Here’s something we did not experience this survey season… fog. 

When we started driving the Winter Raptor surveys in 2019, we ran two surveys each month, March through November, for a total of ten surveys per season. Occasionally, we would head out to drive towards the start of our survey route, only to find when we got there, or even before, that the fog was so thick we couldn’t see across the road.  Much less see any raptors (See photo above from a previous year).

This year, we added an additional route, for a total of 15 separate surveys for the season, and did not once encounter fog! Yippee! That made us very happy! Rather surprised… but very happy. There’s nothing like driving 60 miles to the start of your route only to find you can’t see across the road and have to go back home to try it another day. We are very thankful that did not happen this year!

This was the last survey for the 2021/2022 winter survey season. It’s obvious that the seasons are changing. The small islands located in the Grand Coulee lake chain are covered with gulls.

The snow is gone, the hills are turning green, the birds are providing aerial acrobatics, and we found only one Rough-legged Hawk. 

Highway 17 going north through Grand Coulee saw a lot more activity than in previous trips, and that included vehicular traffic! Everyone was on the road, and everyone was in a hurry! Fortunately, the road through the Coulee has lots of pull outs and places you can stop. I think we used them all.

Between SR 17 and US 2, we saw eight Red-tailed Hawks, six of them in pairs.  At the north end of Soap Lake we saw a pair of Falcons flipping and turning high above us. They were too fast to get a picture or a good enough look to positively identify them. But they definitely had the angular, pointed wings and checkerboard underwings of a member of the falcon family. Along Park Lake an adult Bald Eagle watched our every move.

As we headed east across the Dry Falls Dam, we were surprised to still see ice along the edges of Banks Lake. We found a funny Canada Goose stepping along the ice like he was afraid of falling.

The last 30 miles south of Hartline yielded zero birds. It’s what seems like endless miles of agricultural land. No trees. No grassland. No shrubbery. And no birds. Even sitting and watching the trees and equipment surrounding the occasional farmyards for a length of time, didn’t yield any resident raptors. We were hoping for maybe a Kestrel or two. If they were there, they didn’t show.

We did drive close to the abandoned farm that is a couple miles south of Highway 2, looking for the Great Horned Owls that nest there. We know they are there, but since we didn’t actually see them this time, we couldn’t count them.

This wraps it up for the 2021/2022 winter raptor survey season for us. There are still routes available if you are interested in participating next season. For information, contact Jeff Fleischer at raptorrunner97321@yahoo.com

Here is a summary of what was seen:

Red-tailed Hawk 10
American Kestrel 1
Northern Harrier 1
Bald Eagle – Adult 1
Rough-legged Hawk 1
Unidentified Buteo 1
Unidentified Falcon 2

Winter has definitely left the building.

Spring is assuredly on the way and the snow is gone. The Red-winged Blackbirds and Meadow Larks have arrived.  However, Penny Lake is still covered in ice, although it is thinning. Where Foster Creek runs into Penny Lake there are probably 200 to 300 Northern Pintails sitting, waiting for the lake to open. Among all of the Pintails, I spotted two Tundra Swans, easily identified by the yellow spot at the base of the bill, beneath the eye. Likewise, Bennett Lake is still frozen over, except for the northern end where the ice has melted. It also has good sized population of ducks, but they were too far away for me to identify.

I hoped to see the Golden Eagle that nests in the basalt cliffs behind Bennett Lake, but it didn’t show today. I was looking along the cave like openings in the basalt and thought I saw a Falcon sitting in one of the caves! I snapped some pictures with my camera, but when I got home and looked at them I could see it was just another “hawk rock,” though I suppose in this case it would have to be called a “falcon rock.”

The number and variety of raptors certainly does change from month to month. On today’s survey there was only one Red-tailed Hawk, and one male Northern Harrier. I thought perhaps all of the Rough-legged Hawks would have left for their northern breeding grounds, but there were still five on the first part of the route. 

