Hi Tweeterdom - Inspired by the forecast for nice weather Monday, and needing respite from pre-election hype, Kathleen and I headed east Monday morning to try to see the Ross's Goose reported by Deb Essman on the outskirts of Ellensburg. If that sighting was easy (it was!), our plan was to drive up Umtanum Rd and over to Wenas to see what the aftermath of the Evans Canyon fire in early September looked like. For many years, this drive has been a highlight of our spring birding and flower seeking. From the flat agricultural bench west of the Yakima River, the road winds up through a narrow ravine with a few nice groves of trees and shrubs that are excellent for warblers, Lazuli Bunting, and many other species in May and June. Near the top of this ravine, Durr Road spurs off to the left into good sage steppe habitat with dry wheat land. The fire did not affect this north end of Durr Road, but though we didn't go over the first hill crest on that road, we surmise by the fire maps and what we saw elsewhere that the fire was quite thorough in raging through that sage land. The first sign of the fire was in distant views of Umtanum Ridge to the south of the road, but soon after the last houses in Kittitas Co. the fire had burned right to the road edge. Farther west along the road where it descends toward Umtanum Creek and the Falls trail, it burned both sides of the road and appeared to have killed most of the few large ponderosa pines scattered over the landscape. A larger grove of pines, willow and aspen where a spring emerges (sometimes flowing over the road) was mostly burned but a few of the larger ponderosas and some of the aspen may be viable. Two BC Chickadees were the only birds we detected in this usually birdy place. In scanning the landscape, there appeared to be few patches of unburned sage or grasses in this area. At the Falls trailhead, most of the dense shrubbery was burned along with many larger aspen, cottonwood and pines. The trail had been cleared of fallen trees but some had fallen since the trail crew went through. The south side of the Umtanum Cr. ravine was mostly burned by ground fire and many of the larger pine and aspen seemed to have survived. We heard a woodpecker and saw a couple of Steller's Jays here. On up the valley along the creek, the road was burned on both sides until where the ponderosa get a little more frequent and a few mountain homes and ranches begin. Somehow the fire had not moved this far west and we were relieved to find that some of our favorite pine groves to find species like White-headed and Lewis' woodpeckers, were unscathed. This included the area around Kindle Rd. (private), and Observatory Road. Umtanum Road (now No. Wenas Rd.) was then unscathed down to the junction with Audubon Rd. and Maloy Rd. Note: Deer hunters were remarkably abundant, creating more traffic that we've ever seen on the route, even on sunny May weekends. Maloy Road was unburned up to the horse camp, although fire was evident on the ridge to the east. Down Wenas Rd. toward the lake, we soon encountered burned areas, first mostly just down the slope to Wenas Creek but then crossing the creek and the road. As reported earlier, Hardy Canyon was particularly hard hit. Remarkably we didn't see any burned houses, although we may have missed some; we've always been very impressed with how well fire fighters (and home owners) seem to be able to protect the majority of houses from fire. West of Wenas Lake, the fire was mostly visible on the north side of the road and huge pink stripes of fire retardant were evident and likely stopped the fire from burning back to houses along Wenas Rd. From Selah, we went up the Canyon Rd (SR 821). The higher hills west of the river began to show fire somewhere around the Kittitas Co. line, with blackened areas gradually working lower, down to the rail line that parallels the river. At the lower Umtanum Cr. trail head, the fire had burned both sides of the creek valley as far up (west) as we could see from near the rail line. The suspension bridge and vegetation between the rail line and the river were intact, but most of the shrubbery, loved by Yellow-breasted Chat along the lower trail, was gone. On up the canyon, the fire persisted down to the rail line but the riparian vegetation on the west bank was mostly intact. Soooo...it'll be interesting, but probably sad, to do our usual spring trip up there. I'm particularly interested to see what flowers show up in the burned sage lands, and how many of the usual diversity of birds show up along the Umtanum Falls trail. Happy Birding! - Jon Houghton, Edmonds
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