This Years Eagle Nest.

On Friday I headed out to Yakima to do some work for WA Fish and Wildlife.  The goal was to put a trail camera near a golden eagles nest.   This is the same thing we did last year on a nest of a different set of birds just down the valley.  There are some photos from that work here.  We did not know if the nest had chicks until we did the long drive on a terrible dirt road to get there.  Once there we found two chicks, and just as importantly, a nest that was not too difficult to get a camera mounted on.  I shot a couple of photos when I was down at the nest.  The female bird was on the nest when we got there, and decided to leave pretty quickly. 

 The two birds in the nest.  There is a piece of food next to them which is what is left of a blue grouse.

Please note that these photos are shot while working directly with the WA Department of Fish and Wildlife under funding from the Woodland Park Zoo.  There is no other reason to go to golden eagles nests since they are very easily disturbed.

Seattle Backyard Birds and How to Attract Them.

When I first bought my house here in Seattle the yard was a wasteland of non native plants and invasive species. One of the only saving graces of the yard was a 50ft tall western hemlock. One side of the yard was completely overrun by 20 ft tall skyrocket juniper with English ivy and holly bushes filling in the gaps. The bird species that frequented the yard was pretty much confined to the sparrow, which is also an introduced species. 

Our lot is small (50ft x 100ft) and I never really expected I could create much of a sanctuary for birds, but I did not like ivy or holly, and I hated the juniper bushes. Over the last seven years I removed most of the non native species of plants from the yard and replaced them with native ferns and trees in the hope it might help bring some native birds back to the property. I never expected how successful this would be. This spring we have an abundance of birds in and around our yard, and I am sure it is due to the changes in flora that we have made, in addition to the overall changes in flora choices around the neighborhood.

One of the first things we did was remove the skyrocket juniper. These things were overgrown and ugly. There were five of them and at the ground they were as much as 2ft in diameter. Most people choose to cut trees they don't want to the ground, I decided that if we wanted birds we needed food for those birds. I cut several of the stumps at 4 to 5feet above the ground and left them to rot in place. I have also added a few ferns to grow in the stumps.

The next thing was to remove all holly and ivy from the property. These are invasive species. Ivy supports almost no bird life and crowds out other native species. Holly is invading our northwest forests and is very difficult to remove. several birds feed on the berries which unfortunately causes it to spread even faster.

I am an advocate of large native trees on small lots. I planted several western red cedars a couple Douglas fir and several western hemlock. They were all small saplings, which will be removed and replaced as soon as they get too large for the area. I also planted several vine maples and at least 6 varieties of ferns. Other plants I used are devils club, Oregon oxalis, Oregon grape, thimble berry native blackberry varieties, and numerous other random plants. Not everything is native however. I planted a grape vine, and a whole bunch of raspberries. I also have some anemones to add a little color to the yard.

Our side yard.

Each year the plants in the yard become more established and each year we have more birds. So far this year the list of birds in our yard has been amazing considering the size of the lot. What is even more amazing is the number of birds that have chosen to nest in our yard. Here are a few of the birds. All of these photos were shot while standing in my yard in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle.



Anna's Hummingbird





Song Sparrow



All of the following photos are of birds that are nesting in our yard. The bushtits are not nesting this year, but did last year.

A chickadee perched in the grape vine.

Chickadee

A Bewick's wren moving in to a nest box. It seems like the Bewick's is more common each year. There is not a place in Phinney Ridge you can go without hearing the call of the Bewick's.

Bewick's Wren

This pair of Stellar's Jays are currently building a nest in our yard.



Stellar's Jay



Stellar's Jay

Although there is no nest this year, we did have a bushtit nest in our hemlock tree last year.

Bush tit

One more note about nesting birds. The first couple of years we had several house sparrows move in to our nest boxes. House sparrows are pretty agressive birds and dont really help gain native species of birds. I removed the eggs from these boxes and then moved them different locations in the yard. Sparrows no longer use the boxes, and chickadees and Bewick's wrens have now moved in.

Other birds in the yard.

Savanah Sparrow?

Mallard pair that returns every year to the puddles in the ally way.

A juvenile American Robin

Golden Crowned sparrow with a broken wing. This bird ended up at the PAWS wildlife rehab center in Lynnwood.

American Crow.

A sharp shinned hawk in the neighbors apple tree.

Northern Flicker

I made it my goal to get photos of each of the bird species that I have seen in our yard. This however has not been possible, so here is a list of the other species I have seen in our yard.

Starling (A non native, invasive species)
House Finch (Common)
Pigeon (Sometimes)
Peregrine Falcon (Several times a year)

Ruby Crowned Kinglet (Common)
Dark Eyed Junco (Common)

Other species that I have seen from our yard but not necessarily in the yard.

Coopers Hawk (I see this guy hunting in the neighborhood)
Bald Eagle (Probably the Greenlake pair, fairly common.)

