SPRING 2025: Joy & Rebirth, + Deep Despair about Seattle’s Silent Spring

23 Mar SPRING 2025: Joy & Rebirth, + Deep Despair about Seattle’s Silent Spring

posted from Seattle WA on March 23 2025

Delia and I tagged along on a trip to Douglas County with our friends Brian and Darchelle as spring burst onto the calendar. On the way home we stopped at the Wild Horse Wind Farm on the Vantage Highway.. As we headed away on the Vantage Highway Brian Pendleton achieved one of the necessary prerequisites for sainthood (having wrought a miracle) (He may have trouble with some of the others.) But scanning the sagebrush on the hill above us, he picked out a tiny speck and we pulled over to the shoulder. We needed scopes to ascertain it, but it was indeed a Mountain Bluebird that had arrived already on its breeding grounds. Despite his dozen-year battle with ALS, Brian remains the best spotter we know and believe me, we know a lot of good spotters. Soon the little bird dove down over the sage and landed on a fence post 100 ft below us, so we followed it down where it sat for photos.

The Mountain Bluebird at Wild Horse, shown above, was an example of a shallow migrant that is part of the first wave of the 2025 spring migration. That is to say a short haul migrant, another of which is the Western Meadowlark, also an “early bird.” Both birds don’t travel far, staying in North America for their winter vacation.

Western Meadowlarks provide the sound track for the prairie. The song is loud and beautiful and they don’t hold back. This bird was at an intersection on the Waterville and ignored the occasional motorist who passed within 20 feet. He (I assume so) had some serious singing to do.

This a sign of the times, with the lack of snowfall in our state interfering with the survival of a species that is all about living with snow. This Snowy Owl, which we believe because of its all-white plumage is a male, had chosen to post itself up on a painted white rock. From a distance, the effect was that it appeared to be two white rocks in the distance. We had to set up the scope before we allowed ourselves to believe it was a live bird.

Readers of the blog are used to photos of American Kestrels. I love this bird and sense that it is in the cross-hairs of the sixth extinction as it has declined or disappeared in so many parts of the country already. This male was on the Waterville Plateau.

Spring is a time when Birds tend to look their best. This Double-crested Cormorant was at Jameson Lake. The photo doesn’t do justice to its breeding plumes.

Three male Redheads playing follow the leader.

Canvasback Ducks one of the Royal members of the Duck family.

A Canvasback male.

It looks like a male Prairie Falcon in the cave, presumably she’s around somewhere. Males are smaller.

We had a hard time getting these Deer’s attention.

I had known but forgotten that Pronghorn is one of Washington state’s native and surviving Mammal species. We would have continued in that ignorant state except Brian spotted these 2 of four Pronghorn strung out in a line in the distance on the Waterville.

I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out when the last and only time I saw a Sage Grouse was. Was it in Wyoming in 1968 when my Mom and I drove to Eugene Oregon to dump me with my Uncle and Aunt for the summer? We started in a Corvair but that blew up. Mom traded the carcass and $50 bucks for a 58 Buick in Nebraska and it made the trip, the engine catching on fire only once. Mom loved the Flowers and plants and I loved the birds so that trip has great memories, but not sure if the Sage Grouse went that far back? Or was it in Wyoming on one of the three times I criss-crossed the country hitchhiking in the crazy (for me) summer of 1973 and stayed a week at a Michigan-State field station on the Hoback River.? Or was it in Wyoming when I went back with Chris in a Datsun 510, now that was a great car, to see relatives and my family in 1979? Of course it no longer matters, especially not to anyone else but me. In any case, it was a long time ago and not in this state.

Sage Grouse are up against the wall in Washhington. Everyone was thinking climate change would make things 2 degrees warmer. Boy was that wrong. The weather was always undependable and unpredictable but now it has gone completely berserk. It’s the climate that is changing, but weather is what kills us and the things we care about.. Will it rain again in southern Europe? Botswana? New Mexico and far West-Texas? I sure hope so, and the possibility that it might is what keeps me getting up in the morning.