This seemed to be a day for Falcons, five and all! Heading north along Road H up to Highway 17 there were two Prairie Falcons doing aerial acrobatics in the air. And then coming back to Mansfield, a pair of American Kestrels were hanging out by the cemetery. I had stopped there to eat my lunch and hoped something would fly in.  Sure enough, here came two American Kestrels, one with his lunch in his mouth! A tasty mouse (See photo at top of blog).  Or I’m sure he felt it was tasty!

Leaving Mansfield once again, the Merlin showed up flying toward the school. I would love to get a picture of him, but he is just too fast!

A summary of what was seen today:
Red-tailed Hawk. 1
American Kestrel. 2
Northern Harrier. 1
Rough-legged Hawk. 5
Prairie Falcon. 2
Merlin. 1

“What are you troublemakers up to?” 

We were sitting on the road beneath the Hawk Rock (see Dry Falls Junction blog from January 2022) discussing field marks on a certain bird we had seen. A pick up truck pulled up behind us, and a good sized farmer got out and headed straight toward us. Fortunately, his question was accompanied with a big smile, so it didn’t alarm us. 

We told him that we were doing winter raptor surveys for Audubon and he said, “Oh, I’ve seen you before up here! Yes, we’ve talked before!” He asked us if we were looking for Snow Buntings! Well, they certainly are winter birds, but not in the raptor family. So we chatted a little bit about what we were looking for and he informed us that he has a family of Great Horned Owls nesting in some big trees back by his house. He said they had been there three years. I wasn’t quite brave enough to ask him if we could trespass on his property to look for the owls. Maybe another time.

Our encounter with him reminded me of some other folks we have met on our surveys. These are people whom we see just about every time. After the first encounter, they usually wave and smile.  We have only met one person who was not friendly. And that was actually before we started doing these winter surveys. 

The unfriendly person was actually quite justified in being unfriendly. We were on the eastern part of the plateau the year there were seven Snowy Owls that showed up. News of the large number of owls hit the airwaves and some folks from Seattle came over and were very disrespectful to the farmers’ property. They even drove through the fields! So I can’t blame the woman when she came out and yelled at people and told them to leave. Fortunately, most birders respect private property and stay on the county roads.

One man we see just about every time lives out at the end of Penny Lake. He talks to us about the snow, the raptors he notices around his property, his cattle, the summer waterfowl on the lake, and the abandoned buildings out on the hillsides. We, in turn, talk about the raptors we have seen, the changes in numbers, also the coyotes and the deer. The numbers in coyote and deer are very minimal this month.  We saw one coyote and five mule deer.

One woman who lives on a farm north of Mansfield came out to check on us one day as we were in the car eating our lunch on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere. She could see us from her farmhouse and came out to see who we were. We explained what we were doing, and she could see that we were harmless. She explained that she was checking because there were some people further up the road who had been stealing things from local farms, so she was on the alert. I told her she would see us every month from November to March.  We have seen her in subsequent surveys and she smiles and waves at us.

The weather was beautiful for today’s survey! The sun was shining and it actually got to 55°F. We were very pleased to see water on the west side of Rd. L NE, by Atkins Lake. It was loaded with Northern Pintails and seventeen Tundra Swans.

Atkins Lake, itself, has no water this year. The Vernal Ponds also have no water.

But, St. Andrews has a little, all the way up to the road.   It would be so good if it stayed there!

We did see a fair amount of Rough-legged hawks and Red-tailed hawks today, and three Northern Harriers, which had been absent on some previous surveys. But we did not see one American Kestrel, Merlin, or any Prairie Falcons.

Here is a summary of what was seen today.
Red-tailed Hawks         8
Northern Harriers         3
Rough-legged Hawks   5

This will be the last Winter Raptor Survey for Dry Falls Junction route until November of this year.  If you would like to inquire about participating in ECAS Winter Raptor Surveys, contact Jeff Fleischer at raptorrunner97321@yahoo.com

We really wanted to find a Snowy Owl today, and were beginning to wonder if we would have any luck.  Then, on Heritage Road, at what seemed like a million miles away, we spotted one.  At least we got one for the books!

After driving many miles, I was wondering if today was going to be a “One Hit Wonder” type of day. We stopped beside the Vernal (non-existant) Ponds to eat our lunch, and along came a Northern Harrier, bobbing along the grasslands and taking a couple of dives trying get something to eat.  That was encouraging, as we hadn’t seen any on the last survey.

