding, and balancing on their birch twigs, the Sharp-tailed Grouse paid little attention to us as Darchelle was photographing them out the car windows.
At close range they were hard to miss but they are often much more difficult to see so even though we counted 25 of them we probably overlooked a few.
Continuing up Siwash Creek Road and onto North Siwash Creek Road L+, we did well with the common montane forest birds - nuthatches, chickadees and woodpeckers - but didn't find anything unusual until we reached the town of Havillah. There an adult American Goshawk flew over our car, perched in a conifer just long enough for Darchelle to identify it then took off again and flew directly over the others in their car a hundred feet behind us.
At the end of the day we ran out of time. We drove a short distance on Neely Road then drove over Havillah Road, found Snow Buntings and another American Goshawk. At dusk we found ourselves on Davies Road with few birds in sight other than our last group of Ruffed Grouse in an aspen copse. A recent heavy snowfall had snapped limbs off trees and even felled a few but the debris had been cleared out of the road. I was surprised that the trees were not better able to handle a couple of feet of snow, particularly when not accompanied by wind.
We all ate dinner in our room again. I ordered a Chili Relleno from the place by the Omak Inn and though I didn't eat any of it, I enjoyed the leftovers for the next two nights.

1/10/2025   Winthrop  (link to here)
Darchelle and I wanted to get the Pine Grosbeaks reported in Winthrop L+ and the others were amenable so we drove over there this morning. The Barred Owl was in town along the way out to the East Chewuch River Road. We drove right by it but Ed noticed it, and while we were all trying for a better view of the owl, the Grosbeaks showed up and flew down to the crabapple across the street.
The Northern Pygmy Owl was in the same tree in which Ed had spotted it while we were across the valley trying to reach the location of a Northern Hawk Owl report. No Hawk Owl but back at Bridgeport State Park we were able to find the Northern Saw-Whet Owls in their favorite Spruce trees.

1/11/2025   Cameron Lake Road  (link to here)
Other than Gray Partridge we didn't see many birds at either the north L+ or south L+ end of Cameron Lake Road but the scenery was dazzling. We had lots of partridge though, more than 60 altogether in five different groups. Deterred by the snowy road and less obsessed with finding a Gyr than we are, the others had taken the highway back to Monse and we searching unsuccessfully a Swamp Sparrow reputed to be lurking, troll-like, under the bridge, when we called to report our chickens. Tempted, Ed and Delia ventured almost all the way up to the south end of the plateau but missed the partridge. Later they did find some, and had excellent views, in the little town of Withrow on the Waterville Plateau.
We also drove up to the Waterville, to revisit the Harris's Sparrow spot L+, but saw no sparrows at all from the road and the snow was too deep for Darchelle to venture into the bushes to look for them.

1/12/2025   Tufted Duck  (link to here)
Normally we would not go out anywhere the day after returning from a multi-day trip but while we were away a Tufted Duck turned up in a duck pond L+ at Carrie Blake park in Sequim. When we got there I recognized the place. It was the start of the North Olympic Discovery Marathon + in 2004, the first year I ran it. I was trying to get into Boston and ran well (3:37:37) but missed qualifying by less than two minutes.
I didn't notice the duck pond back then but today it was hard to miss. The parking lot was almost full; dog walkers and people were strolling around the area and ducks were waddling all over the lawn, until a dog walker unleashed his small dog on them. The ducks, apparently familiar with this game, dutifully returned to the water making it much more difficult to spot the Tufted One. But not that difficult - the Tufted Duck, probably a juvenile male, was smaller and darker than any of the others and unlike most of them, dove from time to time.
They're native to Europe and Asia but one or two show up in Washington in most winters. We don't often see them; this one is only our fourth in the past decade.

1/15/2025   Rusty Blackbird  (link to here)
Rusty Blackbird is another species we don't get every year so when one shows up, typically in the fall or winter, we typically chase it. This one in a field near Burlington was somewhat easier to find than usual and had it not been for the fog, Darchelle would have been able to get some decent photos. My views were non-identifying.
Kelly joined us for this chase. After we found the bird we continued north to Blaine to look for a Long-billed Curlew in the harbor below town. We found it along with a Whimbrel, both of them unusual this early in the year. Again my views were non-identifying.
Yesterday Ben and Sally and the kids returned from Florida and before they left to drive home, Ben attached our spare headrest to my office chair. It's a huge improvement over our previous head support arrangement and hopefully will enable me to use eye-gaze technology + with my desktop computer. My dysarthtria has progressed to the point where Dragon Naturally Speaking barely functions and even my workarounds are failing.

