The Geography of North Central Washington

Swept by massive floods, scraped by glaciers and ice sheets, ravaged by wildfire, and manipulated by humans – these are the forces behind the formation of the land in North Central Washington. This article provides a sense of the land in North Central Washington and how it is configured to provide the habitat for the area’s wild birds. The land, and the vegetation on it, are as diverse as the birds that live here or visit seasonally.

This land was their land

The NCWAS four-county area lies on the ancestral lands of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation.

Figure 1 (below) shows a generalized map of the ancestral lands of the many Indigenous People in the four counties in the North Central Washington Audubon Society (NCWAS) area: Chelan, Douglas, Ferry, and Okanogan. The Native Land website provides an interactive view of the map. With the caveat that the map presents a simplified view, the impact is still dramatic. Every square inch of the land was occupied by Indigenous People for thousands of years. Members of these tribes exist today and carry the legacy of European colonization and disease as they work to retain and rebuild cultural values, practices, and languages. The land and water of the NCWAS four-county area provided for these Indigenous People long before Europeans took the land and changed it forever.

Geographic context

The NCWAS four-county area occupies 12,211 sq. miles (31,626 sq. km).  That is roughly seventeen percent of the state of Washington and is slightly larger than Belgium (30,689 sq. km).  Figure 2 illustrates the placement of the area within the state, bounded by Canada to the north, the Cascade Range to the west, and the Quincy basin to the south.

In the presence of escalating climate change, it is problematic to describe the climate of North Central Washington. Historically, the area experiences hot and dry summers along with cold winters. The area experiences all four seasons without the extremes felt in other parts of the United States.  

Climate factoids:

• The West is experiencing higher temperatures, lower snowpacks, drier forests and rising sea levels. (source)
• Observers in North Central Washington noted that the extreme heat (114 degrees F in Wenatchee) in June 2021 may have contributed to many failed nesting efforts throughout the area.
• There are fewer wildfires today than in the last 30 years, but today’s fires are larger and more intense. (source)
• Drought effects are commonly responsible for drying of ephemeral ponds and small streams that provide essential nesting and rearing habitat for a variety of birds.
• Birds, like the Anna’s Hummingbird, are expanding or shifting their ranges due to, at least in part, warmer temperatures.  

The Character of the Land

A shaded-relief map (Figure 3) shows a portion of the Columbia Plateau.  Several towns are shown on the map for reference. The Cascade Mountain range forms the west side of the territory. Rugged, alpine peaks punctuate the ridgeline in Chelan and Okanogan counties. The Okanogan and Columbia valleys, with moderated relief, are home to valuable agricultural crops. The north-eastern edge of the map is occupied by the Kettle Range.

The Columbia River forms approximately forty percent of the eastern boundary of the NCWAS area. The river enters from the north and flows 266 miles before leaving the NCWAS area.  River miles (RM) are the measured distances from the mouth of a river (RM 0) to a specific point along its length. The major tributaries to the Columbia River are the Wenatchee River (RM 468), the Entiat River (RM 484), the Methow River (RM 524), the Okanogan River (RM 534), and the Sanpoil River (RM 616).  Lake Chelan, the third deepest lake in the United States (1486 feet), winds to the northwest for 50-miles beginning near River Mile 505 on the Columbia River. Lake Wenatchee (2,480 acres) and Lake Chelan (33,344 acres) are the largest lakes in the four-county area. The highest elevation in the area is North Gardner Mountain in Okanogan County (8,956 feet msl). The Columbia River exits the NCWAS area in Douglas County at 598 feet elevation. Technically, the lowest elevation in the four-county area is found at the bottom of Lake Chelan. The lake is 1,486 feet deep – 386 feet below sea level – at its deepest point. The surface elevation of Lake Chelan is 1,100 feet.

Precipitation

The average annual precipitation of Washington State is shown in Figure 4. The map was prepared by the PRISM Climate Group, https://oregonstate.edu, Oregon State University.

For the 30-year period (1961-1990), precipitation in the NCWAS area varies from over 100 inches/year at the Cascade crest to less than 10 inches/year in the southern areas of Chelan and Douglas counties.

Vegetation

The native vegetation of the four-county NCWAS area varies from dense, high-elevation coniferous forests to desert shrub-steppe communities. The temperate forests contain an extensive road network in much of the area. Many areas of private and public lands have been harvested, resulting in a mix of age classes and fragmentation of native plant densities. Deciduous forests and shrub communities provide essential riparian habitats for many bird species. Much of the native shrub-steppe has been converted to agricultural crops, primarily wheat. The shrinking shrub-steppe creates a significant concern for bird and wildlife species that are dependent on large areas of native sagebrush, bitterbrush, rabbitbrush, buckwheat, and grasses.

