Have driven on three scenic byways the past couple of weeks: the White Pine Scenic Byway, the Northwest Passage Byway, and the Gold Rush Historic Byway. A logging boom appears to be present in all these areas. The Gold Rush Historic Byway was my favorite, along Idaho 11 up a steep grade to the village of Weippe. This is where Lewis and Clark first met the Nez Perce Tribe.

Above, Musselshell Meadow in the Clearwater National Forest just east of Weippe. The bottom picture is a camas flower. Nez Perce Tribe members have the legal right to come into the forest to harvest the roots of the flower. There were some beautiful meadows filled with the blue flowers.

A Eastern kingbird and a flycatcher of some kind in the Musselshell area. There were a number of common snipe’s nesting in the area, but I didn’t get any pictures of them.

Weippe is half a farming/ranching town and half a logging town. Their backroads are like a roller coaster ride and fun to drive. Although they are gravel, they are good roads. Think the logging companies keep them wet to keep people from complaining of dust from the logging trucks.

The red calf above has to be one of the biggest ones I’ve seen. It wasn’t happy with the amount of milk it was getting from it’s mom.

On driving the backroads, I was about to take a picture of a ring-necked pheasant when a woman in a truck blocked my truck. She thought I was a real estate agent and came up to me saying “We don’t want to sell our land, if that is what you’re taking pictures for!” When I explained I was bird watching, she was very nice, even telling me about a nearby pond where you could see elk in the evening.

Hope Weippe stays a small rural village. Let the rich people stay in Sandpoint.

A Swainson’s thrush seen in the Giant White Pine Campground. Have frequently heard their unique call, but it’s hard to get a picture of them in the trees.

Since I was in the area, thought I should visit Dworshak State Park. It’s one bear of a drive there from the town of Orofino. Uneven two-lane road with sharp turns and no turnouts to let people pass. The park is more for boater’s and fishermen. Seeing cedar waxwing’s there, however, made the trip worthwhile. The bottom picture shows what they were eating. Not sure what kind of tree it is. There are also lots of berry shrubs in the area that will provide berries for them in a month or two.

Below, view of the Northwest Passage Scenic Byway along the Clearwater River as seen from the road going up to Weippe.

Have been at Rancho Jurupa Regional Park in Riverside for about a week. Have been surprised at the wide variety of birds I have been seeing. There are the regulars that I have seen in the past, as well as some new ones.

Do not recall seeing a kestral (above) before.

Have seen a number of black-crowned night herons, as I have in the past.

Blue herons and egrets are here as well. Saw a blue heron hunting for gophers this morning. The park has finally hired a gopher control professional who is putting some type of gas into the gopher tunnels.

It’s funny how a blue heron, a night heron, and a great egret will stand side by side next to the water, but will usually get territorial and chase away their own species.

Black phoebe (top) and a Say’s phoebe (lower).

Not sure what kind of woodpecker this is. Doesn’t look like any of the pictures in my bird book.

A lot of birds are here as part of a flock. These include Western kingbirds (top), Western bluebirds (middle), and Cedar Waxwings (botton). I have never seen cedar waxwings here before. Also have had first time sightings of Western meadowlarks, but haven’t gotten a good picture yet.

A few more photos from the San Diego Zoo. Above is a Turkmenistan Caracal, an endangered cat found in the Middle East and Africa. At the zoo it is located next to the polar bears. I was watching the polar bear cam the other day and saw the outline of the cat’s ears in the background. If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was an antelope or deer.

Below, Frank the one-year-old male gorilla, is watching an adult female gorilla eat a green pepper. Parts of it is in her right hand and her left foot. Frank had tried to get some of it, but she wanted it for herself.

I’m back in California where gas is 30 cents more a gallon and state park campgrounds are $35 a night. First stopped in Eureka to visit the nearby Arcata Marsh & Wildlife Sanctuary. It is amazing how many visitors this water treatment facility gets. Students from Humboldt University study it, there are joggers and walkers with children and/or dogs, bird watchers, and a few winos.

Was pleased to see a hundred or so cedar waxwings (picture above). There are berry bushes all along the walkways, full of berries, which they appreciated. Also saw around 25 night herons. They were hidden in the brush and too far away to get a good picture of.

Red-shouldered hawk seen two days in a row.

Was pleased to see the birds pictured below in some woods outside my trailer at the Eureka Fairgrounds rv park: A downy woodpecker, a black-capped chickadee, and a brown creeper. It is the first brown creeper I’ve seen.

