It's fun when people think imaginatively and then follow it up by acting with purpose. Today I got to see a little slice of that, making my way down for the inaugural Lewis County Christmas Bird Count.
Just for background, Christmas Bird Counts are annual events that take place across the country through local chapters of the Audubon Society. The full explanation is here, from the Audubon site, but you should imagine the twelve people in that picture not all staring at the same bird, but working to cover a much larger area, scattered about for a good bit of the day and then returning with their data to tabulate, and their stories to share over pizza, chili, or whatever has been organized for that CBC.
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| Washington State Map with established Christmas Bird Count Circles |
I have done the Kent-Auburn CBC for maybe 6-7 years now, and helped with others here and there, but Lewis County had never had a count circle... until this year! Dalton Spencer, a high schooler from Adna, decided that this underbirded corner of the state ("It's... not a corner at all, Tim. It's literally got counties on every side of it..." "I know, Tim. Shh.") needed its own count circle.
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| A (very!) rough approximation of the Lewis County CBC Count Circle |
I'm not sure how often high school students organize this kind of thing, but Dalton saw the need for it and just put it together. (Go back and read the compiler instructions from the Audubon site. You're not allowed to read more until you're impressed.) So today, a dozen or so birders from Cowlitz to Kitsap to King Counties met at the Centralia Safeway to get assignments for the day.
Owls!
It was hard for me to give away a full day to the birds when my own kiddos are off from school, so I decided to pitch in by getting an early start and doing some owling.
Owling (noun) - The act of looking for owls
Just thought I'd throw that in there. Not every family of birds has had their name used this way. Maybe I'll make thrushing a thing some day (yes... I see your little red squiggly line, spellcheck. Wait on it... I'll win this battle). For the moment, swallowing, ducking, and parroting still don't mean that you're... like... undertaking a very special process in order to find swallows. You don't. You just look at them.
Owling is something special. For most birders, when I suggest a 3AM start for the day, they have other words for it besides "special". I told myself to wake up in advance of 3AM, to allow plenty of time to look for owls, but I must have needed the sleep, as I didn't wake up until 3:30. Ah well.
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Many houses had lights and nativity scenes
This was my favorite bit of décor, however.
(River Heights Road)
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I "got ready", although in my desire to get out the door, wool socks and a scarf were left behind. I ended up finally pulling my car to the side of the road on River Heights Road, north of Centralia (The community is Galvin, a dot on my map, but not incorporated). 5:30 AM, and the stars were stunning. It's always so weird to see the spring constellations high in the sky in December - Leo, Cancer, Gemini, Virgo.
I followed a procedure that is pretty common for this kind of surveying - in areas not heavily birded, and with target species that are not particularly threatened in the area. Stopping every half mile or so, I'd listen for a bit....whistle for small owls first, and if unsuccessful, call for larger owls. One can have a bit more success by spending 10 -15 minutes at each stop, but I always start to get antsy about calling for owls for too long, and antsy about getting to enough places.
Around River Heights Road, up Cooks Hill Road, then down Mattson Road to the end (which ends near "Cook Hill"... interesting!). I got a surfeit of stars, a handful of phantom owl sounds that never repeated themselves clearly enough for me to be sure, and a single Barred Owl, calling "Who Cooks for you?" (From Cook Hill... coincidence?).
This was a lot of time for a single bird! I don't regret it, but there is something fun about hearing the owls actually respond, and I knew I'd had better success on other mornings. Here's what I figured out:
This was me looking at all of my ebird records and figuring out when I have had different owls. Here's my take on this: I LOVE heading out to look for owls in January to start the year. I'd bet I'm out there looking for them more, and despite that... it's not February. February seems to be the best time to go look for owls, especially the little ones (saw-whet and screech). So warmer weather may help a little, and get them calling a little more. I'll still get out in January to try for some, but February will likely be the better month.
Goodrich
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| There should be a Barn Owl here |
From Galvin Road, I returned to Harrison - the major North-South arterial which runs from Centralia all the way up to Grand Mound in Thurston County (think Great Wolf Lodge) - and took it North to Goodwin Road. I'd heard word that there was a farm owner who had heard "hoot owls" from his property, so I went and called and listened for a bit, deciding in the end that the dog barking (his dog is actually a sweetheart - got to meet him again later in the day) was going to make it not worth the effort.
I passed two weirdos on the bridge over the Chehalis River, smirking a little, as I slowly figured out that they were quite likely also out on the CBC. I got to the end of the road - parking for the Chehalis River Discovery Trail, and viewing point for Goodrich Pond - and took a dang nap.
I... am pretty skilled at this. Ten minute nap, and I'm good as gold. That was about how long it took for the car to roll up to the parking area, and I discovered who had been looking out at the bridge. Scott Ramos and Bruce Lagerquist are two birders from Seattle who had come down to Chehalis to help with the count. They had the same thought as I had - why not do a little owling in advance? To be fair, they had just arrived, and gifted themselves a good bit of sleep that I missed.
Nonetheless, there was time before twilight would hit, so we tried in the fog for Great Horned, then went down to the trail and the riparian area to try for smaller owls. As the sun gradually brightened the sky from below the horizon, the birds began to wake up, and we were treated to some quite vocal Bald Eagles, and scads of Golden-crowned Sparrows.
Names and faces
As the sun started rising, we realized we needed to skedaddle back into Centralia to meet up with the rest of the crew for the Christmas Bird Count. This... ugh for me I won't be able to do this proper justice, but I'll try.
We read about birds - paper or digital media, whatever. Then we go out and we see birds. It's exciting! We have an abstract idea of this bird, and through some effort or serendipity are able to have that replaced with something abstract. A bird!
