Birding the Fatherland

Following a whirlwind month and a half in Indonesia and the Philippines, I flew to Washington for another attempt at moving to the US. This, like the last one, proved to be a failure and I only made it a month and half before returning to Asia once more (in fact, I'm on my way to Manila as I write this). I was technically supposed to be in DC for the entire time, but unsurprisingly that didn't work either, and I ended up making multiple trips even in what was supposed to be a quiet month.

The first of these was less than a week after I arrived in DC, as I was making a visit to my dad's hometown in northern Idaho for my late grandmother's belated memorial service. The ceremony had been delayed for almost 4 years for pandemic-related reasons, but it was a welcome excuse to reunite with family members I hadn't seen in decades, and hear stories of growing up in the mountains of the Idaho panhandle. I won't get into the details of the reunion, but thankfully there was time for a spot of birding in the midst of all the family time. 

The problem with traveling to northern Idaho is that there's not really any good way to get there. The nearest proper airport is Spokane, across the border in eastern Washington and there are precious few flights there from the East Coast, certainly not from DC. I departed the evening of Friday, July 27 and flew to Chicago where I met up with my parents, sister, and sister's boyfriend Lee before connecting to our flight to Spokane. The flight was, of course, delayed until about 1 in the morning, leaving us all exhausted and sleep deprived by the time we got on the plane. Planes these days are not really designed for 6'6" people to sleep in, so we wandered off the plane in Spokane at 3 in the morning with bleary eyes and about 45 minutes of sleep between us. We didn't get to Lee's parents' house in northern Idaho until 4:30, just in time for a couple hours of sleep before sunrise. 

I of course woke up before most other people the next morning, as I still had jet lag working in my favor, and spent some time by the house's hummingbird feeder hoping for my lifer Calliope Hummingbird to come in. None did, alas, and eventually I left with my mom to get some groceries and find a trail for a quick hike. We ended up at the Q'emiln (pronounced ka-mee-lin) Park, a little natural area with some trails in the little town of Post Falls. We didn't have much time to explore but it was a beautiful little park with some nice trails and lovely views of the low hills and the Spokane River. Bird-wise there wasn't much except for singing Western Wood-Pewees and a single juvenile Townsend's Solitaire. A few Northern Ravens also flew by as we were about to get back in the car.

The landscape of Q'emiln Park

Western Wood Pewee

My dad's hometown is the town of Elk River, tucked away in the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountains south of Lake Couer D'Alene. Its heyday was back in the early 20th century when it was the site of an active sawmill. The logging industry brought in men and their families from throughout the American West, including my late grandfather. The sawmill has since closed, along with the school my dad graduated from and most of the other businesses in town and now it's just a tiny collection of houses at the end of the paved road. It's had somewhat of a resurgence in the past decades as a weekend destination for college kids and others from the larger towns in the west, who come to drink beer, drive ATVs, and do general redneck things. As to the general vibe of the town, I will simply present without comment two pictures from the inn I was staying at:

Elk River is a two-hour drive south from Post Falls, through county roads winding through picturesque mountain forests interspersed with desolate clearcuts- a sign that the logging industry is still active in the area even as sawmills have closed. This is the very northern end of the Columbia River Flood Basalt, and the whole area presents a strange geology of old metamorphic rocks in the mountaintops and young columnar basalt in the valleys where lava flowed in 10-15 million years ago. It was a beautiful drive, and a reminder of so much of what I miss from the American West: craggy hills covered in primeval pine forest, wide open spaces, and fresh, mountain air. Thankfully there weren't any fires nearby to spoil the fresh mountain air- an increasingly rare occurrence in the West these days...

We arrived in Elk River in the late afternoon, and started to settle into our rooms and reunite with family members. Soon we had filled up the biggest lodge in town and were engaging in the favorite Jarvis traditions: craft beer, sandwiches, and talking enthusiastically about extremely esoteric hobbies (birding, tattoos, renaissance fairs, sword fighting, 3D modeling, male fashion, mountain biking, and knitting to name just a few). Eventually I decided to get some time outside before the sun went down and went to explore some beautiful little ponds just outside of town.

