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| Dominic Valenti, Molly LeCompte, Lorin Wilkerson, Jenny Jones, with Kristin Sterling behind the camera. |
When I decided to embark on the insanity that is a Big Day, it wasn't necessarily because I initially had a desire to do one this year; it was sort of a confluence of circumstance; call it a crime of opportunity. First off, Bird Alliance of Oregon's annual Birdathon fundraiser was coming up, and I initially thought I might not form a team; I would just find one to join. I had my right hip replaced on Aril 16, so while I had been birding as much as I could since the hip finally went out last September, I'd not been birding nearly as much nor in as varied of locales as I am used to. Even so, I was planning on taking it easier than I usually do for Birdathon this year. I’ll just go ahead and say ‘epic fail’ to that plan and move on.
When Birdathon went and opened up a competitive Big Day division for the first time, all kinds of old fires were stoked, and my latent desire to get 100 birds in a day in my home county of Clackamas, which I have been obsessively birding for going on 6 years, exploded into full bloom. Then, when all but one of my first choice picks for a team immediately said yes to my fishing expedition, the deal was sealed.
In no particular order other than chronological, I first asked my good Portland birding buddy Molly LeCompte and she was in. Possessed of incredibly keen hearing and great birding instincts, her eyesight is so good that I seldom even bother offering her a look through my scope anymore because the amount of detail she can pick out with her binoculars is uncanny. I’ve birded with her for years, and I unfailingly get more and better birds whenever she’s along. She agreed to be our photographer for the day.
Dominic Valenti, board member of Salem Audubon and consistently one of the top birders in Marion and Yamhill counties, as well as the Oregon Birds field notes compiler for the Marion/Polk/Yamhill region, also said yes. (In an effort to bird Yamhill more, a few years ago I challenged him to a yearlong birding competition in that county and he cleaned my clock (the final score was 150-107). It was a gentlemen’s bet based on eBird placement, and since he was first and I a very distant fourth, I duly bought him a pint of excellent beer the following year.) He was our eBird listmaster.
Jenny Jones was in too, just being her all-around awesome self. Ive had the pleasure of serving on the board of the Oregon Birding Association with her, and though she retired from the board she is still instrumental in planning the OBA’s newly revived in-person annual meetings. She’s always right in the mix near the tip top of the hypercompetitive (yet very collegial) Multnomah Co. birding community, and, as with both Molly and Dom, whenever she’s along, I feel like I become a better birder (even though I really don’t; it’s just them.)
Most importantly, my wife Kristin Sterling, a competent (though not obsessed) birder in her own right, and the most stalwart, talented and indefatigable volunteer and organizer I have ever known, said yes to being our non-birding driver. She was our ‘Mama Duck’ for the day. This was crucially important because it allowed us to save lots of time; she could drop us off at one location and pick us up at another, run errands while we were at long stops, etc. Plus, she’s the one that came up with our name: Team Quackamas. I mean, c’mon—what better name could there be?
These are all people I have had the privilege to have birded and volunteered with extensively over the years, people who I respect, admire, and genuinely like, folks with whom I could imagine spending a long, grueling, exhilarating day in the field, a day which would nevertheless not be without its stressors. Speaking of stressors, I was along as the route planner and Clackamas County bird nut who's driven thousands of miles on these roads over the years, plus I did service as the team's all-purpose worrywart and harridan, trying and failing to keep us on time, principally because that's so difficult a task for me to manage for myownself, let alone for anyone else. But there we were.
So that was it. In short order Team Quackamas went from being a plan to a reality. After a few scouting missions, including an almost complete drive of the intended route, the Big Day was upon us.
MAY 30: NOTE: The eBird Trip Report containing a map, a condensed version of this narrative, and all referenced checklists, photos and recordings can be found by clicking this link.