1/18/2025   Long Beach  (link to here)
This time of year Ridgefield NWR L+ is a good place for year birds so we expected half a dozen and we found six, but it would have been nice to pick up an American Bittern. They are there. We were more successful downstream along the Columbia on Puget Island L+ where a rare Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is spending the winter in a hapless Sequoia tree. Guided to the tree by the homeowner and a small group of birdwatchers, I immediately spotted the bird. It helped that it was at eye level on my side of the car. I waited in the car while Darchelle got photos.
I had to get out of the car for our next target bird, a Burrowing Owl wintering along the jetty at Cape Disappointment L+ instead of in the sunny dry grasslands of southern California. The owl was not visible from the end of the road so Darchelle bundled me into the wheelchair and wheeled me out across the sandy scrubby grassland next to the jetty until we inadvertently flushed the little owl. It flew a short distance onto a large boulder, perched upright on its long legs and glared at us. Darchelle took a few photos then we tackled the trek back to the car. By the time we reached it, I was almost numb with cold.

1/19/2025   Wahkiakum  (link to here)
We spent the night at an off-brand motel down the street from the Best Western where, at 6 PM on a Saturday night, the ADA room had already been reserved. The room and I took forever to get warm but the toilet worked for me so we'd probably stay there again.
Morning was sunny and cold. We drove the beach and committed a couple of hours to watching hummingbird feeders on the back side of town in hopes that Ryan's oriole would show up before departing Pacific County for Wahkiakum County. In my quest for county birds Wahkiakum is lagging all the others with just 106 species including yesterday's sapsucker. The five we picked up this afternoon still leaves Wahkiakum 11 behind #2 (or #38) Mason, but it's a start.
We drove six miles each way out to Altoona/Pigeon Bluff L+ to scan the Columbia for waterfowl and add four species to our Wahkiakum lists. Our final new county bird required a bigger commitment - a half-mile wheelchair outing on the Whitetail trail L+ along a dike in Julia Butler Hansen NWR. With a marsh on the right and pastures and woodlots on our left, we counted 36 species including the star attraction, a Swamp Sparrow that we both heard (repeatedly) and saw (very briefly). When we reached the gate at our parked car we heard scolding and found a Pacific Wren hiding under a leaf right at our feet. While we watched spellbound the little brown bird hopped onto a bramble two feet away, "chk"d a couple of times and retreated into a thicket. For a moment I had even forgotten how cold I was.

1/23/2025   Catbird  (link to here)
Marcus and Heather have been hosting a Gray Catbird in their yard on Tacoma's North Cedar Street L+ this winter. This afternoon they hosted us for lunch so they could introduce us to their unusual guest. Although fairly common in eastern Washington in the summer, Gray Catbirds are very rare anywhere in the state in the winter. This one has been subsisting on oranges which Marcus and Heather cut in half and wire to the feeders just outside their dining room window. It fed vigorously just a few feet from us while we downed Heather's delicious lentil stew and banana bread. The Orange-crowned Warbler, our first one of the year, inspected the oranges but did not partake.

1/24/2025   Ocean Shores  (link to here)
Being already an hour south of home, we decided to continue out to the coast so Darchelle booked a room at the spare but reasonably comfortable Econolodge in Hoquiam. In the morning we drove out to Ocean Shores and parked on the beach at the base of the Point Brown Jetty L+ about two hours after high tide. The Rockpipers were in residence, dodging the surf while terrorizing the local mollusks. They didn't seem to mind Darchelle documenting their depradations.
Once Darchelle was satisfied with her photos we drove north on the beach L+ inspecting gulls. Of the six species we identified only the Iceland was new. The individual in the photo can be distinguished from the more common Western X Glaucous-winged hybrids by its small bill and from a Herring Gull by its rounded forehead and dark gray (not black) wingtips. The short legs are not diagnostic.
In search of a Palm Warbler we drove back down to the Ocean Shores STP L+ but we were no more successful than we were last December. We didn't find one at the Hoquiam STP either but we did score two pints of shucked oysters at Lytle Seafoods on the way.
At dusk we watched Short-eared Owls with John R along Foster Road L+.

1/26/2025   Marymoor Sparrows  (link to here)
Two American Tree Sparrows were discovered at Marymoor Park about two weeks ago. Today we drove over there to look for them along the Interpretive Trail L+ at the corner of the dog park. We found them. I would write more but Dragon Professional v16 is not working very well for me this afternoon. It has taken me 45 minutes just to write this single fucking paragraph using the text to speech functions of that $699 piece of shit software. Pardon my French, as my mother used to say!