It did feel like a very empty day with not spotting the usual raptors.  Then, we turned onto Highway 17, that very busy road with huge semi trucks going 70 miles an hour and nowhere for us to pull off. In the middle of all this hustle and bustle, the buteos came in. We had a hard time identifying them as we dodged the traffic and they flew from pole to tree to pole.

“OK, I’ve got the one in the tree. Can you keep your eye on that one on the pole up ahead.?”

“Got it!“

“Oh, there are TWO in the tree, and one flying overhead. The one overhead has carpal patches.”

“One in the tree took off.”

“Do you see dark patagials?”

“Yes! And a belly band.”

And so the conversation continued. 

In what seemed like a pretty small area, we picked up five Red-tailed Hawks and seven Rough-legged Hawks in not much time. We also spotted one Prairie Falcon in the vicinity.

  Even though it’s not a raptor, we did spot the first Western Meadowlark we had seen this year.

Driving along on the road to Mold, and the Hawk Rock (see last month’s blog), there is a very interesting barn.  We keep thinking that one stiff wind will blow it over.  But, it still stands.

Here is a summary of what we saw today:
Red-tailed Hawk. 7
Northern Harrier. 1
Rough-legged Hawk. 7
Prairie Falon 1
Snowy Owl. 1

This seemed like a very long day! 

It started out with beautiful weather. It ended with beautiful weather. We drove past miles and miles of beautiful, snow covered, fields. But, raptors?  What raptors? The numbers were certainly down! 

We saw five Rough-legged Hawks and one Red-Tailed Hawk!  In 94 miles!  That’s one raptor every 15 miles. We did see one other raptor, which I’ll get to in a bit. No American Kestrels. No Northern Harriers. In Mansfield, the resident Merlin did not show its face. 

Even though we scanned every single rock pile and every single field we drove by, there were no Snowy Owls and no Gyrfalcons. It was one of those days.

We saw seven mule deer on a route where we usually see 20 to 30. But we did see one pheasant fly across the road, three porcupines sleeping In trees and three coyotes!

As we drove the absolute LAST quarter mile of this survey route, we pulled up short and said, “What’s THAT?!” Our heads turned to see a VERY large bird sitting on a rock not far from the road. We both said, “He’s huge!” 

I stopped the car, got out to retrieve my camera from the backseat (which I had put away because I thought we were finished), and hoped it didn’t fly away before I got to take a picture. It sat there for a few seconds while I snapped a couple photos and then it lifted off and away it went. 

At first glance I thought it was a Golden Eagle. On second thought, maybe a subadult Bald Eagle.  I knew I’d have to get the pictures home and look at them on my computer before I could figure out what I was looking at.

After arriving home, I downloaded the pictures to my computer and dug out my hawk books. I am really inexperienced when it comes to Golden Eagles.  I have only seen one about 4-5 times in my life, and don’t feel at all confident about identifying them, or differentiating between a Golden and a subadult Bald Eagle. After reading and looking at all the pictures, I thought it was a first or second year Bald Eagle.

I sent an email asking for help to Jeff Fleischer, of East Cascades Audubon Society, who is running the raptor survey project, and also posted some pictures on the Raptor ID FaceBook group. I want to thank Jeff and the folks in the Raptor ID group for their help in learning how to ID this bird. I really appreciate it.

What we have here is a subadult (probably 1-2 year) Bald Eagle.  Here is the criteria on which this judgement was made.

It has a large head and beak, larger than a GOEA.

The dark eyes are starting to lighten.

The nape is sharp, two-toned (indicting having molted), as distinct from the dark back.

There are no feathers on feet (tarsi).

The mottled white on the underwing and body is characteristic of a subadult BAEA.  There is too much white for a subadult GOEA.

The tail was mottled.  It did not have the definitive white band with black terminal band of a subadult GOEA.

Here is a summary of what we saw today:
Rough-legged Hawk – 5
Red-tailed Hawk – 1
Bald Eagle: subadult – 1

The lights were on, but no one was home!