Mount Baker Easton Glacier Summit Climb with Students from the Bush School

This week I did a trip to Mt. Baker's Easton Glacier with a group of students from the Bush School in Seattle.  The trip started with a questionable weather report, which is never a good thing when you are hoping to summit Mt. Baker.  The first issue is that the road to the trail head is still covered with snow for over three miles.  This made for a long hike in to our first camp.

After a long day of walking we got to a camp at the base of the Rail Road Grade (a glacial moraine that runs along the west side of the Easton Glacier).  We set up camp cooked dinner and went to bed.  Unfortunately we awoke the next day to rain.  We decided not to move to a higher camp so we could stay dry.  After breakfast I went back to bed.  The students entertained themselves with cards.

Looking down the valley to Baker Lake.

Even the birds were wet.

Ricardo

 I was surprised to find the rain had turned to snow when I woke from my 4 hour midday nap. 

Snow on the cook tent.

Erica

Is the sun trying to break through?

 The next morning looked like the weather might get better so we decided to move to a camp that was high enough up the mountain to summit from.  The move to Sandy Camp was reasonably strait forward and only took a couple of hours.

Jordan

Maggie

 As the weather slowly improved we did some glacier skills practice in hopes that we would be able to climb to the summit the next morning.

Checking out a small crevasse.

Rope team travel practice.

 Morning always comes too early for me.  We had a 1am wake up.

Camp at 1am with the Twin Sisters Range in the background.

Camp at 1am with Mt. Baker's summit in background.

Sunrise

Isabel.

Starting up the Roman Wall.

Mt. Bakers summit.

On the summit.

The second rope team nears the summit.

Th last few steps to the summit.

The summit.

A slight detour heading down to view some seracs.

A panorama of the summit crater.  This was seven photos stitched together.

Once  back at camp we ate some lunch and packed up camp.  From there we began the long hike out.  The really long hike out.  Thanks to the crew from the Bush School in Seattle.  This was one of the more fun groups of people I have been out in the mountains with.   All in all a very rewarding experience for all, including me!

The complete set of photos can be found at http://alasdairturner.smugmug.com/

Montana and it's Wildlife

 OK I know its not quite in Montana, but the rest of North Dakota was so boring to drive through that this small slice of the western edge should just be given to Montana.  I entered Theodor Roosevelt National park in a driving rain/snow storm.   The 38 mile loop road is worth the drive, especially when there is not a single other person in the park.  I did not see one other car or person between entering the gate and exiting.  Thirty-five degrees and raining does not make for the best park experience for many, but for me it was fine.

This mule deer was standing near the road.  You can see how crappy the weather was by it water soaked coat. 

 

The driving rain was also causing the park to erode before my eyes.  There were rivers of mud flowing across many of the roads, and my attempt at a short walk was ended quickly by ankle deep mud that was next to impossible to stand up in.

Now to Montana.  To be fair the weather in Montana sucked also.  The driving rain and snow continued until I got to Lewistown, Montana.  Montana has more birds along the side of the road than any other place I have been.  Unfortunately at 70mph its pretty hard to identify any of them.  Stopping was now limited since Susan and Cullen just got on the train from Seattle to Whitefish.  I had to pick them up in the morning and then we will all drive back home together. 

 The Montana winters are tough.

Natural predators the Montana way.  The main reason I have not eaten beef in 15 years. 

I spent the night in Lewistown, and woke up to perfect weather the next morning.  

Over the last couple of years one of my new favorite things to do on road trips is to stop at random small wildlife refuges along the way.  At this one we were treated to several interesting birds.

Yellow-headed blackbird

A female/juvenile red winged blackbird?

I had a conversation with a friend of mine (who is a very good photographer click here to see his work) about shooting some animals on my trip.  I mentioned that I would love to get a photo of a antelope, but that was a pipe dream since you can never get close enough to them to shoot good photos. 
Prior to this photo I had never seen one up close and it took me a couple of seconds to figure out that it was a pronghorn antelope and not a deer.  I was really struck by the tone of these animals and how stocky and muscular they are.  From a distance they have always looked so sleek and thin. 

Pronghorn Antelope

My last photo of the day.   

Medowlark

Juvenile golden eagle

I finally arrived in Whitefish a few hours late to pick up my wife and our five week old son.  The White fish train depot is a beautiful building.

Aldo Leopolds Cabin in the Woods

For the last few days I have been driving across the country in a new vehicle that I bought in Detroit.  I had never driven through Minnesota, or Wisconsin, so I decided to take the northern route across the country.  Most of the time when i travel I do not plan where to stop or what to see, and most of the time this works out.  As I drove through western Wisconsin I decided to stop for lunch at a wildlife area that looked like it had some potential.  I mostly wanted to see a sand hill crane.  I did along with some other birds and an otter(I think).  As I left to get on the road again I ran across the Aldo Leopold Center and decided that there was no way I could pass up this opportunity.  Aldo Leopold of course wrote the book a Sand County Almanac which was one of the first books I read, and one that had a profound influence on me. 

This is the cabin where he wrote his book.