4:35am. Molly, Kristin and I showed up 10 min late to meet Dom and Jenny at the Tualatin park and ride. (Tardiness my fault; way to go fearless leader) and we headed straight to Graham Oaks to listen for owls in the pre-dawn darkness. No playback for us, and we didn't need it. Molly busted out her awesome Barred Owl call, complete with a difficult, seamless, downward yodeling transition from loft voice to modal. She yawped it out at full volume a couple times and soon drew one in; it answered spookily from somewhere deep in the towering dark of the Doug fir wood that loomed over us.
5:01am. As light peeked over the horizon, we arrived at Coffee Creek @ Boeckman Rd. Here was our only shot at Marsh Wren; I was worried they might be late sleepers. Not so; we had at least 5, both heard and seen, and they are notorious skulkers. Singing Northern Yellow Warbler was good to get right off the bat, as were multiple Spotted Sandpipers. Jenny and I heard Northern Rough-winged Swallow early, which was nice. Waterfowl and shorebirds were our main targets here, and were unfortunately sparse in numbers but not in quality; we dipped on the Blue-winged Teal, Wilson's Snipe, peeps and Yellowlegs we’d been hoping for, but scored our only Cinnamon Teal of the day, and just as we were ready to give up on the rare Wilson's Phalaropes that had been hanging out recently, eagle-eye Jenny scoped one way out on the far side of the lake, and we were all able to get on it.
6:57am. We arrived at Luscher Farm around 40 minutes off schedule, which was to be the theme for the day. Did it cost us birds? Or did it net us birds? I suppose there’s no way to know, but we had some very serendipitous gets that we may have missed had we not been at a specific spot at a specific time.
Case in point: something interesting flew across the road right in front of us en route from Brown’s Ferry to Luscher; I squawked and pointed, and Dom was on it tout de suite; we all snagged our only sapsucker of the day as a Red-breasted made its way up a tree right next to us at a stop sign. Luscher was our best chance for Western Bluebird, Brewer's Blackbird and Cliff Swallow and they did not disappoint; Molly's photography skills came through again with great shots of all of them (photos). (She had some stunners of Red-winged Blackbird, Black-headed Grosbeak and Wood Duck at Brown's Ferry prior to this stop.)
7:17am. Willamette Park/Publisher’s Pond was on the list in case we needed Black Phoebe, but we’d all gotten it earlier at Coffee Creek. Nevertheless, Molly was able to get a great shot of the resident bird that’s been there for years at the pumphouse (photo), and our only Belted Kingfisher made its appearance there.
Molly and Dom added Northern Rough-winged Swallow to their lists, thereby cleaning up this “dirty bird.” (A certain percentage of birds will count toward a team total if at least two team members identify it. Jenny and I had heard one earlier in the day, meaning it provisionally counted toward our team total, but Molly and Dom hadn’t heard or seen it, so in the parlance of competitive team birding it had been ‘dirty.’ Them getting it later meant it was now ‘clean,’ since we had all ID’d one by that point. It’s not a knock on the bird, it’s just a competition term to note a (provisionally) 'counting' bird not observed by all team members). Dom pointed out the polyphonic Star Wars blaster gun burp of a Purple Martin flying overhead, which was one of the main targets here; it was encouraging to have 6 of 7 possible swallow species this early in the day.
Jenny spotted a Hooded Merganser mama and ducklings, the first time I’d seen ducklings of that species; those were our only Hoodie Mergs of the day, so WP/PP, as Clackamas birders affectionately call it (or at least I do), paid off nicely. It is sad to think that this big, beautiful wetland, beloved of the West Linn community, is still in danger of being developed, as attested to by the ‘Save the Willamette Wetlands’ sign that has bedizened Kristin's and my yard for the last year. I know my friends in this neighborhood are working hard to see that development doesn’t happen.
7:54am. We scoped what would prove to be our only gulls of the day at Willamette Falls: Glaucous-winged and Western. The latter we decided on only after photo review the next day showed no traits that would have us call it an Olympic. I was pleased that Double-crested Cormorant showed; they’d proven stubbornly elusive recently, and after I finally turned up just one lonely individual on my last scout, I’d been mentally prepared to miss this bird on count day. I don’t know where they go this time of year, but it ain’t here.
