[birding] Good Linn Co. Cascade Birds (too long)

[M & R Campbell]

This last few days I made a hiking trip in the Jefferson/Santiam Pass area to get some birds that I hadn't yet seen in the county this year (to "pimp my list," as the young hip-hop birders say.)

On the way up, Friday (8/7), I searched the Santiam River for Harlequin Ducks.  I stopped more than twenty places between Detroit and Marion Forks, with no luck, but there were several Common Mergansers running the rapids, and dozens of AMERICAN DIPPERS enjoying the drizzle. 

The next morning (8/9), after the clouds lifted in the Eight Lakes Basin, I found two BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKERS by Blue Lake, and later, in sunshine, two THREE-TOED WOODPECKERS at Jorn Lake.  RED CROSSBILL, GRAY JAY, TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE, CLARK'S NUTCRACKER, MOUNTAIN CHICKADEE, and NASHVILLE WARBLER were all FOY for me, and there were the usual suspects: McGillivray's, Townsend's, and Hermit Warblers, Dammond's Flycatchers, hundreds of Red-breasted Nuthatches, etc.  (Much of the Eight Lakes Basin burned in the B&B fire several years ago, so dead trees surround many of the lakes, making attractive woodpecker habitat.  There is a large unburned area, though, that is forest broken by many small meadows--an ideal mixed habitat for birds.  In the last few years I've found both species of three-toed woodpeckers in the basin, as well as Rock Wren and Cassin's Finch--two species that I missed this time.  The walk in is only 6+ miles, so birders willing to get an early start could make a day trip out of it.  A bonus: since the burn, the area seems to have fewer human visitors.)

Sunday morning (8/10), on the way up toward Three Fingered Jack, I found two more Black-backed Woodpeckers, and a female MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD feeding two fledglings.  I climbed the north ridge of TFJ above the Pacific Crest Trail to get a good vantage of the north face.  After about 30 minutes I heard and saw a flock of some 25 small birds rise from farther up the ridge and fly across the cliff face to the east side, acting and sounding like GRAY-CROWNED ROSY FINCHES.  I climbed to the knob at 7300 feet and, after another half-hour, a smaller flock of gray and brown and just-a-little-bit rosy birds flew by below me, from the west side, and over to the cliff face.  (I had looked for them before, on Mount Jefferson, but the shaded, northern cliffs of TFJ are a better bet for this bird. While I was there, none of the finches dropped below 6800 feet, so the north ridge might be a better choice for seeing them than Canyon Creek Meadows far below.  From Santiam Pass it's 7+ miles to the north ridge, and then a scramble up, but, it's a plausible day hike for the early riser.  The views from the north ridge are worth it, even if you miss the finches.)

Farther south, in the burn north of Santiam Pass, I finally figured out that the flocks of little-brown-jobs that kept buzzing past far overhead were Pine Siskins.  On the trail north of Big Lake I found three more Black-backed Woodpeckers. I walked around the lake hoping to find some early migrants, but found only one possible, distant, Solitary Sandpiper and a lot of motor boats.  The area seems to be great habitat for lazy yobs who like to make noise and go fast, but for me it was a waste of time and energy.  (A better choice would have been to head east and look for the exotics Steve Shunk keeps on that side of the mountains.)  Late Sunday night, near Lower Berley Lake, I thought I might have heard the rough purr of a Barred Owl, but then I decided that it must have been a semi-tractor engine-braking down from the pass, more than two miles away.

Monday morning (8/11), I found two more Black-backed woodpeckers near Lower Berley Lake.  Later, while I was sitting trailside in the meadow above Santiam Lake, an elegant, gray GOSHAWK blew through.  After I hiked to the trailhead, I had another chance to look for a Rock Wren in the clearcuts near Big Meadows, but I wimped out. (Instead, I'm going to sit on my back deck with a beverage in hand and hope for a miracle.)  

That afternoon I birded Lava Lake, hoping to find some Sandhill Cranes--which didn't fly over our house this year.  (Lava Lake--the one near Santiam Pass--is a large seasonal lake that sits on a lava pan.  As far as I know, it doesn't usually get more than a few feet deep, and it almost dries out in the summer, leaving a bed of grasses, sedges, rushes, hardhack, ceanothes, and a lot of other stuff I can't identify.  Cranes have nested there in the past.)  I didn't hear any cranes, but the vegetation is tall enough to hide even a large bird like a crane, so I tromped out and around most of the lake bed, searching.  One small pond still remained out in the center, surround by a maze of small streams that meander around until they finally sink into the ground somewhere beneath the vegetation.  It's nesting habitat for thousands of the small birds you might expect--Lazuli Buntings, Common Yellowthroats, and Lincoln Sparrows were the one's I noticed most often that afternoon.  An unexpected RED-SHOULDERED HAWK perched above the margins.  But no Cranes.  That night I camped above the north end of the lake in a stand of old-growth fir, hoping for some kind of owl.  Before sundown, though, what I heard were the distinctive calls of agitated SANDHILL CRANES--either that, or it was flocks of turkeys and Canada Geese trying to strangle each other.  By the time I got down to the lake, the Cranes were quiet, again, and hidden, but three elk had taken over the center of the marsh.  Finally, before dark, after four fatuous nights of trying out my spotted owl imitations--my imitations of their hooting, that is--a BARRED OWL responded.  It didn't come to murder me, though, so I only heard it.
  
Ground fog covered the lake Tuesday morning, so I never got to actually see the Cranes, either.  But the big miss of the trip was Harlequin Duck, even after many more stops to search the river on my way down from the mountains.  I got home by dinnertime, ready to sit on the porch with beverage in hand.


Randy

Peoria



Every bird mentioned in this post was found, or not, using only human power.
(230 miles by bike, 47+ miles on foot.)




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