Stayed at the Mammoth Hot Springs Campground in Yellowstone for 5 days. Got there around 11:30 a.m. and got a good spot. It filled up shortly thereafter. Yellowstone was really crowded. Read where attendance was breaking records. Saw license plates from all over the U.S., as well as lots of foreign tourists. Right after I got settled I drove towards the Canyon Village area. Driving anywhere in the middle of the afternoon is a mistake. The road from Mammoth through the Tower-Roosevelt area and Canyon Village is narrow and uneven and to drive it when it is really congested is bad. People are sightseeing and cross over the double yellow lines a lot. After this experience, just went out early in the morning.

Top picture: The upper Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces. The clouds provided good lighting.

Second picture: There are lots of waterfalls in Yellowstone. I just visited the Lower Falls in the Canyon Village area. First took a trail down to the right side of the falls in the picture. From there I could see stairs going down the side of a mountain on the other side of the falls.

Third picture: Stairs on Uncle Tom’s Trail that you go down to view the Lower Falls at a good angle. They are really steep stairs. Someone has posted a video of the stairs on YouTube.

The Canyon Village area would be a good place to stay. There are paved trails along the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. You are also close to Lamar Valley and Hayden Valley that are supposed to have lots of wildlife.

Top picture: What you are warned not to do, get close to wildlife…especially a grizzly bear! Park authorities had not arrived here yet. They use a lot of manpower to keep people at a certain distance from animals. In Mammoth Hot Springs the elk know they are protected and go where they want. At least one park employee follows them and puts out yellow cones that people are not supposed to cross. Passed one young black bear eating grass by the road. Across from him a park ranger in full dress uniform (hat and gloves) was waving to keep traffic going. Would love to have gotten a picture of him and the bear, but there was no place to stop.

The bull on the left appeared to be the head bull. He went around checking on a small herd by a pond and grunted the whole time. You could not really see the details of his face because of the fur, just heard continuous grunting.

The tail end of a coyote near Canyon Village.

Birds seen near my campsite. A red-breasted nuthatch (top) and a Clark’s nutcracker. There was a small flock of the Clark’s nutcrackers. They are the first ones I’ve ever seen.

Getting here: From Glacier National Park went back to Fort Benton, near Great Falls, to wait out a rain storm. From there, drove through Helena, and stayed one night at a free campground in the Canyon Ferry area. Then stayed two days at the Missouri Headwaters State Park where three rivers join to form the Missouri River. It is a good birding spot. Both at Fort Benton and the State Park, saw lots of cedar waxwings, gray catbirds, and osprey. One time I thought a cat was in a marsh, only to find it was a catbird. That’s the only time one has fooled me.

Cedar waxwing fledgling in Fort Benton. Note the orange tail feathers instead of the yellow that an adult has.

A chickadee on a bulrush at Missouri Headwaters State Park.

Heard sandhill cranes both at Missouri Headwaters State Park and Yellowstone, but never saw them.

Below: Campsite at Mammoth Hot Springs. Rain threatened several times, but only got a few sprinkles. Was sad to leave Yellowstone, but I’ll be back.

Have been in Little Pend Oreille National Wildlife Refuge near Colville, Washington, for the past five days. It is an unusual refuge, in that it allows free camping in some designated campgrounds on the refuge and even allows you to use dead or downed trees for firewood. You can even use a chainsaw! The campgrounds are in a dry forest area where there are a lot of tall, skinny trees. There is a firefighting unit on site that helps thin out the trees at this level, to allow the trees more room to grow.

Enjoyed having a campground pretty much to myself. There is a dirt/gravel road that circles around the refuge and takes you past the campgrounds and the visitor center. A few bicyclists took advantage of this low traffic road. There are some roads off this main route that are pretty rough. Some of the campgrounds allow horses, but owners have to remove all horse manure!

The birds were generally elusive. I was lucky to find a large flock of cedar waxwings flying through the air catching bugs next to a bog. The white bugs bounced up and down over plants that circled the bog and didn’t bother me. The waxwings didn’t seem to mind me either. They were flying all around intent on catching the bugs. Once and a while there would be a shrill whistle and they would all scatter, only to return a few minutes later.

Saw an eagle and an osprey hunting over a pond.

Campsite at the refuge.

