Scout Island Turtle Count

We saw 32 turtles on our walk at Scout Island yesterday!  This photo is actually from last week when we were thrilled to spot 13 turtles.

In other harbingers of spring reports, rufous and calliope hummingbirds have arrived at our house.  And the first tulips are blooming.

South of the Border

Farewell Bend State Park, OR to Oroville, WA

April 1, 2015

Another day of steady driving from eastern Oregon to Oroville, Washington, just before the border station with Osoyoos, BC.  We stopped in Kennewick, WA, to check our email and have lunch; otherwise we just drove for 9 hours.

We are camped at Oroville’s city park on Osoyoos Lake.  It’s pretty empty except one guy in a tent and another couple from BC in a fifth wheel.

As is our custom, we went for one last Mexican feed before we crossed the border, at Trino’s.  It was pretty busy tonight, the waitress was run off her feet.  It’s not our last chance for Mexican food; there are two taco stands before the boundary line.  But again it’s too windy this evening to be eating al fresco. 

Tomorrow it’s straight up Highway 97 to home.

Long Road Home

Farewell Bend State Park, Oregon

March 31, 2015

Farewell Bend

I woke up at 6:30 this morning to the strong smell of skunk; fortunately, it dissipated before we got up. 

Today was a day of steady driving, with stops only at gas stations and rest stops. Idaho doesn’t have site specific rest stops; all the ones along the I-84 have been recently replaced with identical generic facilities.  We drove until we crossed into Oregon, then stopped at 4 pm at Farewell Bend State Park on the Snake River, which happens to be the boundary between the two states.  Except it was only 3 pm because we are now in the Pacific Time Zone.

This looks like a nice park but it’s so windy we can’t really enjoy it.  Free showers, but they are operated with a push button and not temperature adjustable so they lose out to Arizona State Park showers. On the other hand an electric site costs $2 less and every site is surrounded by its own hedge.   Too windy here for birding, but we did see coots, Canada geese, ravens, mallards, killdeer,

Oregon juncos and a yellow-rumped warbler in full breeding plumage.  We haven’t seen this much green grass since we passed through Oregon 2 months ago.

Update:  Leo was looking at the 2014 results of the Behind the Rocks marathon.  They've now posted the 2015 results, so his agony is not unrecorded.  Again he was the oldest participant, and 38th finisher of 72.  Nothing to be ashamed of.

We continue to head north and expect to be home by Thursday or Friday.

Back to Birding

Brigham City, Utah

March 29-30, 2015

The next day we headed north through the busy freeway traffic of Salt Lake City and in the early afternoon arrived at Willard State Park on Great Salt Lake in Brigham City.  The campsite is really just a big parking lot by a marina, and probably wouldn’t be that pleasant in the summer, but there’s only 6 rigs camped here, so it’s pretty pleasant.  We have 3 picnic tables at our site, a big tree and a view of the beautiful Wasatch Mountains. (And electricity and our own sewage dump for $20.)

Camping in the parking lot, Willard Bay State Park

Ostensibly we stopped here for the nearby Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, but there also happens to be two restaurants recommended in our Roadfood guide, so that doesn’t hurt either.

Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge

The next morning we hit the refuge pretty early and had most of the 12 mile road tour to ourselves.  The visitor centre noted 20,000 swans here at the beginning of March, but now most of the great masses of migrating birds are gone.  There were reports of white-faced ibis sightings, but not by us.  Still, we saw lots of American Avocets,

and black-necked stilts, white pelicans, sandhill cranes, and cinnamon teals, along with numerous other ducks.  The bird of the day was Clark’s grebe, a lifer for us.  These used to be a variation of the western grebe, but now counts as a separate species, so we’ll take it.

For lunch we went to Idle’s Isle, an old-fashioned coffee shop, as we used to call them in my youth, complete with marble lunch counter and great booths.  The menu was classic diner, and the fresh-baked rolls tasted exactly like Leo’s mom’s, and the ham and bean soup tasted just like my mom’s.  And there was great idleberry (blue and raspberry) and coconut cream pie with a giant dollop of whipped cream for dessert.  Two Thumbs Up!  It’s just as well the Maddox Drive In was closed on Mondays because as it was we forwent supper tonight.

Brigham City is an appealing small town with a vital and lively downtown (a rarity in small-town USA) and two large Mormon churches across the street from each other (I suppose they didn’t name it after Brigham Young for nothing). And they have a banner over Main Street stating “home of the best wildlife refuge in the world.” So you can tell they have their priorities right:  1) birds, 2) God, and 3) pie, although Leo and I might slightly change the order.

Our campsite is a bit of a disappointment, birdwise.  It looks like great bird habitat, with flowering trees, the lakeshore with exposed sandy beach, fields, and riparian area along a ditch.  But the first day all we saw were house sparrows, robins and red-winged blackbirds.

In the early evening we walked along the dyke and we did manage to see some killdeer, a pelican, a great blue heron, 40 sandhill cranes, and some Western/Clark’s grebes.  So perhaps we are just spoiled after the bounty of Bear River Refuge.  Still, where are the warblers and the sparrows?

Walking the dyke, South Marina, Willard state Park