For me, places are like this as well. Any time I'm heading up a new road, looking at a hill, or a river that I've never seen before... any time I can change it from a blue meander on a map to a real river... from a collection of concentric circles to a real honest to god 1000 foot tall mound of earth separating me from Some Place on the Other Side of The Hill... I love this stuff.
If birds and places can do that, how much more so when we can put a face to a name. I got to reconnect with a few people that I've met before in my birding, and also had a chance to put 5 or so faces to names. I won't describe them like I described birds and geography above, because there'd be too much pressure to do them justice, so I'll just aim really low on description, and aim very high on accuracy: It was nice.
Time to count
I hadn't really planned on staying for much, but reported my owls, and then slipped into a group that was headed north back towards Goodrich. I found myself with Paul Hicks, Donna LaCasse, and Dan Froehlich. Interesting that this Lewis County crew included people from King, Thurston, Pierce and Kitsap Counties!
Paul had spent a few days simply scouting the area, and had turned up a Brant in one of the fields off of Kuper Road, mixed in with some Cackling and Greater White-fronted Geese. We arrived and found that it was a goose free field at the time (I checked later and found some cacklers). We walked the roads a bit, peeking at ponds and pishing the bushes, but added few birds. It was a cold and quiet morning, bird-wise, and things seemed slow to wake up.
We continued to Goodrich Road, where we met Dan. Our initial exploration was not along the road, nor at the pond itself (which was nearly entirely frozen). Paul had spoken to a few homeowners along the road, and more than one had extended invitations: "Come look at our feeder!" and in the case of one farm owner, "Come bird my property!"
Dan and I took my Taurus (the poor car... it's seen too many interesting places) down the driveway until the pavement turned to dirt. From dirt, it kind of turned to grass, where the "road" had seen very little traffic from the owners. The path narrowed, and finally opened up again into a large field. We pulled up and birded the edges, finding a few sparrow patches, some kinglets and wrens (pacific and bewick's), a Red-bellied Sapsucker and some Anna's Hummingbirds.
There was nothing out of the ordinary, and eventually Donna and Paul finished their walk along the slough. We tried circling back to see if some Swamp Sparrow-y sounds had actually been coming from a Swamp Sparrow. Mourning Doves darted back and forth between tree tops while we tried without success to relocate it.
At this point, I was running a little late on returning home, so I gave the good people a warm goodbye, and made my way for home. It wasn't a day that would "count" for the big year, which of course starts in a couple weeks, but I'd scouted a tiny corner of the county. I'm excited to break out of the circle and see what I can find with Kevin on the first!
Names and faces
As the sun started rising, we realized we needed to skedaddle back into Centralia to meet up with the rest of the crew for the Christmas Bird Count. This... ugh for me I won't be able to do this proper justice, but I'll try.
We read about birds - paper or digital media, whatever. Then we go out and we see birds. It's exciting! We have an abstract idea of this bird, and through some effort or serendipity are able to have that replaced with something abstract. A bird!
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| Morning Clouds |
For me, places are like this as well. Any time I'm heading up a new road, looking at a hill, or a river that I've never seen before... any time I can change it from a blue meander on a map to a real river... from a collection of concentric circles to a real honest to god 1000 foot tall mound of earth separating me from Some Place on the Other Side of The Hill... I love this stuff.
If birds and places can do that, how much more so when we can put a face to a name. I got to reconnect with a few people that I've met before in my birding, and also had a chance to put 5 or so faces to names. I won't describe them like I described birds and geography above, because there'd be too much pressure to do them justice, so I'll just aim really low on description, and aim very high on accuracy: It was nice.
Time to count
I hadn't really planned on staying for much, but reported my owls, and then slipped into a group that was headed north back towards Goodrich. I found myself with Paul Hicks, Donna LaCasse, and Dan Froehlich. Interesting that this Lewis County crew included people from King, Thurston, Pierce and Kitsap Counties!
Paul had spent a few days simply scouting the area, and had turned up a Brant in one of the fields off of Kuper Road, mixed in with some Cackling and Greater White-fronted Geese. We arrived and found that it was a goose free field at the time (I checked later and found some cacklers). We walked the roads a bit, peeking at ponds and pishing the bushes, but added few birds. It was a cold and quiet morning, bird-wise, and things seemed slow to wake up.
We continued to Goodrich Road, where we met Dan. Our initial exploration was not along the road, nor at the pond itself (which was nearly entirely frozen). Paul had spoken to a few homeowners along the road, and more than one had extended invitations: "Come look at our feeder!" and in the case of one farm owner, "Come bird my property!"
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I'll be able to make a month by month calendar of bad car
decisions at some point... Here's December!
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Dan and I took my Taurus (the poor car... it's seen too many interesting places) down the driveway until the pavement turned to dirt. From dirt, it kind of turned to grass, where the "road" had seen very little traffic from the owners. The path narrowed, and finally opened up again into a large field. We pulled up and birded the edges, finding a few sparrow patches, some kinglets and wrens (pacific and bewick's), a Red-bellied Sapsucker and some Anna's Hummingbirds.
There was nothing out of the ordinary, and eventually Donna and Paul finished their walk along the slough. We tried circling back to see if some Swamp Sparrow-y sounds had actually been coming from a Swamp Sparrow. Mourning Doves darted back and forth between tree tops while we tried without success to relocate it.
At this point, I was running a little late on returning home, so I gave the good people a warm goodbye, and made my way for home. It wasn't a day that would "count" for the big year, which of course starts in a couple weeks, but I'd scouted a tiny corner of the county. I'm excited to break out of the circle and see what I can find with Kevin on the first!
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