8:15am. Canemah Bluff, up above the former portage of the Kalapuya tribe and the old settler’s town that was washed away in the apocalyptic floods of 1861-62, was one of the keystone stops of the day: Hutton’s Vireo, Bald Eagle and wood warblers were the prime targets. We were rewarded with Black-throated Gray, Wilson’s, and great looks at Orange-crowned Warbler, though we were sad to dip on Nashville, and still had no eagle. In addition, no new waterfowl were seen as we scoped WP/PP from our high vantage point across the Willamette, but having Kristin as a non-birding driver meant she could shuttle our scopes from the viewpoint back to the car for us as we pressed on through the mixed oak/conifer woodland (thanks K!), thereby saving valuable time.
As we approached the pioneer cemetery, we heard the repeated upslurred rasp of singing Hutton’s Vireo, right where I’d hoped it would be. In addition, we got our first Olive-sided Flycatcher of the day early; we heard its ‘quick three beers!’ song, and soon Molly had a great shot of it sitting on a snag with a beautiful Cedar Waxwing (photo). Hairy Woodpecker and Bewick’s Wren also sat on bare branches for our photog, and a Mourning Dove unhurriedly made its way down the path ahead of us (photos).
9:30-10:15am. The Canby area swales (Blount and Anderson) were dried up and plowed under to varying degrees, but we still needed a few key species that would not likely be found anywhere else. The longshot Western Kingbird didn’t show, and neither did Northern Harrier or Western Meadowlark (that last miss a particularly sore blow), but Molly spotted our first Kestrel of the day at Blount, and as well we got Eurasian Collared Dove, thereby completing our Columbiformes grand slam early. (Along with our several MODOs, Jenny had previously pointed out a flock of Rock Pigeons as we were driving through town, and Dom had a keen spot of a lone Band-tailed Pigeon high above the neighborhood at WP/PP.)
We got nice looks at the first of many singing Lazuli Bunting at Anderson, but the big surprise there was the small flock of Bank Swallows that repeatedly buzzed low over our heads, thereby allowing us to (unexpectedly) run the table on swallows; alone out of family Hirundinidae, Banks were the only local species for which I had not strategized, their one colony known to me being too far out of our path to reach without spending too much time. So it was kismet to get such a nice heard-and-seen bunch here.
10:13am. Now more than an hour behind schedule but starting to get used to it, I began to start worrying about the ‘shoulda’ species; birds that we really ‘shoulda’ gotten by now but were still missing. The day was still young, but not having Western Tanager and Bald Eagle yet was starting to bother me. As we made our way toward Molalla, praying for Western Kingbird and Northern Harrier (both negatory), it was the missing Baldie that really bothered me. As soon as I said that aloud, Molly shouted ‘Bald Eagle!’ as though I’d summoned it through sheer force of will. (Sadly, not a birding ability that I actually possess.) We pulled over on McCown Road, looking all over for the now-lost raptor; I was finally able to re-spot it at the top of a very tall conifer far in the distance, and everyone got on it. Fortunately so, because we wouldn’t get another one all day.
11:11am. After getting the loud, colorful, charismatic Bullock’s Oriole and Acorn Woodpecker (recording) after our bio break at Clark’s Park, Ivor Davies Park, on the far side of Molalla, had me nervous. The ‘big three’ we needed here were Ring-necked Pheasant, Red-shouldered Hawk, and Yellow-breasted Chat; the latter two were possible but unlikely later, but this was our last shot at the gamebird, and none of these species were by any means guaranteed for the day. Dom pointed out that they were all big and/or loud birds, so we shouldn’t need a lot of time here.
As the day got hotter and we wandered on, moving through this wonderful patch far faster than I ever had before, I began to wonder if this would be our first ‘zero stop’ of the day; that is a stop producing no new day birds. If so, it was a big, long stop to zero out on. We passed the woods surrounding Shorty’s Pond, where I hear and/or see the hawks as often as not: nothing. We went up onto the Forest Road on the other side of the park, what I call the ‘back 40,’ and after passing through a corridor of singing Swainson’s Thrush (recording) we finally picked up another shoulda in Western Tanager.