1/31/2025   Waterville Plateau  (link to here)
Recent appearances of a large falcon in year-to-date lists for Okanogan and Douglas counties inspired us to try again for that elusive species so just three weeks after our previous visit we headed back over to north-central Washington. The large falcon was not our only target though. A Harris's Sparrow, a species for which we have already tried three times this winter, had been visiting a feeder in Omak, and Common Redpolls had turned up in the highlands. Also in the highlands, at least as of a week ago, was one of Darchelle's favorite birds, a Northern Hawk Owl.
Concerned about a forecast of snow in the pass for this morning, we drove as far as Moses Lake last night but the weather caught up to us. Fortunately the freezing drizzle accompanied us only as far as Ephrata. We paused at the south end of Lake Lenore L+ to pick up a few county birds then continued north to the snow-covered Waterville Plateau where we worked Heritage Road pretty hard.
Just east of Atkins Lake we stopped at a field of unharvested Sorghum, a crop which I had not realized could be grown as far north as Washington. The Horned Larks seemed to love it. We searched the flock for a Lapland Longspur but without success then drove north to Road 5 where we found our first Prairie Falcon of the day chasing pigeons. Returning to US 2 via Roads 5 and O, we revisited the Sorghum field L+. This time Darchelle identified a Longspur and confirmed it with a photo. Though we see them every year, they often require a special trip so we were happy to find one so easily.
Along Heritage Road between Road 8 and Hwy 172 L+ a flock of hundreds of Snow Buntings gave us hope that a large falcon might be nearby so Darchelle examined every bump on every rock but all three potential large falcons turned out to be, on closer inspection, Prairies. Still, three Prairie Falcons in six miles is an impressive tally for the Waterville.
Our informal itinerary had called for us to reach Omak by 1:30 but distracted by our large falcon quest, we didn't get there until 2 PM, a half hour after the Harris's Sparrow had retired for the day. Not yet aware of that, we waited for it for two hours before running up to the Cameron Lake Plateau at sunset to try again for a large falcon. Two years ago that worked for us. This evening it didn't.

2/01/2025   Okanogan County  (link to here)
Although the Harris's Sparrow didn't show yesterday afternoon, Margaret had assured us that it would likely reappear in the morning, probably shortly after 8 AM, so we did likewise. The birds seemed unusually skittish and we soon realized why. Two different Accipiters were also monitoring the feeder flock. Margaret and Darchelle took turns trying to shoo the hawks out of the yard. Margaret, knowing that we were coming, had thrown out several handfuls of fresh seed on top of yesterday's dusting of snow and eventually the crowd of sparrows and finches L+ ventured out to clean it up. Once again though, the Harris's Sparrow was not among them. Margaret had last seen it, she told us, a few minutes before we'd arrived. We waited for it until almost noon then set off for the highlands.
Nine Mile Road between Oroville and Molson was a new route up into the highlands for us. Aside from several impressive roadcuts, I didn't find it as interesting as the Havillah road though perhaps if we had found the Northern Hawk Owl I would have remembered it differently. We did find one of the trees in which the owl had been photographed but its perch had been claimed by a Red-tail.
We followed Mary Ann Creek Road L+ out of Molson and found a small flock of Redpolls in alders about a mile and a half below the Fields Road turnoff.