Have been in Heyburn State Park in Idaho for close to a week. Had a hard time finding an rv spot. They are doing a lot of construction work here and visitor’s are kind of on their own. After about an hour, I did find a nice spot. It has been warm, but being surrounded by trees cools things off. Have not had to use my air conditioner.

One thing the park has going for it is the 73-mile Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes paved trail that passes through it. Above you see the path crossing Chalcolet Lake. There are three osprey nesting near this crossing. The one in the top picture is right over the path. It was not happy with my walking under it’s nest.

An osprey doing some redecorating with a long branch.

Cedar waxwing with a berry it subsequently swallows whole.

Western tanager with fledgling.

Pretty dragonfly and a beaver in a marsh area.

Parent, on right, the same osprey as in the top picture, with a soon-to-be fledgling on the left.

Below, campsite at Heyburn.

I am visiting Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, around 20 miles from the Canadian Border. The cedar waxwing, above, has some fledglings in the berry bush. The leaves were so dense, I couldn’t get a good picture of them.

On reading about Bonners Ferry on Wikipedia, found that it is near where the Ruby Ridge incident occurred. The write up on Wikipedia about this is like a novel. There are lots of places in the woods around here to try and escape society.

It is really crowded here with rv’s and motorcycles. I stopped by Glacier National Park on the way, but it was also jammed. Hope to get back there. A Canadian radio station made the comment that they just have two seasons: winter and July. This may have something to do with the crowds. It’s the best weather of the year.

Have seen this moose and calf three times. The adult always detects when people stop to watch her with the calf and she heads back into the tall grass.

Osprey. An adult was two posts down from it eating a fish.

On leaving the refuge one day, I noticed the silhouette of the back of an owl on a utility pole. I slowing walked towards it, not wanting it to fly away. Came to find it was a fake owl! Read where they were put on utility poles to keep osprey from nesting, but the osprey ended up using the fake owls in their nests.

Young deer going out into a wheat field where an adult was grazing.

Padilla Bay is a “Nationa Estuarine Research Reserve” run jointly by Washington State and NOAA.  There is an interpretive center for both public education and for research and monitoring. Bay View State Park is located a short distance from the interpretive center.

When the tide goes out in the bay, so does most of the water, leaving miles and miles of intertidal mudflats. The top picture was taken at high tide, on a sunny day, along a 2.2 mile bike path along the bay. The bottom picture was taken on a cloudy day, during low tide. There are usually herons in the area and heron rookeries are nearby. A heronry cam is online from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Saw another cedar waxwing along the bike path.

Lots of thistle around.

A year ago, $4.42 for diesel would have been outrageous. Now it is such a relief to have it below $5.00. It was $5.50 when I was in California. Know the price will just get low enough to get people driving more, then it will shoot up again, probably past $5.50.

I am in Skagit County, Washington, an incredible place. It is around 40 miles from Port Townsend, but of course I took the long way around on the #101 and the #5, to avoid paying a large ferry fee. After driving through overcast Seattle and then coming to the beautiful, sunny farmland in Skagit County, I knew this was someplace I would like to stay for a while. The rv park I’m at is on Fir Island, with the Skagit river on one side and farmland on the other. There are places all around to explore. Whidbey Island is just to the east, with Deception Pass State Park. There is also a naval air station there and their jets fly right over where I’m staying. It’s like a free air show. I have to jump up and look every time a jet goes by. It is probably a reflex from my childhood.

The city of Anacortes, on Fidalgo Island, is 11 miles away. They have a beautiful park, Washington Park, that has a scenic loop road you can drive, but be forewarned, don’t drive anything longer than 20 feet. I drove my truck and had to back up and maneuver to get around sharp curves.

The two pictures above were taken at Washington Park. It is the first picture I’ve gotten of a Cedar Waxwing. It was eating berries, as I guess they are prone to do. The deer below it was eating the same berries.

Black Oystercatchers.

Anacortes is a tourist town and seems to want to develop every square inch of their land. There is a subdivision next to Washington Park and another subdivision is in the process of being built next to it. (OK, step off the soapbox).

Also at Washington Park, a wooden ship with the ferry to the San Juan Island in the background.

Barn swallows enjoying the sun at my rv park. Skagit Flats, the area I’m in, was named a birding hotspot a few years ago, but fall and winter are the prime times for birding.

View from a hang gliding spot above Skagit Flats. Guess the goal is to get past the trees and land in farm land.