We were only about a 5-minute walk away from where Kristin waited to meet us when a Ring-necked cock crowed loudly nearby, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. As we were about done, and at the expected spot, we heard the chat rattling out its odd, at-turn-sweet-raspy song with its disjointed series of grunts, squeaks, whistles and chortles, and no sooner did that happen than the hawk started ‘kiyah!’ing right over the top of it, sounding off from back the way we had come. Smiles and relieved laughter all around; we had gotten the big three.
1:48pm After a long, birdless commute from Molalla and a disastrous attempt at lunch in Estacada where an entire Little League team was in line at Subway and the lone food truck was closed, we found ourselves dipping on American Dipper (haha I know) time and again at all the spots on the Upper Clackamas River. We ran into Kristin’s old whitewater kayaking buddies at one spot and Molly got a great shot of White-crowned Sparrow with a bee in its mouth (photo) but still we had no dipper.
As we stood peering out over the edges of the Armstrong Bridge, the Clackams River rushing noisily beneath us, a small brown duck with white patches on her cheeks erupted from beneath our feet, winging her way upriver with rapid-fire wingbeats, possessed of all the grace, speed and purpose of a fighter jet, and then she was gone around a bend in the river. I’d been hoping against all hope to get my long-time county nemesis, the Harlequin Duck, but never thought we would. For years now I’ve searched for her, grinding up and down trails and rubbly riverbanks on both the Clackamas and Sandy rivers as June wound on getting hotter by the day, frustrated each time. And now there she was. Whatever else would happen that day, here my day was made: that was a county bird for all of us. (Now if I can just do something about that Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch…)
2:18pm. After getting nothing but white-water rafters at Hole in the Wall, where we’d been hoping for MacGillivray’s Warbler and dipper, we purposely overshot Pipeline Road and headed to Sandstone Road for one last try at the dipper, and another bird that was heavily into shoulda territory, the Rufous Hummingbird. I was also hoping for Cassin’s Vireo, but we would get neither dipper, hummer, nor vireo that day. (The ubiquitous Western Warbling Vireo excepted.)
However, the rest of the team got looks at a MacGillivray’s Warbler that I somehow missed. I couldn’t even take comfort in it being a dirty bird, because it was our fifth dirty and we weren’t yet at a hundred species on the day, which meant it wasn’t a counter; as mentioned earlier, no more than 5% of all birds on a team Big Day list can be 'dirty' and still count, so until we cleaned some of those up or got to 100 species, we were leaving birds on the table. ‘Dirty Mac’ was bird number 93, and three of the dirties were mine; I began to feel like I was letting my team down, a feeling no team leader has ever liked, I'm sure.
2:35pm. We backtracked to Pipeline Road and headed up to Three Lynx Meadow, where things stabilized a bit, as we heard and saw our only Chipping Sparrow (recording). Another bright spot was that Jenny was able to get me on a ridiculously distant singing Northern House Wren; that was one of my dirties and I was the only one who hadn’t heard it, so we cleaned that one up. Jenny's ability to hear through many layers of bird vocalizations and background noise both near and far, and to then hone in on something that specific buried so deeply in the soundscape is truly amazing.
Not long after, we stopped at a spot for Black-backed Woodpecker, to no avail. I cleaned up another bird with Chestnut-backed Chickadee, so now we had some breathing room, and we had our best listen of the day at Hairy Woodpecker and Western Flycatcher (recording). Jenny, Dom and I then heard one solitary squelching ‘quark!’ of a Mountain Quail, which was another longshot bird, but we were in the right habitat. Molly wasn’t sure if she heard it, but later on we would all hear one up close, calling many times (recording), so this bird wasn’t dirty for long.
