Go East to Go West: The Wallowas, Part 1

In the two years we've spent traveling around Oregon, there remained one big corner of the map left unexplored: the northeastern portion of the state, along our shared border with Idaho. This area is justifiably famous for its beautiful mountains, and Travel Oregon considers the Wallowas one of our "7 Wonders". The funny thing about Oregon is that the farther east you travel, the more it feels like "the West", and, in fact, several Westerns were filmed out that way, including Paint Your Wagon. But this wasn't a movie tour trip (that will have to wait until Astoria, e.g. The Goonies, Point Break, Kindergarten Cop). There were lots of birds on our list, starting with a quick stop in La Grande for Great Gray Owls.

The owls are known to nest every year in the Wallowa-Whiteman National Forest in the Spring Creek area. Spoiler alert: we didn't find any, but there were plenty of beautiful wildflowers to entertain us, along with Variable Checkerspots to pollinate them. After promising ourselves we'd be back for the Great Grays next year, we explored the larger La Grande area where we picked up awesome year birds like Western Kingbirds, and nesting Bank Swallows.

Variable Checkerspot

The lush meadows of Wallowa-Whitman NF, chock-full of wildflowers

Large-flowered triteleia (Howell's triteleia) Triteleia grandiflora

Western Kingbird

Bank Swallow colony

The Wallowas are a legit mountain range; probably the first I've seen in America. The Cascades have some great standalone behemoths, like Mt. Hood, Mt. Ranier, Mount St. Helens, and others, but to see several peaks contiguous with one another, all pushed together shoulder-to-shoulder, was a new experience altogether. Definitely deserving of the "Wonder" moniker. We set up camp at our home for the next few days, at Wallowa Lake SP.

Behold: the Wallowas!

We woke up a tad before 5:00 a.m. to the irregular drumming of a sapsucker against a nearby utility pole. This would be a lifer if only we could stir ourselves out of the tent quickly enough to confirm that it was, as we suspected, one of the Red-napeds that breed in the park grounds. We weren't quick enough this time around, but he would return shortly to repeat the circuit around his territory. His drumming post of choice was a wooden utility pole, and the sapsucker went straight for a big crack where he'd get the best reverberation. 

Red-naped Sapsucker

Our first destination for the day was the town of Enterprise, where we picked up some good birds at the local Wildlife Management Area. According the eBird, our best find was a flyover Great Egret - strangely, the first time it ever occurred to me that they're range doesn't extend everywhere. Better birds, in my own opinion, were the two fledgling magpies sitting just off the ground. There were also a good number of Bank Swallows nesting near the water, and California Quail overrunning the yard across the street, where they perched on and walked all over the mailbox, light fixtures, fences, etc. They were in total command.

Fledgling Black-billed Magpie

Bank Swallow

Cedar Waxwing

California Quail

We stopped at McCully Creek, which is reportedly one of the best places around for Spruce Grouse. It was already past noon by the time we started, and was mostly quiet as a result, except for the quick-three-beers of some Olive-sided Flycatchers that we could hear well, but weren't able to track down.

Warbling Vireo

Pacific Forktail

We did, however, hit the jackpot for butterflies, especially a group of hairstreaks with which we were previously unacquainted: the elfins. We quickly picked up Hoary, Brown, and Western Pine Elfins, along with Green Comma, Juba Skipper, and a flyby Stella Orangetip. We've still never seen an orangetip, any orangetip, sit still for even a moment.

Hoary Elfin

Western Pine Elfin

Brown Elfin

Green Comma

Juba Skipper

Back at Wallowa Lake SP, the river that cuts through the park was chock full of American Dippers and Spotted Sandpipers. Maureen and I are so popular with these birds, that they literally lined up for us to see them! One sandpiper was so excited it couldn't figure out whether it wanted to preen or wiggle its butt.

Spotted Sandpiper (front) and American Dipper

Solo Birding, or An Easy-to-Swallow Outing to Ankeny NWR

Last weekend Maureen had to travel to San Diego for a conference, leaving me to figure what to do with myself for a few days. Saturday, I thought I'd venture out and take some macro shots, hoping the weather would cooperate. But at every point during the day, it threatened to rain. I'd been keeping myself cooped up for fear the storm clouds would break open, but at a certain point I just got tired of waiting, so late in the day I headed down to Ankeny NWR to take my chances.

A sinister-looking Brewer's Blackbird greeted me in the parking lot

Northern Flicker

Ankeny's mostly off-limits between October and March to give "Dusky" Canada Geese and other waterfowl undisturbed wintering habitat. With spotting scope you can scan a good portion of the area from the parking lots, but Pintail Marsh also has a 1.8 mile loop trail and it's been ages since we've been able to walk it. A couple of times since it's opened back up, we've taken short trips after work and checked in some of the willows along the trailhead without getting very far. I hadn't expected to get far this time either, but the birds kept drawing me in.

Red-winged Blackbird

Savannah Sparrow

By far the most active were the Yellow-rumped Warblers. Both the "Myrtle" and "Audubon's" Yellow-rumps are sporting their fancy breeding costumes and flycatching left and right. "Myrtle" seem like they're outnumbering their brighter, fancier-looking brothers and sisters right now, which is still surprising to an easterner like me who thought we were swapping Myrtles for Audubon's when we moved out here. Maureen's been waiting and hoping for a handsome male Audubon's to show off for her, but so far hasn't found any cooperative volunteers. But the minute she leaves town, this happens… and with her own camera no less.

