Post by Jon on Jun 22, 2023 20:57:46 GMT -8
2 weeks ago Ben and I were talking about how we should go visit Paul in the Cariboo seeing as the birding here was getting a bit on the slow side.
So we contacted Paul, who responded quickly despite the fact that I had the wrong number. Paul did most of the plan making based on the couple potential lifers we were hoping for.
Looking at the weather forecast didn't look promising but we went for last weekend regardless. Ben arranged the snacks and food so I had the easy job of just taking myself along
We drove up Thursday afternoon. It's about a 4.5 hour drive to where we were going to stay outside 100 mile house, and we left at 4pm.
Since we were so late and because we were potentially going to try for owls that night we made a minimal number of stops. First we stopped at Clinton Sewage Lagoons, which had a nice assortment of ducks. Within the four minutes there, we racked up a pretty good tally of birds.
Otherwise the only other stop on the way up was along the road by Loch Lamond. There was not much here (though there were a few Redhead) due to the water being higher than other years (as per Paul).
We made it up as dusk was falling. We stayed right by Hathaway Lake and could hear Loons and saw an Osprey and imm Bald Eagle. With Paul we checked out the nearby Mtn Spruce park to listen if we might hear a Bittern in the marsh. Is was getting fairly dark and it was pretty tough to see things. A Wood Duck was surprisingly hard to ID. No Bittern was heard.
Owling was postponed since Paul had been up since 3am and we'd be looking a distance away for our owls (and you want to be after dark which is about 10pm). Instead we went for an "early" night and checked the park mentioned before. I slept pretty poorly, asleep a bit after 10 and up at 4am. Ben got up before me while I tried to get a bit more rest. He started birding around the cabin and I joined him ~30 mins later, and we birded down the road along the lake. Paul had told us we could find Magnolia Warbler here, and we did. We had a total of 7 warbler species, but missed Common Yellowthroat. Pretty much no ducks (it's "a loon lake") but quite a lot of different passerine species. It did rain a bit, and picked up when we were at our furthest point so we got kinda wet.
We birded our way back towards 100 mile, as we planned to meet up with Paul later; stopping first at the same Mtn Spruce Park. But, in the fresh morning we saw far more birds including a Calliope Hummingbird, Am. Three-toed Woodpecker, Wilson's Warbler and Common Yellowthroat. A Crane and Sora were also nice to hear. Slight amount of rain, but not so bad.
I saw a nice pond along the road and we made a quick stop. Here we had a pair Solitary Sandpiper, Killdeer, nesting Hairy Woodpecker (which have far more white than the Hairy's we see here in the valley) and Red-naped Sapsuckers. Along the road a bit further we saw 2 cranes, but couldn't detect a young bird (if there even was one)
Hairy woodpecker bringing it's young breakfast. Pretty much all photos are Ben's
Next stop was the East End of Horse Lake, where we had our first Veery, the only gull of the trip also seen here flying over. It was dry by now and we also had swallows out on the lake. The west end had Killdeer, a few species of waterfowl, kingfisher, Yellow-headed & Red-winged Blackbird and 4 Black Terns. The spot here is pretty much right along the main road where cars zip past at 80kmph, so not the best for enjoyability or hearing things.
Killdeer not pleased to see us
Then we were in 100 mile, and went to the 100 mile marsh right off the highway, where we had more Black Tern, a good number of swallows, and a Barrow's Goldeneye family.
Surprisingly hard to get a picture of these guys, I had a time when one was very close to me, but because the camera didn't want to focus on it I missed the opportunity.
By now we were hungry, and we also didn't have water where we were staying, so needed to stop somewhere. We went for A&W which wasn't really cheap, but sure tasted good since the cheap option was to eat some bread with knock-off nutella. We filled our water here, which is good. We had about 30 mins before we'd meet with Paul, so we quickly went to a local Park but had only a few minutes here in the heat of the day so I'm not sure what all could've been... Our only Pileated Woodpecker (in the Cariboo region) for the trip was here.