2/02/2025   A Skunk and a Large Falcon  (link to here)
The skunk was the Harris's Sparrow which we failed to see this morning for the third time in three days. We pulled into Margaret's yard L+ shortly after 7:30 and watched for two hours but the bird never showed. We again enjoyed chatting with Margaret and I again appreciated close up views of the other sparrows but it was particularly disappointing to miss the bird after finally doing everything right.
Giving up on the Harris's Sparrow we hit the road for home but via the scenic route, up the Cameron Lake Road and onto the snow-covered plateau, its low hills and gentle valleys gleaming in the sunshine. The sky was blue; the temperature a frosty 11F and the landscape devoid of birds, at least for the first several miles. Darchelle finally spotted a solitary Red-tailed Hawk in a burned Ponderosa Pine below the rimrock and a half mile down the road, a solo Snow Bunting. We were once again unable to call up any Tree Sparrows at the Tree Sparrow corner.
We fared better with birds on Timentwa Road L+. Our first birds were Gray Partridge, a flock of 18 which flushed from the road as we approached the hardscrabble farm and feedlot operation about a mile and a half in from the Cameron Lake Road. We'd seen 19 there back in January; maybe an eagle had taken one since then. Horned Larks still scurried among the cattle and magpies and ravens still monitored the herd from on top of the immense boulders of crumbling basalt embedded in the hillside on the far side of the pasture.
More boulders, erratics deposited by the last glacier about 20,000 years ago, studded the low hills east of the farm affording convenient and dramatic perches for hungry ravens, hawks and falcons scanning the snow-covered steppe in search of their next meals. We in turn scanned the tops of the dark monoliths, hoping to find a large falcon and we found one too, less than a mile beyond the farm. Backlit against a bright sky, it was difficult to discern plumage details on our bird but it definitely had potential to be the particular large falcon we sought. But it wasn't. Darchelle's photos revealed the prominent white supercilium and cheek patch of a Prairie Falcon instead.
Continuing east we turned around at about mile 6 where Timentwa Road began its descent off the high plateau because we weren't seeing any more birds. On the way back though we ran into a flock of Snow Buntings around mile 5, and on a utility pole near mile 4, another large raptor. "It's a falcon", Darchelle announced,"and this one has to be a Gyr!" I'd heard her say that before but this time she was right.
The bird was on her side of the car and almost perfectly backlit by the hazy winter sunshine but I urged her to get photos anyhow before trying to get me on it. She tried but the camera wouldn't focus. Before we could resolve the focus issue, the bird flew. I actually had a decent view as it quartered away from us. The flight was very fast and the wingbeats deep and steady but my impression was nonetheless of a female Prairie rather than a large falcon. Fortunately the bird alighted on a big boulder in plain, though distant, sight and Darchelle was able to confirm that I was wrong. Photos and scope views clearly showed the indistinct superilium, single dark whisker and gray face, not to mention the large size and small-looking head, of a large falcon.
We followed the big falcon for several minutes as it flew from boulder to boulder, each more distant than the last, until it dropped over a ridge off to the southwest and did not reappear. We may have been skunked by the Harris's but we got our large falcon - a bird that we've only managed to see in three out of the past seven years.
We drove home via Waterville and East Wenatchee, where we stopped at Putters Pond L+ to pick up a few new Douglas County birds and counted over 170 Wood Ducks, the most I have ever seen in one place. Listening to Stay Hidden by Paul Doiron on audiobook helped us with the slow and snowy drive over the pass. Except for the Harris's Sparrow, we returned home with no regrets, and seven new birds for the year. As is sometimes the case, if it had been solely up to me we probably would have stayed home but once again, I'm grateful that it wasn't just up to me.

2/03/2025   Harris's at last  (link to here)
Despite the absence of reports yesterday, we found the Harris's Sparrow sitting in the Wisteria bush at the corner of NW 77th Street and 13th Ave NW L+ as soon we arrived. We were grateful that it was still around; it had first been reported the day after we'd left town to look for the large falcon.
While we sat in the car watching the Harris's we tried to count how many outings we've devoted to finding this bird over the past several months. There were three just this past weekend alone in Omak plus two visits to 15th NE on the Waterville Plateau - in November and again three weeks ago - and a trip to Washtucna in December. I'd guess that with driving that adds up to about 30 hours. Finally finding it this morning took less than 20 minutes from the time we left our driveway.
With the Harris's we have now seen all four of the challenging Washington winter sparrows, a feat we failed to accomplish in three of the past ten years. The Harris's is the hardest; we've missed it twice in ten years. The White-throated Sparrow is the easiest. We even had one in our yard all last winter. Of the other two the Swamp Sparrow is the more difficult but perhaps because we try harder to get it, we've not missed it in the past decade. The American Tree Sparrow reliably winters in certain locations in eastern Washington but we nonetheless managed to miss it in 2018.

2/06/2025   Snowy Owl  (link to here)
We drove over to Walla Walla this afternoon for Donna's birthday party, figuring that with a midday departure we would miss the morning snow on the pass but still reach the Tri-cities in time to try for the Snowy Owl up in the hills south of town. Thanks to the past month of dry weather the snowpack at the summit is less than three feet deep and that includes about six inches of fresh powder. We may unfortunately end up paying for all the recent sunshine with forest fires next summer, something I would worry about but the forests will burn regardless, and I probably won't live to see it. Meanwhile today the highway at the pass was dry and the owl was still hanging out in the Horse Heaven hills.
Had it not been for Andy and Ellen we would not have found it. We ran into them as we were turning onto the road up to the wind farm office where the owl had last been seen. They had just been there. After searching for the owl for two hours without success they were heading home but decided to help us out instead. Back up at the wind farm office they met an employee of the wind farm as he was leaving for the day and he told them that he'd just seen the owl up by tower 12, or was it 12 towers up from the road? He'd seen it from a private service road to which he was not authorized to give us access but he thought the owl might be visible from the main road so we spent the next half hour scoping for it along the line of towers before I happened to spot a dirty whitish lump out in a field of wheat stubble. Photos confirmed that it was the owl so we celebrated our success while the owl looked on with little apparent interest, then we all went our separate ways.