"Audubon's" Yellow-rumped Warbler

"Myrtle" Yellow-rumped Warbler

A gentle warbling emerged from the same willows where the Yellow-rumps were frolicking. Even if it was more shy than the warblers, it was great to see my first Warbling Vireo of the year. Other FOYs included Yellow and Wilson's Warblers, and Yellow-headed Blackbirds. At around this same point in the trail as the vireo I noticed the damselflies were swarming a certain kind of grassy seed heads. One of them let me get close enough to snap a photo with my macro.

Warbling Vireo

Bushtit

Least Sandpiper

The other major source of activity was the swallows. From the parking lot, you can see them swirling around and around over a cluster of snags, occasionally landing on them in tight groups. Now that I was able to get farther along the trail, I came across a nesting box complex, and the Tree Swallows were getting to work.

It was mostly Tree Swallows I should say, but there was at least one Violet-green getting ready to nest, and, as you can see, we were fast friends. Cliff and Barn Swallows are also making their way to Ankeny, although the Cliffs are likely to nest in other parts of the refuge, where there are structures for them to build on.

Violet-green Swallow

While the swallows and other songbirds are preparing their nests and pairing off, the Canada Geese are already busy raising their first brood. I'm pretty sure these were the first baby birds either of us have seen so far this year. Lets home some of these little guys survive the inevitable onslaught of the eagles, harriers, red-tails, and other raptors that use the marsh as their hunting grounds. Good luck, little ones.

Canada Goose family

Red-tailed Hawk

Birding in NYC: Central Park

Just this past May, Nick and I had the absolute pleasure of visiting New York City for a friend's wedding, and we, of course, had to bird one of the greatest urban birding spots - Central Park! Our trip started out a *bit* rough. We drove 2 hours north to the Charleston, SC airport to be 2.5 hours early for our flight only to be told 30 minutes before boarding that our flight was cancelled! Another flight to NYC was also cancelled, which left Nick and I scrambling like a scene from a movie trying every airline counter to see if anyone had any way of getting us to NYC that day. Well, that wasn't going to happen. The only flight that may have gotten us there would have us land around 11pm. So what does this pair of crazies do? We decide to drive up to the Big Apple since we would end up there at the same time, while avoiding having to pay for a whole new ticket, and going for one heck of a long road trip. Life's always an adventure with us two! 

Central Park Scenery

William Shakespeare Statue in Central Park

So when we finally get to the city, we waste no time in getting up early, getting a hearty breakfast at the famous Carnegie Deli, and trekking out to Central Park. The weather was not ideal - it was very gray and cloudy, and did end up raining later that day. But we made the most of it and hit up the Ramble, an area in Central Park well known for great birding. It did take us a while to make our way to the Ramble as we kept getting distracted by any flitting we saw. This wasn't our first time to the City, but it was our first time there together as birders, and we didn't want to miss any county, state, or life birds!

Cool Fungus

Pretty White flowers

The Ramble did not disappoint! We were charmed by the sweet songs and great, long looks at our lifer Warbling Vireo. He was quite the performer and delighted us for a good while. Nearby our avian crooner was a Baltimore Oriole that went back and forth from a nest that kept it well-hidden once it was in there.

Warbling Vireo

Warbling Vireo singing

Notice the black crown of the Baltimore Oriole poking out at the top of its nest

Oh, and the Warblers! Definitely most birders' favorite birds to search for, these little beauties were so bright and bold in their breeding plumage - something we almost never saw while living in South Florida, and something that's still pretty uncommon for us to see in Savannah. The Yellow Warblers were so yellow, the Blackpoll Warblers had such bold black caps and streaks, and the Chestnut-Sided Warblers just screamed with beauty with their yellow caps, black war paint on their faces, and just good ole chestnutty goodness.

Female Blackpoll Warbler (the males didn't want to pose)

Another look at a Female Blackpoll Warbler

Female Common Yellowthroat

A not-so great pic of a Chestnut-sided Warbler, but you can tell how handsome he is

Another look at this handsome Chestnut-sided Warbler

Even the birds that we've seen down in the Southeast seemed even lovelier up there. The Cardinals were redder. The Gadwalls were in close proximity to allow for better looks. And we even had amazing look at Cedar Waxwings, which had been all over Savannah for all spring and in early summer. We actually had a very intimate look at what seemed to be a little courtship ritual between a pair of waxwings. One of them collected a small, juicy berry and passed it to the other. Then they proceeded to pass the berry back and forth to each other a few more times before one of them ate it. It was very sweet and endearing and a behavior that we hadn't witnessed before. I could just hear them speaking to each other in French accents, "Here you go, mon cheri. A sweet berry for my sweet berry. Oh no, mon amour. Please, I insist you take it."

Back...

And forth...

And Back.

Over the several days of our trip, we made it to Central Park as much as possible and enjoyed so many lovely birds and all of the spring flowers, and even the dark morph of the gray squirrel which I have only seen in the Northeast. We only wished that we could have stayed longer on our last day to enjoy the sunshine that had finally decided to make an appearance. But alas, we had to make the 14 hour drive back home. One of our mornings we did spend in the famous Jamaica Bay, but that'll have to wait for another post!