Spent Wednesday afternoon over in eastern Klickitat County traveling the plowed roads in the uplands, some only opened one lane wide due the depth of drifted snow. (The main routes were opened a full two lanes wide.)
Lots of Horned Lark flocks in the stubble fields where the wind had blown them free of snow. Saw MERLIN, PRAIRIE FALCON and PEREGRINE Falcon along the East Road from Hoot-n-Holler Museum on down south to the Middle Road intersection. Also Rough-legged and Red-tailed Hawks and a COOPER'S HAWK. On Dot Road we had the first two species on the way up and an AMERICAN KESTREL (and more); later, 3 or 4 falcons streaking away as we retreated south in the evening. These were below Cleveland (the hamlet where the Alder Creek Rodeo is held, and where we left 3 or 4 feet of snow in the pines of the draw there for the windswept uplands to the south, and the huge, roadside piles from the drifted snow. We felt this was a rather large number of falcon sightings; and of course we were here again, another year, between about 3 pm and 5 pm. Is this the time to see them? Or was it just that we were there at the same time of day again, and again we saw them? It was about 5 pm when we turned south heading for SR 14 down on the Columbia River, and immediately began seeing streaking falcons one after another. Wow! Once the road began dropping down from the uplands, near the last of the giant wind turbines, we were quickly out of the roadside snow.
Earlier we had found it hard to believe the 4 LEWIS' WOODPECKERS in the snowy setting east of Cleveland on the Goldendale-Bickleton Road. Weren't these a fair-weather bird of the summer season? Guess not! These were sighted near a ranch with a good stand of oak trees nearby. Gosh, what a photographic setting. But, too much contrast for me to even attempt a photo!
BLUEBIRDS: In addition to looking for raptors, by traveling up and down Dot Road and down Matsen and East Road and up the Middle Road-Hooker Rd-Naught Rd, we looked over some roads east of Bickleton where we we told there were Mtn. Bluebirds on the fences around the nest boxes. We could only find HORNED LARKS and some we did find, were found perching on fencing near the Bluebird nest boxes. Some of what we were told appeared to be correct. Slowing down and risking getting bogged down in the soft gravel we discerned that the 4-WD switch was wonderful and the birds were definitely not Mtn Bluebirds. But hey, we had them, MTN. BLUEBIRDS - not quite in Bickleton, on the 13th, but we did find four (4) of them down towards the middle Road intersection with East Road.
A rancher we met early in the day near Old Hwy 8 and Dot Rd. told us of a BALD EAGLE that was feeding on a coyote. It was on the hill back of the feedlot, and darned if it didn't come flying over, much to his delight, as he pointed it out to us, the birders. An accipiter had the sparrows and blackbirds lying low when we arrived, but after it fled our prying eyes and binoculars, we had both types in abundance with good views. Nothing unusual, just fine plumaged birds out in the sun. A RED-TAILED HAWK came down the draw circling and the rancher again called him to our attention before we'd picked him up. Nice! He said there was one other kind of hawk around that he couldn't recall the name for. Up Dot Rd. a piece from the ranch we watched a large covey of California Quail. No hawks overhead now!
Up beyond the wind turbine generators we encountered what we thought might be the first Mtn Bluebird, but after considering what we'd seen, settled on it being a TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE and it wasn't coming out of the lone scrub juniper! Not out into the wide open snowscape with widely scattered patches of protruding grassland and a very distant treeline. It would be a few hours later and we'd know why it had every reason to be wary.
Marveling at the natural world (and not the dams or wind turbines),
--- John & L.S. Allinger - Birding Trip in eastern Klickitat County
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