2/07/2025   Birthday  (link to here)
With four inches of snow on the ground, Richard and Donna's bird feeders have become very popular with the local White-crowned Sparrows and juncos. I spent much of the day counting them while Darchelle and Sally prepared for the party. Donna joined me at times but distracted by the constant motion of the birds, we didn't talk much.
She enjoyed the party though. Darchelle fixed her favorite meal, Carribean Curry, and Berna, Skye and Heather joined us for supper along with Ben, Sally and the kids. Skye sat next to Darchelle and me and when she mentioned that she was considering training for a marathon we plied her with questions and advice until it was time for everyone to go home. It has been a long time since I talked, or even thought about, marathon training.

2/08/2025   Eye-gazing  (link to here)
Augmented feeder-watching with reading and surfing the web on the eye-gaze computer today. I actually wrote a brief email too. I had hoped to use the eye-gaze computer more during this visit because I don't seem to get around to it at home, but at least today was a start and my sense of accomplishment helped to dispel my dark mood of the past few days. Anxiety and thoughts of death, though more troubling than usual the past few days, will nonetheless pass as they usually do, right?

2/09/2025   Blackbirds  (link to here)
Reluctant to leave Darchelle's folks, we didn't depart until 4 PM but still had time for a quick survey of Dodd Road where we caught the wintering blackbirds lining up on the utility wires before hitting the hay, or rather the pampas grass. Over the past five years that invasive weed has almost entirely displaced the once extensive stand of cattails and bullrushes in the swale on the east side of the feedlots. At least some blackbirds still seem to use it though, and not only in the winter but also for breeding habitat. It's probably too soon to know what its long term impact will be but the Pampas Grass is clearly here to stay.

2/12/2025   3 for 3  (link to here)
I spent 10 hours over the past two days hunting and pecking with my eyes only and completed two rather verbose journal entries. Writing with my eyes is not only more efficient for me at this point than Dragon Professional v16, it is also surprisingly addictive, not unlike a first person shooter video game. At any rate today Darchelle managed to pry me loose from my machine long enough to chase a few high priority year birds.
In eight of the past ten years we've driven up to Edmonds to find our first (and sometimes only) Black Scoters of the year along the waterfront, typically from the vantage point of Ocean Avenue. We made that pilgrimage again today and were not disappointed; the burly black ducks showed up a few minutes after we did. They were farther offshore than usual but I was able to see them with my opera glasses.
Another almost annual winter outing in Snohomish County is up to Tulalip Bay to see the Ruddy Turnstone which Maxine (I presume, since she lives there) discovered on the marina log booms back in 2019 and which has returned every winter since. We have been amost as faithful as the bird, having missed only 2020. Ruddy Turnstones are not rare (except in winter) in Washington but they are less common than the majority of the other shorebirds that visit the state so we prioritize picking it up early in the year, as we did today.
The Green Heron was a bonus bird; we didn't really expect to see it but Gregg reported it this afternoon while we were already in Edmonds so Darchelle got the details from him. The bird was in the rushes along the sunny edge of the partially frozen lake, not at all easy to spot but Darchelle found it with the scope and held the binoculars for me so I could verify that the dot I saw without optics actually was the bird. While we were out on the fishing pier watching it a cold breeze began to blow and I was well chilled by the time we returned to the car.
It being yet early we ran up to Stanwood and added three shorebirds to our year list at a new little park near the STP but found no pipits at Big Ditch.

2/15/2025   Tokeland  (link to here)
Intent on picking up a few year birds we made the 2 1/2 hour drive down to Ridgefield this morning only to find the refuge closed. Darchelle assumed that the closure was due to the fog, which we'd first encountered just north of the exit. I suspected that the several inches of snow on the ground, which we'd begun to see just south of Olympia, was the reason. The snow had apparently fallen two days earlier but the refuge had been open yesterday despite the fog in yesterday's forecast, so who knows?
We debated where to go instead. I suggested Lower River Road but Darchelle pointed out that no Red-shouldered Hawks had been seen there recently. Darchelle suggested Bellingham where an Orchard Oriole had just been reported but I pointed out that we ouldn't get there before dark. We settled on Tokeland. Two hours away and with a fresh sighting of a rare Hudsonian Godwit among the resident Willets, Tokeland looked like the way to salvage the day.
And so it was! It took us no more than five minutes to find the Willet flock. After they cooperatively relocated from the distant salt marsh to the much closer marina beach, Darchelle quickly spotted the Godwit in their midst. Both species were new for the year and even the Willets, though much more numerous than they were a few years ago, are not guaranteed on any particular visit to Tokeland.
With an hour to spend before sunset, we stopped first at nearby Graveyard Spit. Lots of Dunlin there, but also my first Greater Yellowlegs and also a Short-billed Dowitcher, which I didn't think occurred here in the winter. I'll have to check the photos. Out on the Warrenton Cannery Road beach access, Darchelle's photos confirmed a Western Sandpiper, #191 for the year for both of us.
The drive home would have been uneventful except that we were delayed for several hours by a rollover accident on northbound I-5 near Kent.