4:21pm. As we continued through the high conifer woods of the Western Cascades on the surprisingly good NF roads, Pileated and Black-backed Woodpecker joined the ranks of the shouldas, but there was still good habitat ahead. We heard a Sora sing his loud, mesmerizing song at Pipeline Wetland (recording), and finally completed the wren grand slam with a singing Pacific, and a calling Hammond’s Flycatcher on the road between Frog Lake (the lower reservoir in the Western Cascades, not the big one off Hwy 26) and Lake Harriet would give us three Empids for the day.
I had cleaned up ‘Dirty Mac’ by now, but only Jenny and I heard Canada Jay calling. However, around 5pm we got Hermit Warbler as bird #100 so that gave us even a little more breathing room, but by now I was pretty sure the record was out of reach; we’d just had too many no-shows on the valley floor and Western Cascades. That said, 100 species was a huge milestone, and there were no long faces, just congratulations all around; triple digits had been a huge goal all day, and we were now there with several hours of daylight and numerous species still ahead. “We got the mashed potatoes,” I said excitedly, “now I want as much gravy as we can possibly get!”
5:18pm. We rolled into Timothy Lake from the back side, hitting the Dam Day Use area first. The heat haze, coupled with the stiff afternoon breeze that rattled our scopes and chopped the lake into small whitecaps didn’t help matters any, and the stop didn’t prove as lucrative as we had hoped. Still, mama Mallard tootled unconcernedly along with babies in tow (photo), and we all oohed and aahed, though we’d all seen many Mallards by now; it was nice to still be in love with the common birds, even on such a curious venture as this. Jenny got on a key species for the day with a male Barrow’s Goldeneye, and we added Western Grebe, Townsend’s Warbler and multiple singing Hermit Thrushes.
We also snagged another counting bird: it was our only ‘slash’ of the day. As three of us peered out over the dam outflow from directly above in one final prayer for dipper (it went unanswered), we saw a Cooper’s/Sharp-shinned Hawk zoom out of the forest in hot pursuit of a smaller passerine; Jenny was on the other side of the road scanning the lake and didn’t spot it. Since we didn’t tick either Coop or Sharpie otherwise, that bird ended up being a counter for us. Working the angles, folks, working the angles; that beautiful ‘dirty slash’ out hunting for her dinner was legal. I hope she and her chicks ate well.
6:19pm. We drove through a couple quiet campgrounds with the windows down, wood smoke filling the air as we listened for Golden-crowned Kinglets and Red Crossbills, where a possibly feral five-year-old boy on a scooter snarled at us through our open windows like one of the end-times motorcycle maniacs in The Road Warrior. A final stop at Oak Fork Campground proved to be our first zero stop of the day; it was bound to happen sooner or later. Still, a small flock of Band-tailed Pigeons flew over, a new personal bird for me at Timothy Lake where I have birded many times.
6:28pm. The mountain shadows were really starting to lengthen as we pulled into nearby Little Crater Lake. At this phase of the game, any and every new day bird is a big deal, so to get three shouldas here at a such a relatively brief stop was a real boost to our flagging energy: we finally added Golden-crowned Kinglet, a flock of chattering Pine Siskins, and Yellow-rumped Warbler to the list, though we may have heard a ‘Yump’ singing earlier. A hoped-for but still a surprise bonus bird nonetheless, a perhaps slightly early Common Nighthawk exploded from the trees out over the small crystalline lake, ‘peenting’ loudly low overhead.
7:00pm. Still missing crossbills, we briefly considered pulling into the parking lot at Frog Lake (the one in the High Cascades this time). When I was a baby birder, Tim Shelmerdine once showed me how to summon up crossbills here with an imitated Pygmy Owl toot. (The parking lot is in Clackamas Co. but the lake itself is in Wasco. These are the kinds of things county listers know.) However, looking at the dark clouds rapidly blowing in on a west wind and beginning to crest the shoulders of Mt. Hood, we decided to try and push on and reach Timberline Lodge before the weather hit.