It started out as a beautiful day, with lots of sunshine. So, the lights were on in the lower part of the Grand Coulee. But there didn’t seem to be anyone around! It seemed like either everyone was hunkered down or they were over visiting the neighbors! Even after stopping at multiple pull-outs and looking in all of the windows in this 20 mile long, coulee-corridor, house, there didn’t seem to be any visible raptors. We scanned the fields, scanned the basalt walls, scanned the sky over and over again. All of that activity yielded one Rough-legged Hawk. 

When you are standing on the coulee floor, the ridge top of the basalt cliffs is very far away! You look for a little bump along the ridge line, or perhaps a bird flying in front of the basalt. As we reached the south end of Alkali Lake, it did seem like there was a bump on the top of the ridge line. I pulled out my binoculars, but could not ID it, other than it was a bird – a good sized one. So I pulled out my camera and took some photos, hoping that when I got back to my computer and enlarged them, I could make a firm identification. And sure enough! We had a Golden Eagle!

For the entire day we did not see one American Kestrel, Bald Eagle, or Northern Harrier! I thought for sure with the sunlight we would see more activity. But not so!

All of the lakes in the Lower Coulee are still frozen over. They are beautiful to look at! The snow really hasn’t diminished a whole lot since last month.

Up on the flat farmland, east of Coulee City there was still a lot of snow. And the roads that were not plowed last month are still not plowed this month, more or less. There were a couple secondary roads that someone had driven on.  But they did not entice me enough to chance getting stuck up there in the middle of nowhere.

There is a cool, old abandoned barn south of Hartline. A couple of months ago, Amanda and I stopped and walked in a bit, and saw a Great-horned Owl take off from inside the barn. We actually saw him two months in a row. But, he did not show himself today.

Here is a summary of what was seen today.

Red-tailed Hawk 5
Rough-legged Hawk 7
Golden Eagle 1

The Eagles take the day! 

The total mileage on this survey route is 112 miles. We actually drove over 135 miles because we really wanted to find a Snowy Owl! So we took a couple detours to go to places where they had been spotted in the last day or two (reported on eBird). We did find one Snowy, east of the Atkins Lake area, but he was a million miles away! Maybe next month will be better!

We did see Bald Eagles! We spotted four on our route and two additional ones while driving to the starting point. That’s quite a number for that area!

I still can’t help but wonder if our reduction in raptor numbers is due to the large snowfall we had a couple of weeks ago. The numbers of American Kestrels and Northern Harriers, as well as the Rough-legged Hawks, were definitely less than previous months.

When you are out looking for raptors in the landscape, every white clump of snow is a Snowy Owl. And every bump on a rock, or a hillside, is a hawk waiting to be found. Amanda and I laugh about a certain “Rock Hawk” on one segment of this route. It sits on top of a rock which is on top of a hill, and looks exactly like that… a hawk sitting on a rock. We have driven by this particular “Rock Hawk” a total of 12 times. The first time we went by it, we were both convinced it was a hawk until we got close and looked at it with a binoculars. Definitely not a bird! And every subsequent month when we would drive by it we would say, “Oh, look! There’s the Rock Hawk!“ But last month, as we drove by, I was convinced there really was a bird up there! Of course my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, and I was driving. So we stopped and I got out the binoculars and I was convinced it moved. “This time there really is a hawk up there, Amanda!  I saw it move!”  She was not convinced. At all. And rightly so. It was just a rock.

We decided to stop and eat our lunch up at the Vernal Ponds. While we were there a couple other birders happened by who were also looking for Snowy Owls. One person was the gentleman who owns the property where the Saint Andrews Grange was located. We talked to him a little while about the fire and its aftermath and what it’s meant for his existence.  He also told us about a prairie falcon who hangs out around the fertilizer storage area just east of the Saint Andrews intersection. We were happy to hear that, because it’s on the latter part of our route. And sure enough, when we got there, there was a prairie falcon sitting on a power pole! It was great to see it. It was a little too far away to get a good photo, but we were definitely able to identify it. Now we will know to keep our eyes open for it when we go back that way.

Here is a summary of what was seen today.

