Birding Ridgefield and the Yacolt Burn
With an aim to “get more birds” for my yearly WA State checklist, I used an app that I “built” using Claude which pulls my eBird data via an API and then analyzes the eBird database to present to me a dashboard that shows where I could go within the state to see birds that I haven’t yet logged for the year. It’s an interesting little piece of software I designed and my developer “Claude” built for me! It proved effective this past weekend as the suggestion was to try and see a variety of species at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge down near Vancouver, WA. So, I packed up Merlin and set up on Friday after work - only to sit in traffic all. the. way. from. Seattle. to. Olympia. I don’t know what it is about the stretch of I-5 south of Tacoma all the way to Olympia, but it was a disaster last Friday. Maybe it’s like this every Friday, but I hadn’t sat in it for some time.
I had a campsite booked at the nice and peaceful Seaquest State Park along the road going up to Mt. St. Helens. In fact, WA State Parks has a Mt. St. Helens-oriented Visitor Center right across the road from the campground. I got to the site around 7 PM, which allowed enough time for a Manhattan and freeze-dried spaghetti with meat sauce (the Mountain House version is actually really good!)
Dinner is served
Saturday morning I arose to the sound of birdsong all around my campsite - particularly Western Tanager and Black-headed Grosbeak. After breakfast and a bit of coffee, I walked around the campground enjoying the scenery of deep forest, birdsong, and woodland wildflowers - and a really cool Pacific Banana Slug. It was a nice stroll around camp - that ended up taking me about 2 hours! I swear, I stop to look at everything when I’m out and about these days.
Pacific Banana Slug in a hurry
Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) was the primary target for the day, so after a bit more exploration at Seaquest, I drover over to the Visitor’s Center for another birding stroll around the marsh before pointing Merlin south. I finally arrived to Ridgefield around noon or so. Shortly after I arrived, a brief rain squall came through, so I pulled the van over and had lunch inside while I listened to the rainfall - and thunder - outside. Soon enough, the rain subsided and I drove around the Auto Route. It’s a really nice place - and during this time of year, people can get out of their cars to photograph and observe the birds some more. I had some great finds including: Wilson’s Phalarope, Black Phoebe (no photos as I saw them during the rain squall), all kinds of nesting swallows, newly fledged American Coots and Pied-billed Grebes, a Nutria (invasive rodent), weasel, Columbia deer, and a recently-fledged American Robin that took me some time to figure out what it was! The Wilson’s Phalarope was really fun because it was flagged on eBird as “Rare”, so I had to enter a description of what I was seeing. I also took some videos of the behavior of this beautiful bird. In Phalaropes, the females are the more colorful sex (vs. most all other birds where the males are more colorful) and also the males tend to the eggs and feeding as the female flies the coop after she’s laid the eggs (where she might find another suitor!).
Before I knew it…I mean the time REALLY flew by - it was 5 PM. And, I didn’t have a campsite booked for the night! During the day, I kinda had a notion to head up into the Yacolt Burn area and try to find either a USFS campsite or state DNR campsite. My goal was to photograph Hermit Warblers which breed up there. Earlier in the week, I contemplated driving over towards Klickitat County for Saturday night/Sunday and try to find an Acorn Woodpecker and Ash-throated Flycatcher…but the Hermit Warbler was really tempting! Plus, I love those guys. I mean, with a name like that - and I consider myself kind of a hermit - I had to try for them.
So, with plenty of daylight in this early June weekend, I headed up into the mountains south of Mt. St. Helens and north of Camas, WA. I don’t know exactly what to call this region - I guess “Southwest WA” or “South Central WA” or “the Yacolt Burn” (named after the largest wildfire in WA history in 1902). Needless to say, the area was quite lovely with a few small Washington state Dept of Natural Resources (DNR) campgrounds - some tailored to equestrians and others to ATV people. I found one - Cold Creek Campground - that was really quite and nice an in a beautiful forest. There were a couple spots left out of the 10 total sites - and I picked #7 which was a huge pull through that opened up into a really nice picnic table area. Within minutes of my arrival it started to rain, which it did most of the night. It was OK to me, though, as I opened up the awning of Merlin and flung the side door open, so I could prop up in the reversed passenger front-seat (it swivels, so you can sit in it and face the back of the van and prop your feet up on the seat behind the driver’s seat) and listened to the rainfall and the brave Black-headed Grosbeak who was going to town singing. Hormones really are strong this time of year!