2/23/2025   All caught up  (link to here)
Today I wrote the last few Journal entries for last month, though several January entries still need photos. Two days ago I finally completed the outstanding entries from last June, which already had photos but lacked text. They were the last incomplete entries for 2024 so now 2024 is finally done, except for slideshows and index entries for the second half. Two weeks ago completing the 2024 Journals appeared to be an impossible task. Writing with the Dragon speech to text software which I've been using for the past eight years had become prohibitively error prone.
Then on the 10th I reached a tipping point on the TD I-16 eye-gaze laptop, aka the device. In nine hours over two days I wrote and edited the entries for the first two days of February. On the 13th and 14th I put in 16 hours, finishing up my account of our our second Okanagan trip of the year. For the next week I went back to 2024 and created/completed entries in September, August, July and June. I did most of that with notepad but on the 19th I installed my longtime programmers editor, Slickedit. It responds much more quickly to eye-gaze input than notepad so I had to slow the down the eye-gaze interaction for a couple of days until my skills caught up, but now I use it exclusively. Now I'm caught up in my journaling, and it doesn't actually feel that good. It has always been that way. When I complete a big project I feel not so much relief or achievement as letdown or even depression, though within a day or two a sense of accomplishment usually takes over.

2/27/2025   Walla Walla  (link to here)
A trip to Walla Walla to visit Darchelle's family gave us a chance to chase a few birds that we missed during our visit earlier this month and we made the most of it. Today for instance, although we did not get out of town until after noon, we managed to find both of our target species in the Tri-Cities within a few minutes - a Black-crowned Night Heron at the Steptoe Roundabout Pond L+ and the Slaty-backed Gull on Carpet Island L+. This is the eighth year that the Slaty-backed has returned to winter along the Columbia River in Tri-Cities. Our third destination was the Long-eared Owl roost near Prescott. Arriving 25 minutes after sunset we found three owls already circling over their thicket. Two minutes later they were gone, but as the light faded we heard two more hooting to each other from within the thicket. An hour later we dipped on our fourth target, the Western Screech Owls on the Walla Walla University campus, on our way to Richard and Donna's for the weekend.
The reason for our dilatory departure this morning was a two hour stop at Eastside Subaru to pick up our new Autumn Green 2025 Forester Wilderness. We purchased it three days ago but they'd had to bring it up from another dealer. That dealer was Auburn Subaru, where 25 years ago I bought my very first Forester. Eastside had a beautiful blue Wilderness that we could have driven off their lot but we wanted something a little less conspicuous and their other Wilderness, the dark gray model we test drove, was not colorful enough.
We also tried out a Forester Limited which our salesman Mark described as a little more plush than the Wilderness. It had the benefit of a power-adustable passenger front seat but otherwise felt very similar to our old car. The Wilderness seemed quieter on the highway and offered more capable off-road performance but the big difference was a remarkably smoother ride both on and off the pavement. That sold me on the car immediately.
At $17,200 the market value of our 2021 Forester was higher than I expected given that it had almost 137K miles on it and they aren't usually good for more than 250. A new 2025 Premium currently sells for about 33K. With 137K miles a Forester has about 45% of its expected life left so you'd expect to pay 45% of $33,000, which works out to about $15,000. Given the apparent $2,000 premium for the used car I think the new car is a better value, if a person can afford it.

