Tri-State Birding in Washington, Oregon and Idaho

I got to bird-watch all autumn long with my mom, my old friend Amanda, and my new friends at the Whitman Outdoor Program. I've whittled down my photos so you can enjoy the BEST of our tri-state birding adventures.

(And remember, you can watch a high-resolution slideshow by clicking on any photo.)

Washington

A great horned owl watches us at Bennington Lake.

Two frogs were left high-and-dry at the edge of the low lake.

This noisy northern flicker lives in the tree outside my bedroom window!

A northern flicker was also our Outdoor Program trip's first sighting at McNary National Wildlife Refuge.

A white-crowned and a golden-crowned sparrow show off their different head wear.

A western grebe repels water like Gortex.

She caught a fish!

A murder of crows heads... somewhere.

Amanda and Mom look out over the Snake River from Chief Timothy State Park. Could the lighting be any more perfect?

Every clump of brown grass was crowned with a voluptuous black lady in her web.

This spider had a minuscule suitor on her blade of grass!

Take a moment to admire those pin-striped eyeballs...

Wait a minute... these aren't birds anymore! I digress.

A yellow-rumped warbler shows off what its mama gave it.

A prairie falcon or a male merlin?! The topic of hot debate!
Update: thanks to iNaturalist we have confirmation that this is a merlin!

Can you pick out one of these things that doesn't belong?

A snow goose among the Canada geese!

An old steamboat passes by a grain elevator.

Amanda and I overlook the Snake River.

Oregon

A red-breasted nuthatch picks at bark in the Blue Mountains.

A mystery bird! A off-color American robin? A Townsend's solitaire?
Update: this has been identified as a female western bluebird!

A varied thrush peeks out from the boughs of a Douglas fir.

Mother and fawn white-tailed deer.

I had to balance my camera on a signpost and set a timer... I was terrified the wind would knock it off!

Idaho

A red-tailed hawk displays that red tail as it soars over Mann Lake.

They have beautiful wings, too! 

One killdeer and two pectoral sandpipers.

Canada geese take flight.

A woolly bear on the muddy bank of Mann Lake.

A Bonaparte's gull herds his sheep... I mean his long-billed dowitchers.

A flock of female common mergansers.

We took a tumble in the mud! Like mother like daughter.

Amanda to the rescue! Just like that time she pulled me out of the salt-lick mud in the Amazon. <3

Dozens of large freshwater snails were burrowed in the exposed mud banks.

A small flock of American pipits flitted along the railroad berm.

Tri-State Birders conquer Mann Lake!

Thanks to all the birds and birders, and the occasional bug, too. It wouldn't have been any fun at all without you!

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Images of Johnston Wilderness Campus

Today we strolled through the Johnston Wilderness Campus, a piece of wooded land owned by Whitman College. The handful of cabins, and the astonishing number of bunk beds they house, are open for use by Whitman students, faculty and staff.

Amelia tests the cold water of Mill Creek.

Steep rocky cliffs rose on both sides.

I felt like I was home in a western Washington coastal forest as I wandered among evergreens and squishy moss through a persistent grey drizzle. The Doug firs were particularly familiar.

The grand firs, with their flat needles, reminded me of the absent western hemlocks. The turquoise Engelmann spruce, small and lonely in its deer cage, substituted for the Sitka spruces I was expecting, and the majestic western red cedars seemed prehistoric as usual.

Our professor, Bob, points out a stand of aspen.

Bob's 11-year-old dog Kili is still as spunky as a puppy.

One color stood out as discordant: the lime-green needle tufts of the western larches. Those trees are utterly foreign to me: a conifer that loses its needles?!

The five larches we could see from our resting spot on a steep mountainside meadow reminded me I wasn't in a coastal lowland forest at all; I was in the strange misty peaks of the Blue Mountains in eastern Oregon.

  

Hiking across an ecotone into a south-facing subalpine meadow.
Notice the lime-green larches in the background.

Our resting place had a very steep grade.

I tried to capture the steepness with a photo facing up the hillside.

I love exploring this new habitat, and I hope I'll find a way to get back out here over the next two and a half years after my environmental studies course ends -- maybe as part of Semester in the West!

... Stay tuned for that dream.

Even in hot pink pants, Yidi blended right in with the fall foliage.

The identity of this cone had us stumped.

My botanical samples: ponderosa pine, cottonwood, grand fir, western red cedar, maple, Douglas fir, yew, alder, and a non-native Port Orford cedar.

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