7:32pm. We failed at that. Originally the plan called for us to be here shortly before 6pm, but here we were. As the field marshal and time manager, that’s all on me. We hit the big pullout right below the overflow lot at Timberline Lodge, having failed to nab any ethereal Varied Thrush vocalizations or Mountain Chickadee chattering at several listening stops on the way up, and the full force of that weather hit us. It was cold! A biting cold, a damp cold, and it was windy as hell. (photo)
We all bundled up as best we could, and heard Cassin’s Finch singing sweetly down the valley, and one or two flew overhead as an Audubon’s Yump (photo) sang loudly up above. Further up in the lot we spotted Clark’s Nutcrackers after hearing their raucous cries from the next ridge over. After we made our way through the maze of the lodge, finding our way out back, we immediately heard Mountain Bluebird calling, and soon saw a female perched atop a stunted tree. The wind was positively frigid right there at the treeline, but a roaring propane furnace on the patio provided us with some solace as we scoured for any last species.
For the first time that day we ran into a real rules issue: while we were on a break, Dominic positively IDd a Mountain Chickadee that flew right in front of him, and I briefly saw it flitting from pine to pine. At that point we were over 100 with only four dirties; as such we could’ve counted it even though Jenny didn’t see it, but because Molly was in the lodge and not in voice contact with us, it was uncountable, and so it remained a personal bird for Dom and I. (Not faulting Molly in any way; these things happen when teammates bird while others are on breaks.)
However, the Townsend’s Solitaire that began tootling immediately afterward was a different matter. The plan had been to meet back at the car, and we should’ve been right behind Molly, but the chickadee just after she left had kept the rest of us outdoors. I texted her and she came running back to join us; eventually all four of us simultaneously heard the Solitaire piping, and so we had a near-sweep of possible thrushes; the Varied was just not to be found for us that day.
7:45pm At the Government Camp rest area we dipped on our last chance at Red Crossbill and failed to clean up Canada Jay, but we all had a laugh at a curiously fat Common Raven (photos). We speculated that she might have scarfed down a couple of cheeseburgers she found in the dumpster, and that her babies would be eating good that night. Or maybe she was heavy with a clutch of eggs.
On the way down from the mountain, deliriously tired and sitting at 112/113 birds on the day (the jury was still out on Western Gull at that point) the pressure was off: we wouldn’t break the record, but we were all damned proud of our effort, and happy to have had the biggest Clackamas County day that anyone had had in years. We laughed at silly jokes, dipped on a couple of extreme longshot waterfowl at a tiny lake in the last light of day, and headed on to try for our final bird(s).
9:46pm. We pulled into Luscher Farm for the second time that day, a full 22 minutes after civil twilight: the stars were out, the night-insects were singing, and the barest rim of pale light still limned the western hills. As a group we were prepared to sit and wait as long as necessary, but Molly, our owl-whisperer, bookended the day with our second owl about three minutes in. Not far off to our right, like an immense, ghostly white bat in the gloaming, an American Barn Owl hovered above the fields, swooping and diving as we looked on, stunned at her mysterious beauty.
It was the perfect way to bring this day to a close, a reminder that, though we may play silly numbers games from time to time, this is why we go out time and again, pushing ourselves to the limit day after day, year after year. Yes, the list mattered (114 birds in case anyone's counting), insofar as it was a fundraising vehicle for the vital conservation work that Bird Alliance of Oregon does.
But we birders are in love with the avians because they have a beauty and capacity and a vibrant variety like no other creatures on earth; we can’t help ourselves. We have such a short time here on this planet, and it’s quite a thing to go about the world in a constant state of wonder and dumbfounded amazement; I wouldn’t trade it for anything, and I've no doubt that every member of Team Quackamas feels the same. Thank you very much Dominic, Jenny, Kristin and Molly. It was a privilege spending 18 hours straight with you for Birdathon.
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| Logo designed by Kristin Sterling |
P.S. As some of you may have noticed, Green-winged Teal was our mascot, and we dipped on that bird. There's a whole story behind that, but ah well. What can ya do?
P.P.S. In case anyone noticed, apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien for corrupting his secondary title for The Hobbit as the title for this blogpost.