The Elk River ponds

It was a true late-summer vibe in Elk River, as the ponds were full of many young and recently-fledged birds- Spotted Sandpipers, Mallards, American Wigeons, Buffleheads, Cedar Waxwings, American Redstarts, Red-winged Blackbirds, Song Sparrows, and hundreds of immature Violet-green Swallows, looking much less spectacular than the iridescent adults. There was a pair of Sora and a Wilson's Snipe hanging out by the side of the pond, and many bats were flying around by the time I started to head back to the lodge. It was, overall, a truly lovely evening of birding.

Violet-Green Swallow

American Cliff Swallow

Cedar Waxwing

Buffleheads

Adult Spotted Sandpiper

Adorable baby Spotted Sandpiper

Five species in one photo: Sora, Lesser Yellowlegs, Song Sparrow, Wilson's Snipe, and Killdeer!

Canada Geese

Sunset over the Elk River valley

After more family time (and more beer) I retired to my quarters for some sleep. Jet lag was still working in my favor so I was up by 5AM and out a half hour later for a sunrise walk. It had been a gorgeous sunset and as expected it was a gorgeous morning as well, with glassy waters blanketed in mist and dotted with ducks of various sorts- Mallards, Gadwalls, Green-winged Teals, Blue-winged Teals, and even a surprise American Wigeon, which was a rarity for the area. There were many Red-winged Blackbirds and even a couple Yellow-headed Blackbirds in the reeds next to the pond, and Red-naped Sapsuckers and Cedar Waxwings hanging out in the nearby trees (I realized at this point that I can no longer hear Cedar Waxwings- another casualty of my progressively worsening hearing loss). 

Elk River at sunrise

Ducks in the mist

The highlight, though, were the hundreds of swallows of various sorts swooping over the pond- American Cliff Swallows, Northern Rough-winged Swallows, Sand Martins, Tree Swallows, and the usual big group of Violet-Green Swallows. I spent most of the morning attempting to get pictures of swallows in flight, although attempting is the key word there. My OM-1's autofocus did a reasonable job, but tracking tiny, fast-flying birds isn't really my photographic forte. I ended up with something like a 0.1% success rate, but there were at least a few pictures I was satisfied with. I also managed to finally get a picture of Vaux's Swift, a long-overdue photo lifer for me.

Bufflehead

American Wigeon, apparently a rarity in Clearwater County

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Red-naped Sapsucker

Cedar Waxwing

Juvenile Cedar Waxwing

American Cliff Swallow

Northern Rough-winged Swallow

Tree Swallow

Violet-Green Swallow

Vaux's Swift

Walking back through town I finally came across a few Violet-Green Swallows in adult plumage rather than the drab juveniles I'd been seeing around the pond. I also encountered a small nesting colony of American Cliff Swallows on the edge of a polebarn. Swallows hovering around next to the nest was a great photo op, and allowed me to get lots of swallow-in-flight pictures that would have been impossible otherwise. 

Violet-green Swallow

American Cliff Swallow

The memorial service wasn't until late morning so I decided to walk south of town to the Elk Creek Reservoir. It was a beautiful walk, through a forested valley to the reservoir ringed by Douglas Firs and little campsites. Surprisingly one of those campsites was named for my late grandfather- apparently a well-known figure in the Elk River community, and the subject of many reminiscences from the old-timers we met during our visit there. There weren't nearly as many birds around as there had been at the pond, but there were still a few around- many Willow Flycatchers in the marshy areas along with a surprising Least Flycatcher, Western Wood-Pewees singing from the treetops, Chipping Sparrows feeding on the ground, distant screaming Northern Flickers, and even a few Evening Grosbeaks and Red Crossbills flying over. 

Northern Catbird

Willow Flycatcher

Canada Geese

Chipping Sparrow

Yellow-Pine Chipmunk

Woodland Skipper

Scenery along the way to the reservoir

The northern tip of the reservoir

The Jarvis family legacy

In order to get back I bushwhacked through the woods a bit to get to a little dirt road back to town. This had a few different birds, including a little mixed flock of Audubon's Warblers, Nashville Warblers, and Red-breasted Nuthatches. Further in were some Dark-eyed Juncos of the pink-sided subspecies and, best of all, some lovely Townsend's Warblers still singing from the Douglas Firs. 