2/28/2025   Cleveland Commons  (link to here)
Getting together with Sally for coffee and pastries at Cleveland Commons has become our traditional way to mark the end of February, or at least it feels that way though we've actually only done so three out of the past five years. The weather has usually been cold and I usually struggle to keep warm but today the sun was shining and the temperature was in the low 60's, so pleasant that we considered sitting outside but ultimately chose not to break with tradition and sat inside by the big floor to ceiling windows. I watched the college women coming and going in case Emily walked by but didn't see her. Later, texting with David from my eye-gaze device, I found out that she is in Rome until September so I needn't have checked out all those young women after all.
We were a bit late meeting Sally because we'd driven over to Nine Mile Canyon L+ to look for a few year birds. We needed five to reach 200 in the state by the end of February and we found three Including the Ferruginous Hawk and the Rock Wren but not the Loggerhead Shrike. On our way back to Darchelle's folks we tried for two more - Bohemian and Cedar Waxings - at the Villages L+. We passed a quiet evening in desultory conversation with Richard and Donna; I think we were all tired after staying up late yesterday evening.
Fatigue did not deter Darchelle, and therefore me, from trying for one more year bird. At 9 PM we drove over to the university campus to try to call up a Western Screech Owl. They are heard there regularly but not by us this evening. We did hear, and see, two owls but they were not screech owls but ghostly-white and long-winged Barn Owls. They flew in from south of the library, perched in the bare trees between the library and Ridley Hall then circled over Centennial Green making high-pitched, stuttering "tititreeet" calls. It appeared to be a territorial display in response to our playing the screech owl calls. Darchelle probably saw the screech owls fly in as well - smaller and darker than the Barns, but I missed them.
During February we cut back considerably on our birding activity compared to January, submitting only 24 complete checklists and adding only 26 species to our list for the year. We spent seven days in the field and six nights away from home. Less time birding meant more time on the eye-gaze computer, enabling me to complete 2024 as well as 2025 through mid-February.

3/02/2025   The Scenic Route Home  (link to here)
We lingered in College Place until lunchtime visiting with Richard and Donna and with Ben and Sally and the kids. Richard ran the time trial down at the track, it being the first Sunday of the month. He hasn't gone out running much recently due to winter weather and not wanting to leave Donna alone but we were there to keep Donna company and the morning was mild, at least for March. He ran the first mile at a 16 minute pace and came home happy.
Ben came over to me and squatted down by my chair to say hi. I asked him about his current project, a major remodel of an apartment in a 95 year old house on the Sparrows property then as we often do, we ended up reminiscing about hunting. I regret that we never got to do that together.
Darchelle and I considered our birding options for the trip home. A reasonably credible report of another Great-tailed Grackle at the same Walmart parking lot as the bird last January tempted us to detour up to Moses Lake, only an hour or so out of our way. Also on our way home would be the Black-backed Woodpecker Liam had seen on North Wenas Road earlier this morning. While we see one of those most years they are rarely easy, and Liam had reported three right by the road. Unfortunately woodpeckers tend to be early birds and if we went via Moses Lake we could not get to North Wenas much before sunset. Finally there was the White-winged Crossbill in Winthrop. We haven't seen one of those for two years and the Winthrop bird appears to be the only one currently in the state but it would add five more hours of driving to our five hour drive home, and we'd have to be very lucky with the grackle in order to reach the crossbill before it went to bed.
Was there ever any doubt that we would try for all three? We might protest otherwise, but probably not. Especially when Darchelle spotted the grackle perched atop the Mattress Firm store less than five minutes after we joined the crowd of Sunday shoppers jockeying for parking places in the vast Walmart lot L+. She got photos then we drove north out of town on Hwy 17. Passing the boulders strewn across the plateau south of Soap Lake, we scanned them for early Burrowing Owls and late Prairie Falcons. Cruising through the Lower Grand Coulee we marvelled again at the power of the Ice Age floods which scoured the heart out of a massive monoclinal fold in thousands of feet of basalt leaving glassy lakes in its wake. Traversing the Waterville Plateau we thanked the range fires for sparing remnants of sagebrush habitat and hoped they were enough to support remnant populations of Sage Grouse. Pausing at the Brewster weigh station we sacrificed precious minutes in a vain search for waxwings, a search which almost cost us the crossbill.
We reached the Sullivan Cemetery L+ in Winthrop 30 minutes before sunset but only moments before the White-winged Crossbill retired for the night, or at least went silent. It called once, a rapid dry medium-pitched "trit-trit-trit" unlike the anxious "kih-kih-kih-kih-kh-keh-keh" scolding of the robins and the variously shrill "cheet-cheet-cheet-cheet" calls of the persistently verbose House Finches. We left Winthrop having for the second year in a row not seen a White-winged Crossbill but we had heard it, so we counted it. One Last Lie by Paul Doiron kept us awake during the three hour drive to the reasonably priced Days Inn in Ellensburg. We didn't try to make it home.