Now we met with Paul and went out west of 108 mile to look for Black-backed Woodpecker. We started with the "less-good" road / burn-patches for them. A bit of walking, a bit of driving, a bit more walking, driving, etc. Ben then spotted what looked good for a Black-backed, but it flew before I could get a view (did get a glimpse). A bit further down the road and we had good looks of an entirely black-backed woodpecker which otherwise looked similar to a Three-toed. A female bird which had flown directly over my head and perched on a nearby trunk. We didn't bring the camera while walking which I now regret, but it was fantastic to finally see this bird. When we were still looking for the Black-backed we'd stumbled upon an alarmed grouse, which was a Ruffed Grouse with at least 1 chick, but we didn't see much of them.
Leaving the burn we stopped at a nice little pond where we got a good assortment of birds, and a glimpse of an all dark woodpecker (dark back, tail, and wings) flying away -- so another Black-backed! Blue-winged Teal pair was nice to see, and an Alder Flycatcher sang from a distant perch.
Driving further we made our way to Walker Valley. At Walker Valley we walked quite a bit. The weather looked suspect, but we went for it anyways. It's a nice area with a large assortment of ducks on the lake and also a good number of passerines. Nesting Eared Grebes were cool to see, as was a Wilson's Phalarope, a hen Redhead with chicks, and a Sapsucker making trips to feed it's young. The area there is nice because you also get grassland birds like Meadowlarks, Clay-colored Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow, and Mountain Bluebird. We also managed to get two Rock Pigeons which were new for Paul's Walker Valley list
While we were still heading to the best lookout of the lake, the clouds decided they'd let us have some rain. The rain there is quite hard, and you can hear it coming, so we sheltered in the trees, and waited the first batch of rain out. Then kept going. However the rain came back repeatedly, and progress was slow. We finally decided we'd just turn around from there as we'd already had a decent scope of the lake. On the way back it seemed like we'd be dry, but when we were about 10 minutes out it poured and we got significantly damp.
Sapsucker leaving it's nest cavity. They come and go quite frequently
The plan was to make our way north as for owling we'd want to be near William's Lake. So we drove about an hour till we got to Mission Road. This road is a nice and calm route that goes though various grassland and riparian habitat. Right away we had a nice surprise of a number of Long-billed Curlew! They were fairly near the road, and you could tell they were hot in the sun as they had their beaks open. We also had some Bobolink and Gray Catbird here. Mountain Bluebirds, sparrows, kingbirds were spotted. A Robin was though to maybe be a Western Kingbird at one point, so we then joked that it was a king Robin and later Robins were called Kingrobins. The road is long enough that we split it up into a second checklist. eBird apparently likes things to be under 8km. On the second half we picked up Red-tailed Hawk, a Harrier, a lone Pelican in flight, Mourning Dove, a pile of flycatchers, swallows, sparrows, blackbirds, and warblers [and a few more things
].
Curlew lovin' the heat
Then we went for a bite to eat in Williams Lake. Made a stop at Scout Island, but decided that it might be more productive to just have a quick check and then go bird further north before it got dark, with a hope of potentially seeing a White-throated Swift or maybe a Rock Wren. In the 13 minutes there, we did have Red-necked Grebe and 4 more Pelicans. Also had our only House Finch of the trip.
So, we headed up to Moon Road, which goes along a canyon and down into a bit of grassland. Birds of interest here were a heard-only and later a different seen Dusky Grouse. A singing Cassin's Finch, a heard-only Say's Phoebe, some Spotted Towhee including a young bird that had me confused, and a boat load of Vesper and Chipping Sparrows & Meadowlarks. We checked the canyon for swifts to no avail, and as dusk fell we had our first booming Common Nighthawk.
Dark fell and we started listening intently for Poorwill and Owls. We heard more nighthawks booming, and then "peent"ing. Right at about 10 past 10 we had our first Poorwill singing. A very distinctive and beautiful song. I got up from laying on the road, and we headed to the better area for owls. Along the road we had our first view of a Poorwill in the form of red/orange shining eyes. We got to watch it moth in it's floppy manner a few times, but as we got closer it flew off. Then driving down the road Ben shouted that he saw an owl fly past. Fortunately it alighted in a tree right in front of us, and we could see it in the dim light. No shine in these dark eyes made it a Flammulated Owl. It flew off and we saw it fly past 1 more time. We went further and came upon another Poorwill on the road. This one was unfazed by the car, and allowed us to get very close. Despite the car lights still had to have the camera ISO cranked way up, but some pics turned out quite good.