Nashville Warbler, one of the worst-named birds in the world 

Dark-eyed Junco

Townsend's Warbler

Megachile angelarum

Common Wood Nymph

Denseflower Rein Orchid

The road outside Elk River

We had a short, sweet ceremony for my grandmother in the cemetery on the hill above town, and then returned for a light lunch and a nap. In the afternoon the whole family took a trip out to see Elk River's famous stand of old-growth cedar trees, protected from logging as it's located in a valley too remote and marshy for the lumber companies to bother. It was only recently "discovered" and brought to the attention of the public, although apparently my grandfather was aware of it decades before that from his many expeditions into the remote woods on horseback and on snowmobile. These days there's a lovely little trail going through the valley and we spent some time enjoying the truly enormous trees, although there were precisely zero birds to be found.

The old growth cedars of Elk River

The next morning I joined my parents and my dad's cousin Rhonda for a hike to Elk Creek Falls, a surprisingly impressive complex of waterfalls a ways south of town. Unsurprisingly we soon separated on the hike- the boomers preferring to hike fast and talk about mountain biking gear and me preferring to take it slow and look for birds. The falls are actually gorgeous- the highest waterfalls in Idaho, cascading over columnar basalt and through a valley filled by volcanic ash from the eruption that created Crater Lake. That volcanic ash also made the valley surprisingly fertile, with plants usually only found hundreds of miles further west in the proper coastal forests. As expected the forest was lovely and primordial, filled with enormous, moss-draped pines and thick undergrwoth.

The trail to the falls

The upper falls- these are the tallest waterfall in Idaho

The lower falls

Looking east through the valley

The birds were great as well, with the highlight being a flock of about a dozen very friendly Canada Jays, a welcome boreal forest bird after years in the tropics. There were also many singing Cassin's Vireos and Western Flycatchers, some breeding Swainson's Thrushes, and an adorable Pacific Wren. 

Canada Jay (aka Grey Jay)

Swainson's Thrush

Audubon's Warbler

Western Flycatcher (if it's "Cordilleran" or "Pacific Slope" I have no idea, but thankfully we don't have to worry about that anymore)

Pacific Wren

American Red Squirrel

Yellow-Pine Chipmunk

Hedge Nettle Stink Bug

Back in Elk River, we had a late brunch with the family and one last chance for catching up. We dispersed our various ways after that- to Idaho, Wisconsin, Washington, Colorado, Texas, Michigan, and DC, but not before a family photo and promises to try and do this sort of thing more often. Having a widely-dispersed family makes reunions like this vanishingly rare, but it was a good reminder of why they're good to do- and of the uncanny similarities between the lot of us despite thousands of miles (and several generations) of separation. 

The extremely rare family group picture

I drove back up to Post Falls with my parents, although we made sure to stop for some hiking before coming down from the mountains. The first stop was a little forestry road that we happened across on my dad's trails app, which proved to be a pleasant (if not particularly scenic) walk through Douglas Firs with lots of Chestnut-backed Chickadees foraging in the woods above us. 

Walking through Douglas Firs

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Bordered Orbweaver

Stenopogon inquinalis, a huge robber fly

California Tortoiseshell

Common Wood Nymph

Bicolored Carpenter Ant

Some sort of grass veneer moth in a cedar tree

Some kind of cute leafhopper

Bird's-foot Trefoil

Large Hop Clover

We stopped once more on the way up, by a more official-looking trail that went along a tiny little forest creek in the foothills. It was a beautiful hike but somewhat longer than we expected, and we turned around after a couple miles of walking so we could get up to Post Falls by dinner. Bird-wise it was pretty quiet but for the many Willow Flycatchers and Song Sparrows along the creek, although on the way back I ran into a little mixed flock of Red-breasted Nuthatches, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, and Western Tanagers, just in time for my camera to run out of battery. I was only able to squeeze off a couple shots before it died completely- my fault for not charging I suppose.

Willow Flycatcher

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Villa lateralis

Great Spangled Fritillary, I think

Feather Creek

Back up in Post Falls, we had dinner with Lee's family before heading back to the airport. While waiting for dinner I got another lifer (one of only two on the trip, sadly)- a female Calliope Hummingbird that briefly flew into the feeder. It was a great end to a whirlwind 3-day trip, full of family time and much-needed time exploring the outdoors out West. After that it was a couple of weeks back in the stifling heat of Washington DC before going west again for another adventure, but that's for the next blog.