3/03/2025   North Wenas Road  (link to here)
In the morning the Days Inn breakfast didn't hold much appeal but the coffee was better than most and the toilet worked for us so I was happy. Happier than usual too for other reasons which I couldn't clearly identify though the bright blue sky with friendly altocumulus drifting overhead from the west, the warm sunshine and the brisk but not chilling air certainly helped. We started up Umtanum Road eager to see how the car would handle its first real rough road, not just the few potholes in the alley behind the dealership.
It was indeed real rough, as bad as I've seen it. A heavy snowpack was feeding meltwater streams into and across the road, etching rocky channels into the frost-softened roadbed. The potholes were in places even worse, truly worthy of the name. There was mud, there were muddy ruts, there were frozen ruts and there were extended sections of ice and slush. Those were actually the smoothest parts of the whole two hour drive. The car did fine as far as we know. So did I, despite the bumps.
The birding was not as exciting as the driving, except for the woodpeckers and bluebirds. We had good views of both Black-backed and White-headed in the same patch of mixed-age pine near a little bridge about a mile east of Ellensburg Pass L+. For several minutes two Black-backed Woodpeckers were tapping on opposite sides of the same Ponderosa Pine trunk and occasionally making a descending "tititititititi..." whinny quite unlike their usual hoarse and raspy calls. I couldn't see if they were male and female or two males, but it may be relevant that a third bird was nearby. Both woodpecker species were drumming, at least partly in response to playback but regardless it was nice to be able to compare them in the field. The bluebirds, both Mountain and Western, were mostly in the sagebrush and grassland areas - very colourful in the right light. Andy showed up at the woodpecker spot before we left, giving Ellen a break from his company as he put it, and we had a nice chat.

3/07/2025   Ocean Shores  (link to here)
Inspired by Andy's eBird reports of finding both the Palm Warbler and Black-legged Kittiwakes at Ocean Shores last weekend, we drove down there this morning despite having been out all afternoon yesterday trying for the Red-shouldered Hawk. Which we both saw, by the way, though our sightings might not be enough to convict the bird of having been at the scene if we tried to make that case in a court of law. No photos, for instance, and at least in my case, not many field marks either but then, no court is going to hear this case.
We weren't able to get photos of our target birds at Ocean Shores either but we saw field marks, at least Darchelle did. Scoping across the channel from the Point Brown parking lot she saw the little triangles of black on the tips of the very distant Kittiwakes' wings, much less flashy than the wingtips of the equally-distant and similar-sized Short-billed Gulls. Peering through the windshield with my opera glasses I saw tiny white dots. Too far for photos.
At the STP she walked out along the fence on the southwest side of the compound and found the Palm Warbler while I kept warm in the car, but she sacrificed her photo ops in an attempt to show me the bird over FaceTime. When that failed she wheeled me out on the path around the southwest pond to see the bird in person. I did, because it flew down the fenceline and landed right in front of us, though unfortunately on the wrong side of the fence for photos.
Lytle Seafoods closed at 5PM, not 6, so I dipdn't get any oysters.
On the way home on northbound I-5 at about mp 152.5 I spotted the bare scrape on the median strip embankment where the rollover accident occurred three weeks ago.

3/08/2025   Sabbath  (link to here)
We caught part of Kevin's sermon online from the Green Lake Church during a late breakfast today. He talked about hope and how to cultivate it when life doesn't offer much justification for it, pointing out that hope often isn't really needed until life gets difficult but it's best to practice before you need it. To improve hoping skills he suggested giving thanks, doing intentional acts of kindness, accomplishing small goals, exercising one's strengths (doing things you're good at) and several other things I've already forgotten, but the general idea seemed to be that hope is easier when you feel good about yourself and are intentional about engaging with your world even if only in small ways. An illustration he gave: if you are feeling overwhelmed by a sink full of dirty dishes, wash just one and congratulate yourself for doing that much rather than criticizing yourself for not doing the rest of them.
I found his ideas helpful. When I hear the word "hope", particularly in a Christian context, I tend to consider only the "Blessed Hope" of resurrection into eternal life but my profound doubts about the existence of God preclude finding much comfort in that hope. My prospect of continuing decline followed by death for me and grief for those I love leaves little room for hope on a macro level, but I can hope in small things - that I will feel more optimistic tomorrow morning when I'm better rested than I do tonight after a tiring day, for example. Not that I'm feeling discouraged at the moment though; I've enjoyed being home and writing this afternoon and am looking forward to a pleasant evening in the company of my favorite person.
It feels good to get that email written. I haven't been writing emails recently because typing with my voice has become a painfully time-consuming and error-prone process. About eight years ago when my hands became too weak to type I began using speech to text software on the computer. It worked well for me but in the last year or so my speech has become progressively weaker and more distorted. Darchelle and my mother still understand me but my computer too often does not. Through the ALS clinic I learned about a computer operated solely by looking at the screen. People with advanced ALS (and advanced skills) use it to converse, text, make phone calls, surf the web and even write doctoral dissertations. While my ALS is sufficiently advanced to justify using it for conversation my skills are not, but I can definitely use it to hunt and peck on an onscreen keyboard so I'm back to writing again, and hoping to catch up on my overdue email correspondence.