I had not realized what a long bird the Sage Grouse is. Truly this bird epitomizes the richness of the oldgrowth Sagebrush steppe environment–a magical place.

Deep Despair Department

Violet-green Swallow, this photo is by the great Marv Breece., not me. I mentioned bitter sorrow in the headline. A day like we are having today, a sunny, fairly warm day in late March or early April for most of the years I lived in Seattle would draw thousands of Violet-green Swallows into the neighborhoods of Seattle to look for houses, they had a housing shortage in Seattle before people did. Now they are mostly or all gone, victims of the 6th extinction. So many species are going down, there is no use asking if the biologists are figuring out exactly what is driving the decline, and that saddens me also. And it also saddens me that it has been un-commented upon, as though a loved one is lost and there wasn’t even an obituary.

Adding this late: Never count them out, Ed! While they are terribly declined, I did see 5 cruising around over northern Beacon Hill yesterday April 25, 2025.

Silent Spring?

No, it hasn’t been a silent spring overall in Seattle, massive numbers of Yellow-rumped Warblers and others are heading through Beacon Hill as of April 26 and the resident Birds are singing. But both of our formerly common Swallows were chatterers, they both constantly do flight-location calls that are delightful to the human ear, although the Barn Swallows “Danger” call can be a bit harsh at close range. And by and large this is gone now. Rachel Carson’s prediction of a Silent Spring has come true in that regard.

Violet-green Swallows seem to be receding most from the urban core outward. But they also live in the wilder lowlands of Puget Sounds and in the mountains and in the canyons on the Eastern slope, where they may be hanging on better. This Violet-green Swallow was with about 20 that were happily foraging over the Puyallup River lowlands around Tacoma. Many shots I have taken before do not show the violet. For years I thought the violet was something only visible when the bird was in the hand. Nothing could be further from the truth, but it’s imperative to have full sun to see the full effect of the green and violet. Because I think others might, like me, not yet understood what a glamorous Bird is in our midst, I see this as the best photo I have ever taken, just as I think Marv Breece’s photo is one of the ten beset photos I’ve ever seen.

In my About the Artist I credit this Bird with being the one that got me into Birding. As I have refined my memories, I’m thinking there were two others, Eastern Towhee and Indigo Bunting. The first two got caught inside a pen and a porch, the third my Grandmother promoted to me and got me really excited about before I ever saw it, the Bunting. But still, my Dad getting hold of the Green Heron so we could set it free really was a seminal moment, including him making a special effort to show it to me first, so I will always feel a connection to Green Herons, this one was in Issaquah on March 30.

It is definitely spring. Look how bright this Pileated Woodpecker is, taken on March 30 in Seward Park, Seattle. Fresh moult for the breeding season, sort of like renting a tux for the prom.

This Mountain Quail was near Purdy, Washington on April 10. Mountain and California Quail may be the most delightful non-native species in Washington state. Both are originally from California. and perhaps Oregon, so they aren’t all that far removed from where they existed naturally.

Delia and I experienced an early mini fallout on April 20, 2025 at Butyl Creek. This photo shows two Yellow-rumped Warblers. We had at least 20 of these plus a Hermit Thrush, a Lincoln’s Sparrow, a couple Orange-crowned Warblers and a Nashville Warbler.

Here’s the Nashville Warbler. This is an ok shot but you should see the ones that got away!

We also have had our wintering Birds, some of which are going to be leaving on their own migration north. These included Golden-crowned Sparrows, Ruby-crowned Kinglets and White-throated Sparrows. We have never had such good luck with White-throateds as this year. One has been with us all winter and now there are two.

We were very surprised to see cars stopped along the road down in Wauna. We weren’t expecting to see Orcas in the South Sound on our way from Longbranch to the coast. We didn’t find out which Orcas these were. I don’t know anything about Orcas but they look like Transients, ie. Bigg’s Orcas but seemed to be acting like Southern Residents. I wish I knew. That was on April 11.