Cold Creek Campground - Yacolt Burn State Forest, WA
I grilled out (yes, in the rain) a cheeseburger which turned out to be extremely delicious which I washed down with mac salad and baked beans - and a Bale Breaker “WA State Parks” IPA.
It rained off and on all night. It’s always a really treat to be snuggled up in my bed while camping and listening to the rainfall on the roof. It got pretty chilly overnight, too (around 40F), so I had the heat on!
The next morning, I awoke to partly cloudy weather and no rain. And, as soon as I flung the door open, I heard a Hermit Warbler! What a thrill! After breakfast, I grabbed my bins and Sony A1 camera to try and find this lovely little bird. It didn’t take too long as he was singing just outside my van in the thick canopy. I must watched and followed this little guy for 30 minutes as it was such a treat to have this great bird right outside my van. This bird is pretty cool to me because we are at the northern reaches of its breeding range. And, we are also near the southern reaches of the Townsend’s Warbler breeding range. So, in the Olympic Peninsula, these two birds hybridize and in fact, it is actually “rare” to find a purebred Hermit Warbler in the Olympic Peninsula area. The Colt Burn area is a good place for Hermit’s because it’s a bit too far “east” for the Townsend’s. So, it was a thrill to see and photograph the Hermit.
Hermit Warbler - one of my favorite WA state birds!
Once finished with the observation (and I’m sure the little guy was ready for me to get out of his way), I packed up Merlin and drove out of camp. It didn’t take me 5 minutes before I stopped at a pull out as there was so much birdsong along the sides of the road. When I got out, I heard Orange-crowned Warbler, Wilson’s Warbler, MacGillivray’s Warbler, Blue-throated Gray Warbler, and White-crowned Sparrow. Oh, and an unidentified hummingbird buzzed me! I’m currently in a Birds Connect Seattle “Warbler” class taught by the amazing birder and excellent educator - Connie Sidles. And, in last week’s session, we learned about the facial patterns of the Orange-crowned which I never knew before: a yellow eye line above the eye, and a faint brown line that goes through the eye. Of course, I usually identify Orange-crowneds initially by their song as I typically hear them before I see them. So, I waited for this one to show up - and, eventually, he did! The lighting wasn’t the best as he was perched on top of a tree with cloudy sky in the background…but you can see those features in this face! It was really cool to take what I learned in class and practice it out in the field!
Orange-crowned Warber - look at the yellow eye brow above the eye - an the faint brown line through the eye
Even along the side of the road, I spent about 30 minutes photographing and recording the birds! But, I had to get going. I was headed to Larch Mountain to see about some more Hermit Warblers and whatever else I could find. I drove along the fairly good gravel roads within the state forest to the Larch Mountain trailhead. It quickly became apparent to me that this area was a mountain biker’s haven! There were many cars laden with mountain bikes and the few trailheads I passed were full of cars and bike racks and MTBers ready to hit the trails. I like mountain bikers as I used to ride mountain bikes - A LOT - and all around the entire state. Maybe someday, I’ll post some photos and stories from those days. I also passed by a (presumably illegal?) gun firing range which was ridiculously loud - and ridiculously close to the Larch Mountain trailhead. I thought that would be it for the birds - but they didn’t seem to mind. I got out of the van and walked a short distance along the mountain bike trails at Larch Mountain and was amazed at the numbers of Hermit Warblers I heard and saw - at least 6 by my count. And,. a few MacGillivray’s to boot! Also, the wildflowers were gorgeous here - lots of woodland flowers which I photographed and used Seek to help identify. I knew some of them, but it was fun to take a photo and use Seek to help with the identification (hopefully, I’ll remember some of them!).
Oregon Iris
A happy Hermit Warbler
Eventually, the sound of the nearby gunshots from the firing range and the clock made me get the heck out of dodge. I wanted to get home at a decent hour to clean up the van and enjoy my usual Sunday evening dinner - Pagliacci Pizza. On the way out, I stopped at a couple pullouts to enjoy the scenery of a recent burn and listen to some more birds.
Driving down from Larch Mountain
Thankfully, traffic on I-5 was really smooth headed back to Seattle. Sometimes, on Sunday afternoons/evenings, it can get congested at the usual spots around Olympia / DuPont. At least, this day was pretty good.
What a very enjoyable weekend observing birds and their behavior - and also checking off some more birds for the year. I told myself I wasn’t going to be competitive this year with my state bird list, but I just can’t help it! At least I’m paying more attention to bird behavior, the songs, what they’re doing. This is the really interesting part about birding to me. And, certainly, getting a couple decent-ish photographs along the way is really excellent, too!