Dusky Grouse. Ben spotted this one after stopping us to check a Vesper Sparrow or a Meadowlark or something.
The friendly poorwill.
By now we were very tired and still had about 1.8 hours to drive back. So zipped down the road, and made it to the cabin past midnight. Slept better this night, and got up at 8am. We headed back west again towards 100 mile, stopping more briefly at most of the spots we'd stopped earlier, but skipped Mtn Spruce.
Cedar Waxwings
Reaching 100 mile house, we went and checked the sewage lagoons, which had a nice variety of waterfowl, swallows, and passerines.
We then went up to the place we planned to meet with Paul again, and checked for birds at the ponds right near the highway. Here we had another Redhead with chicks. The guy who owns the land there came to ask us if we had been some of the people who had gone out in waders into his pond the night before to take pictures. We let him know that it wasn't us. I'm surprised that people would do that though as the pond has barbed wire, and photos in the dark usually don't turn out so great. There were lots of Yellow-headed Blackbird here, Ruddy Duck, and also an Eared Grebe.
A black bird with a yellow head
Eared Grebe
Paul drove up as we finished checking the ponds, and we headed out east down Hendrix Road to try for both Spruce Grouse and the three potential "eastern" warblers: Blackpoll, Magnolia, and Tennessee. Stopping at multiple spots along the road, the birds of interest were Magnolia Warbler and a Red-breasted Sapsucker. Further up the road was more of things we'd seen already this trip and a heard White-winged Crossbill. Alder Flycatcher at a loon lake, which also had an entertaining Gray Catbird making imitation calls, and some loons upset by the Bald Eagle. Further we had a Spruce Grouse and a calling Pacific Wren. We also heard a Chestnut-backed Chickadee along this stretch. Apparently a good bird for the region, as there are only a few places where you need to go if you want to see one. Taking a different road down a bit we had views of White-winged Crossbill and heard another wren and Varied Thrush. Finally starting up the way to Big Timothy Mountain, where we hoped for Boreal Chickadee and Tennessee warbler, we were stopped short by the condition of the road -- a giant chasm had been created by water, and even a 4x4 truck probably wouldn't be able to make it.
Young Spruce Grouse. They look quite funny when they try to run as they stretch a bit and flap their little wings.
Mama Grouse
Now the weather had turned a bit depressing, and maybe due to being still quite tired (plus getting confused by the clock in Paul's car) we just went for the no stopping maneuver, so didn't see much. A bit of a shame since it's quite a long drive, and I hear we passed some good spots. Nevertheless, we did get the Spruce Grouse which was a lifer for Ben, and some regional difficult birds (sapsucker & chickadee). Once back in town, there was a serious storm brewing and we saw lightning. We thanked Paul and started on the way home. The storm dropped heavy raindrops, and further up the road we had some difficulty as there a dense layer of hail made the road slick. Passing back south we had to pick our stops carefully as we didn't have lots of time.
First up was Chasm, to try and snag a White-throated Swift for the trip list. This we managed to do with a single bird flying above the horizon. 4 mile lake made for a quick stop, plus we made it to #2 on the eBird hotspot list, and had our second Pileated Woodpecker. Heading south we wanted to get my lifer Chukar. Ben had recently gotten his. So we went down a road near Ashcroft hoping to catch one as it crossed the road, or magically spot one in the sage. We didn't. But here we did have Black-chinned Hummingbird, Lazuli Bunting, and a Lark Sparrow. A little disappointed by the lack of Chukar (we looked about an hour), driving back to Ashcroft we got lucky with one crossing the road. Then another. And looking on the left there was a pile of dirt in an area that must be for livestock, and there were quite a few more birds. Mostly young ones. They all fled the scene flying across the road and disappearing in the sage. We couldn't spot them in there despite knowing they were around...
Chukar sure were skittish
Just before getting back in the valley we also managed a Steller's Jay and a White-crowned Sparrow.
All-in-all it was quite a fantastic trip, albeit a bit rushed. A big thanks to Paul for taking us and showing us birds, we had a blast
Here's the full list of birds: ebird.org/tripreport/139369
Thanks for reading!
