Tweeters and Inland Birders,

On May 24, I paid my first, long-awaited visit to Roger Lake, NE of
Winthrop in Okanogan County. Several people had told me that Roger
Lake was one of the best spots in Washington to find SPRUCE GROUSE,
and the hope of finding one was the main reason for my visit. Although
I spent quite a lot of time at high altitudes in Okanogan County
during the Washington Breeding Bird Atlas Project in the early 1990s,
Spruce Grouse is one bird that had eluded me so far in Washington.

Arriving at Roger Lake about 5 AM, I started walking out the trail
along the south side of the lake. Surprisingly for the date, there was
almost no snow left anywhere near the lake, which is in spruce and
lodgepole pine forest at about 5700 feet altitude. I listened for the
loud wing-clap display given by male Spruce Grouse. At one point, I
thought I heard a wing-clap at a considerable distance, but it was not
repeated. An hour and a half later, although I had tallied a list of
25 species of birds, still no Spruce Grouse.

I then returned to my car and drove further north on Forest Road 39,
to see how far I could get before I encountered snow. I had driven
only 0.2 miles from the Roger Lake spur when a female SPRUCE GROUSE
appeared in the middle of the road. It flew, but landed just off the
road edge in dense brush. After a search of about 2 minutes, I located
the grouse (a "red-phase bird), which stayed so close that I could
barely focus on it with my binoculars. After staying put for about 5
minutes on a log, it began to walk slowly off in the undergrowth, and
I did not follow. Success!!

Stepping back out into the road next to my car, I was amazed when a
male SPRUCE GROUSE flew in, landed in the middle of the road about 100
feet away, and immediately began displaying. It must have been aware
of the female nearby, but paid no attention to her, and instead seemed
to be directing its display at me, as if it was warning me and my car
to "get out of town". Fanning its tail and periodically giving a
couple of wing-flaps, it slowly strutted right down the middle of the
road until it was only about 10 feet away! The grouse then stepped
off the road onto a nearby log and continued displaying, every now and
then taking a couple of pecks at the log. I did not hear the famous
"wing-claps", although the bird did give a couple of wing-flaps a
couple of times a minute or so.

I don't want to start a stampede, but I also saw a bird at Roger Lake
that might have been a RUSTY BLACKBIRD. The boggy habitat around the
lake looks like the kind of places where Rusty Blackbirds nest in
B.C., less than 100 miles to the north. What I saw was a female
blackbird sitting on top of a spruce in the middle of the bog, calling
at regular intervals. The call, frankly, sounded more like the "chuck"
of a BREWER'S BLACKBIRD than the equivalent call of the Rusty. The
bird was too distant to note eye color. I returned to my car (less
than a 2 minute walk away) to get my scope and see if I could discern
the eye color and other field marks. Unfortunately, the blackbird had
disappeared when I returned, and was not seen again. Maybe just a
Brewer's, but this would be an odd place to see a Brewer's, and
certainly not breeding habitat for that species.

Continuing past Roger Lake, I was able to drive all the way to
Freezeout Pass (altitude about 6600 feet) before I encountered snow
patches in the road, which prevented further progress by my standard,
low-clearance passenger car. Someone with a high-clearance 4WD might
have been able to get even farther up Forest Road 39. I was astounded
that there was no snow on the road all the way up to Freezeout Pass.
I'm sure this road would normally be blocked by snow until sometime in
June. The low snowpack this spring does not bode well for the coming
forest fire season.

Here's a list of what I saw at Roger Lake and from there up to
Freezeout Pass on May 24:

Bufflehead 1f on Roger Lake
Spruce Grouse 1m, 1f
Wilson's Snipe 3 displaying near Roger Lake
Spotted Sandpiper 2
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Three-toed Woodpecker 2
Northern Flicker 1
Gray Jay 2
Clark's Nutcracker 4
Mountain Chickadee 4
Red-breasted Nuthatch 2
Brown Creeper 1
Winter Wren 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 10
Townsend's Solitaire 1
Swainson's Thrush 1
Hermit Thrush 8
American Robin 8
Cassin's Vireo 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler 6
Townsend's Warbler 1
Chipping Sparrow 1
Lincoln's Sparrow 2
Dark-eyed Junco 2
Rusty/Brewer's Blackbird 1f
Pine Siskin 2

I also heard 6 RED SQUIRRELS and 2 PACIFIC TREE-FROGS near the lake.

Good luck and good birding,

Wayne C. Weber
Delta, BC
contopus at telus.net