You Never Know What You’ll See
As we all learned in high school science, there are certain basic laws of physics, like the law of gravity, for example. I have come to the conclusion that there is an additional law of physics for birders who are photographers: If you don’t take along your camera, you will wish that you had. That maxim was confirmed today. Therefore, the picture that accompanies this blog (with the exception of the iPhone photo) was not taken today.
Today was the very first survey of this season’s East Cascades Audubon Winter Raptor Survey project. Today we drove the Mansfield route, which is 94 miles long.
I drive a relatively small car. And because it was full of tires on wheels (that’s another story for another time) and we took three people on the survey, there was not good space to safely stash our cameras with their big lenses while we drove to the beginning of our survey route, 72 miles away.
So we did not bring our cameras.
At the beginning of our route, we spotted a NOHA and a RTHA in the trees across the road. A good start, we thought! Even so, for the next 52 miles we saw nothing! Absolutely nothing! We were thinking that we would chalk today up as just having a lovely ride in the countryside. The skies were clear, the sun was shining, it was a beautiful autumn day. And we were seeing nothing at all, except a smattering of ravens.
Then, 52 miles from the beginning of the route, we turned onto Rd. K NE, and everything changed.
It was as though the avian alarm clock had shattered the silence and everyone woke up! Within the first mile we saw one NOHA, and then another! We saw a total of four RLHA‘s within the four mile length of that road. A mile further on we picked up another NOHA and another RLHA.
As we headed into Mansfield, we once again looked for the Merlin that we know lives there. Looking around the grain elevators, we thought we had spotted him sitting up on a pole. We weren’t sure of the ID, so wanted to get closer. Fortunately he just sat there and looked at us as we drew up. Definitely a Merlin! We were glad for the find! Between Mansfield and the north end of Jameson Lake we picked up a RTHA, an AMKE, and another RLHA.
Exiting Mansfield, we headed to the end of our route, down southwest of the town. We hardly ever see anything these last 7 miles, but we picked up a NOHA and two more RLHAs today. We were very pleased with how the day turned out!
However, the actual highlight of our day was something we did not expect at all, and was not avian but terrestrial.
As we were returning back on Rd K NE, we came upon a herd of pronghorn antelope! We could hardly believe our eyes, but there they were, TWENTY of them! There was an absolutely huge buck and what looked like three young and 16 females. Of course we didn’t have a camera with a good lens and only got a picture with our iPhones. But what an exciting find! Pronghorn antelope are native to the area, but were just about hunted to extinction. In 2016, the Colville Federated Tribes re-introduced 100 animals to North Central Washington, and they have been making a comeback.
Besides the pronghorn antelope, we saw fourteen mule deer, at least 100 swans and a multitude of other waterfowl on Penny Lake, Terry Hayes marsh, and Bennett Lake.
This day, indeed, proved that you never know what you’ll see.
Today’s Survey:
Red-tailed Hawk (RTHA) 2
American Kestrel (AMKE) 1
Northern Harrier (NOHA) 5
Rough-legged Hawk (RLHA) 8
Merlin (MERL) 1
Interesting story, Marilyn. You do a great job of reporting your surveys and sightings. I need to tag along too sometime.