Red-tailed Hawk. 1
American Kestrel. 1
Northern Harrier. 1
Bald Eagle (Adult). 4
Rough-legged Hawk. 7
Prairie Falcon. 1
Snowy Owl. 1

Today’s Raptor Ramblings might have more rambling than raptors.  But, some days are like that!  Today turned out to be a very unique day, for more than one reason.  But, maybe, when you go on an adventure every day is unique!

First off, a winter raptor survey doesn’t usually start with a flat tire, but it did today.  Well, almost flat…. To make a long story short, I ended up with four new winter tires this morning.  I wasn’t really expecting to do that. But, that’s how it turned out.  One good thing about it is that I don’t have to worry about getting a flat tire out in the middle of nowhere now!

Heading up the Bridgeport Hill Road toward the start of the route at Mansfield Road (N. Oil Rd), we left the fog behind, which was a relief.  One never knows what you will find when Waterville is engulfed in fog. But, reaching the route start, the skies opened up.  As we drive along the West Foster Creek Wildlife Area, we are always startled at the scarring from the fires from over a year ago. 

Another unique thing about this month’s survey is the lack of birds of prey.  Along the route today, there were no Red-tailed Hawks, no American Kestrels, no Northern Harriers.  I wondered where they all went.  Maybe such heavy snow cover prevents hunting and they have moved elsewhere. There were a few Rough-legged Hawks, which we were happy to see!

Leaving Penny Lake we laughed at a group of Mule Deer lounging in the snow, as though it was a warm blanket. Heading south toward Mansfield, a group of Chukars decided they weren’t sticking around! Their picture is at the top of the blog.

The resident Merlin in the town of Mansfield, showed up again!  Maybe some day one of us will get a picture that we can post. We kept our eyes open for Snowy Owls as we crept along the roads where they have been seen in previous times, but no one showed up today.  

Talk about unique!  We saw something today that we have never seen before!  I have read about porcupines sleeping in the branches of trees in the winter. Today we saw three of them sleeping in trees!  What a sight! 

When we drove down towards the north end of Jameson Lake, the resident Golden Eagle at Bennett Lake was there to greet us.  Supposedly there is a nest in the basalt.  I would love to locate it.

Here is a summary of what was seen today. Hopefully more will show up next month!

Golden Eagle – 1
Rough-legged Hawks – 7
Merlin – 1

Today was a day for American Kestrels!  If we could count every AMKE that was seen, the count would have totaled 14.  However, six of them were sitting on power poles between Quincy and the junction with SR 283.  Since that was before the start of the official route, they couldn’t be counted.

The entire drive looked much more wintery this month than it did in December. A lot of snow, and all of the lakes (Soap Lake, Lenore Lake, Alkali Lake, Blue Lake and Park Lake) were frozen over. 

The drive north up the Lower Grand Coulee is a fairly heavily traveled road.  There are a lot of turn-out spaces to stop along the road, but not when there has been a heavy snowfall.  Fortunately, there were a few that were cleared off, so a person could stop and observe. We made several stops driving up the coulee.  We were hoping that a Golden, or a Bald, Eagle might appear above the rim of the basalt, but no such luck!

A stop at the Dry Falls Visitor Center parking lot revealed a pair of Red-tailed hawks dancing on the air currents.  One was a very dark morph, and the other almost white. 

When exiting the coulee region and heading east toward the farmland south of Hartline, the route map needed a little modification. The information gleaned from the county snow plow road map wasn’t entirely accurate, almost, but not quite. Some roads that had been marked for plowing, hadn’t been, so I modified the route slightly.

A lot of the land south of US 2 is farm land with no power poles.  So, when it has a deep snow cover, you don’t see any raptors gliding over the land looking for rodents that aren’t there.

However, driving down Pinto Ridge, a Bald eagle flew over the entire arc of the sky.  Judging from its trajectory, I would guess it was traveling from Banks Lake in the Upper Grand Coulee to one of the lakes in the lower Coulee, maybe Blue Lake or Park Lake.

Here is a summary of what was seen.

Red-tailed Hawk – 5
American Kestrel – 8
Bald Eagle – 1
Rough-legged Hawk – 3