A "Different" Kind of Robin - the Varied Thrush

There is a special call from nature in winter in the lowland hills around the Snoqualmie Valley that is one of the top five favorite sounds of nature to me. I love the Pacific tree-frogs calling in spring; I love the sound of Pileated woodpeckers. But the winter arrival call of the Varied Thrush is just so special, I can’t ignore it!
The Varied Thrush can best be described as being close to looking like the size of an American Robin. However it is smaller and much more striking in appearance. They display a lovely bright orange wing bar, an amazing orange throat area, black bar along the head by the eyes, and a bright orange under-part belly. The female birds are still brilliant but the orange is more subdued. A breeder of the Pacific Northwest and areas northward toward Alaska, it really is a mystery bird to many, one that lives out its life in the dark deep coniferous forests. But winter in the Cascades brings it to the lowland forest fringes and here we find it in our own yard like many forested foothill communities!
What makes it so easy to locate sightings of them in winter here is that they are ground foragers primarily, so if you feed birds in your yard or on your property, they are very likely to find the area on the ground around feeding stations as winter territory to claim. The males do tend to dominate many other bird feeder species and claim small territories around feeding areas, so if you have multiple thrushes around it can be quite a show! Along with the seeds they find, they also feed heavily on any types of ground insects that can be found. Summertime in the mountains they are up high in the trees nesting and it can be far more difficult to spot them. Oh, but for that special voice they have, it is a dead give-away of their presence! It can best be described as a strong single note/pitch of a “whistle” call – almost to me sounding like a referee at a basketball game, starting weak and getting strong quickly! This is what makes these birds one of my favorite winter creatures to have as a natural neighbor, and I encourage you to find a voice call recording on the internet to enjoy if you don’t know what I mean (http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/200/_/Varied_Thrush.aspx is one of many). Ahh…can you hear it? I hope you see these around the fringes of the Valley, and that you keep me posted on what you are seeing (or hearing) out there!

Flashback Photo of the Day: 01/22/2008 - Crossing the road to nowhere?

Flashback Photo of the Day: 01/22/2008 – After I had been photographing the amazing ice jam details in the Yakima River for almost 45 minutes in the -2* temperatures I headed back along the river/road area to where I had left my truck parked off the road. It was crossing the road here to get back into the truck that the view right on up the road in the Yakima Canyon seemed so surreal to me. I kept on walking, got in the truck, and then realized I had another photo I wanted. This was the image I shot…after letting a passing farm truck of hay pass by first of course! But traffic is light in the canyon on cold January mornings.

Flashback Photo of the Day: 01/22/2008 - Returning early morning from a previous night's presentation in Yakima I headed back to Ellensburg like usual via Canyon Road through the Yakima Canyon. Extremely cold weather the previous week had left miles of massive ice jams on the scenic Yakima River offering me photographic opportunities never seen before in this, my favorite canyon drive in Washington State! (second photo: remaining ice after the warm-up broke up the river - this ice was pushed up high on river banks )

Remembering my most dramatic sunrise

Flashback Photo of the Day: 12/30/2003 – Another winter highlight and likely still the most dramatic sunrise I’ve ever photographed. I have my early-rising daughter to thank for even having a chance to see this across Case Inlet in the South Puget Sound, a sunrise shadow of Mount Rainier being cast UNDER the clouds which were on fire at the moment. The crater flat top of The Mountain is even visible in the shadow being cast!

The shadowing effect lasted about three minutes total, which was simply a stellar day in my life to remember and I'm so fortunate I was able to photograph it to not forget how dramatic it really was!

First photo of the year

So today I woke up and after not having as much photography in 2010 behind me, looked to use his camera at least once on today, the first day of 2011. Result of my first photograph taken in 2011 this morning....a lovely native Douglas Squirrel enjoying some seeds in early sun to warm up in after an 18° night. A great way to start off a year seeing a creature appear so happy in the territory we share!

Brown Pelicans delight on the Oregon Coast

I've long enjoyed seeing the large numbers of Brown Pelicans that call the area on the North Oregon Coast/South Washington Coast home in the summer/early fall. Watching them from areas south of the Columbia River has always been just so fun - they are such fascinating birds! A recent trip down to the areas between Newport and Astoria led me to use the crummy weather I was presented to change my photograph direction away from sunsets and lighthouses and look for pelicans worthy to photograph (or anything else that could cheer me up in the dreary weather!).

One nice place I found was the huge haystack right off Yaquina Head from the Yaquina Head Lighthouse. Early in the morning they were large numbers resting there. Finally by 8:00am the gated road was open and I was out there - imagine being the ONLY person at the Yaquina Lighthouse for 45 minutes! That was me, and on a Saturday morning to boot.

But the best location I stumbled upon was further north a bit at Devil's Punchbowl State Park. Sure the punchbowl is fun, but just taking the short path 100 yards to the south and you are greeted with a beautiful cliff band/haystack right there very close to your vantage point. Lo-and-behold, there were 15-20 Brown Pelicans hanging out here as well! This was a great location to photograph and offered nice opportunities to capture them flying as well when they came in for a landing on the rock. Upon getting back to the truck I had to tell the cold looking elderly couple who were at the punchbowl to please be sure to go see the pelicans. They came back while I was putting my gear away and were so excited they almost hugged me in thanks for passing on "my tip". How fun is that!?

Return of the Bald Eagles

The holiday season has once again almost returned, bringing with it our annual season of joy, sharing, and hopeful happiness (What? Is it really November already!?). But while we all are busy with our holiday preparations, another visitor once again silently prepares to return to our neighborhood. This wintering natural neighbor is none other than our spectacular Bald Eagle as they typically make their annual winter visit from November through early March (some yearlong residents do live and nest locally as well, but many are only winter visitors).

Local winter populations of eagles do not compare to those present at river areas to the north, such as the Skagit, Sauk, and Stillaguamish Rivers. However, we do have many local hotspots, which often provide excellent viewing opportunities. In the heart of Fall City you can often spot these huge birds in the towering cottonwood trees near the confluence of the Raging and Snoqualmie Rivers. I’ve seen as many as four at once just across the river from town! They fish the Raging River often and I’m always keeping an eye open along the Preston-Fall City Road at each bend in the river. If you fail to see any in these locations, roam up to Borst Lake along Mill Pond Road out of Snoqualmie, or take the West Snoqualmie Valley Road to Carnation. Areas north of Carnation near Sikes Lake and along the river near Carnation Farm Road all offer excellent opportunities to see these magnificent birds!

The lives of Bald Eagles are fascinating, and one of the most amazing things about them to me is their nesting practice. Bald Eagles build the largest nests in the world that are made by a single pair of birds. Some nests weigh over a thousand pounds and the largest nests have been known to be up to 12 feet deep! They lay on average only two eggs in the nest and only 10% of all newborns will survive until adulthood. Adulthood is reached at age five when they finally develop the spectacular white heads we all recognize so quickly. What is so interesting to me is that their nests, once established, are used perennially by mating pairs of birds, and have been known to be used for up to 35 years!

Each eagle sighting I have becomes a memory that lingers with me for a long time. Whether it is a pair of them circling over the Snoqualmie River or a single bird perched in a large cottonwood tree, it keeps a smile in my mind for days. So keep your eyes open wherever you go around the valley this winter. You never know when you might spot our flying national symbol!