Figure 5 shows major vegetative communities as presented on the Data Basin website. You can discover greater detail if you visit their website and zoom in to specific areas. Additionally, the US Geological Survey provides a multi-level land cover viewer.

Recognizing the value of shrub-steppe areas, Audubon Washington and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently completed a multi-year community-science project: Sagebrush Songbird Survey.  The three target species for the survey are: Sagebrush Sparrow, Sage Thrasher, and Brewer’s Sparrow. Currently, the survey results are being analyzed to develop conservation priorities. Learn more by following the link to the Sagebrush Songbird Survey website (https://www.audubon.org/magazine/summer-2019/after-five-years-sagebrush-songbird-survey-ends).

There are nearly 2,000 Important Bird Areas (IBA) in the continental United States, 61 of which are in Washington State. Three IBA are in the NCWAS four-county area: Douglas Creek, Leahy Junction-Moses Coulee, and Banks Lake Complex. These IBA contain critical habitat for many shrub-steppe bird species. You can find more detail about each area by clicking on the link in the name to be transferred to the National Audubon Society IBA site.

Fire

Wildland fire is a complex environmental and social phenomenon.  Fire has been, and will continue to be, a major factor in the lives of the birds, wildlife, and people that reside in or visit the NCWAS four-county area. Indigenous People used fire as a tool to maintain culturally important plants. Today, in a few cases, fires are allowed to burn in areas that pose little threat to humans in order to achieve historic fire patterns. Land management agencies and others are struggling to minimize the initiation, intensity, and size of fires, the majority of which are human-caused. Finger pointing at past management as a root-cause of forest stand conditions that foster fires needs to be tempered by an objective awareness that humans are increasingly moving into the forests or the interface between forests and urban/agricultural area. There is little doubt that fires today are larger and generally burn at higher intensities than previous times. Suppression forces focus mainly on protection of structures and the lives of humans and animals.

Fire occurrence and patterns on the land is complicated. Humans react viscerally to large areas that have moved from beautiful stands of trees or shrub-steppe vegetation to blackened stubs and ash-covered landscapes. However, research shows that fire intensity varies widely within a large fire area. When a fire burns intensely it can result in changes to the chemical and physical properties of soil. Approximately 20-25 percent of a large fire may burn at high intensity. Many areas that burn at lower intensity within a fire respond very quickly with new growth. Riparian communities, typically burned at moderate or low intensity, re-sprout quickly. Sagebrush communities, on the other hand, are slow to recover relative to the rate that invasive weeds find their way onto the disturbed sites. The establishment of invasive species after a fire may pose a longer duration threat to viable habitat for birds and wildlife than the fire that opened the site for weed encroachment.

Residents in The NCWAS four-county area know fire. As a new fire season begins, land managers prepare for the inevitable ignitions. Citizens brace for reduced air quality due to smoke. Spring and fall seasons are marked by attempts to create fire resistant landscapes using prescribed fires. The magnitude of the job – hundreds of thousands of acres – means that progress is slow and priority setting is extremely important.

Figure 6 shows historic fire areas within the NCWAS area. The map is not complete but creates a quick impression of the extent of fire in the area. Study of the map reveals that many areas have burned several times. The Pearl Hill (223,730 acres) and Cold Springs (178,700 acres) are shown as deep red. Habitat for sagebrush-obligate bird species like the Greater Sage-Grouse and Sharp-tailed Grouse took a real hit from these fires. Efforts are currently underway to restore sagebrush species within areas that are critical for these species.  It will be a long road to recovery.

Summary

Given the diversity of landforms, vegetation, and increasing numbers of residents in the area, bird numbers are dynamic and responsive to change. In the last six years, eBird records show that fifty four percent of the total number of species in the State of Washington have been documented in the NCWAS area. Use of eBird is increasing and researchers and citizens are looking at the data to learn about the birds in an area and to define where conservation priorities are highest. Climate change wraps over all physical processes in the area and guarantees that the future will continue to see changes in habitat as well as the birds we seek and enjoy. The physical and biological diversity of the NCWAS four-county area will evolve along with social and environmental changes. eBird is one way for all of us to monitor the changes at our local level.

If you haven’t already, consider signing up for a free eBird account at www.ebird.org. Your checklists and observations will become a valuable part of future understanding of the wild birds in north central Washington.