Birds of many feathers come to the coulee

There are birds aplenty in the world, the country, the state of Washington and in the Grand Coulee Dam area, and if you need something to do, looking for birds is one option. 

"There are many opportunities locally for bird watching, wildlife observation or wildlife photography in general," said Eric Braaten, a local biologist for the state Department of Fish & Wildlife, in an email to The Star. "With a mixture of private and public lands, our area is species-rich most of the year with different native populations and migratory populations resting at times in our area. It's a great way to spend time outdoors locally." 

Cheryl Hoffman and Roy Myers, of Electric City, spend a lot of time with our feathered friends, not just locally, but around the globe.

The couple has made international trips, specifically for birding, to Panama and as far away as Australia, where they had their favorite birding experience in 2012. They hired an ornithologist to take them around a park near Sydney, Australia, where they saw 43 species in a day.

Species they saw in Australia include cassowaries and the colorful king parrot. 

Having gotten into birding via hunting in 2001, Myers' list of birds he's seen includes 317 species in Washington, 475 in the United States, and 701 in the world, logged into over 20 notebooks.

Art Campbell, president of the Audubon Society's North Central Washington chapter, emailed The Star regarding the number of species in Washington state. 

He said 520 bird species have been recorded in the state, with about 150 of those being recorded 20 or fewer times during the past decade. 

"For Lake Roosevelt and surrounding area, the National Park Service indicates that about 230 bird species (including rarities) have been recorded," he said. "I suspect that the number of bird species recorded in the immediate vicinity of Grand Coulee Dam would be less than that because habitat diversity would be somewhat less than around Lake Roosevelt as a whole."

For Okanogan County, he said, about 200 species of birds are recorded annually. An additional 100 or so rarer species have been recorded at least once in the county but are not recorded every year.

A list of birds from http://www.wabirder.com lists 339 species for Grant County, including rarer species. 

Locally, Hoffman and Myers said they go down to Washington Flats quite a bit, and that Northrup Canyon and Northrup Point are good spots, with Northrup Point being very good for small birds and songbirds. 

"The golf course is really good for owls," Hoffman said. "You have to hike through and look through the dense evergreens, but you have a good chance to see saw whet owls, long eared, barn owl, great horned owls."

The coulee walls are also good for birds such as wrens, hawks and ravens, Hoffman said. At Sunlakes Park, they've seen a golden eagle. 

"Those are good places to look," she said. "Go around and try to be quiet."

"If there's an unusual bird, he will go there and look for that bird," Hoffman said about Myers. "Earlier this year, he went to Florida for a wild flamingo, knocked it off his list. We've done that for other unusual birds: a scissortail fly catcher near Othello; we went to Draino Lake to see a tufted duck, an eurasian species; we went to Lewiston [Idaho] to see a red flanked blue tail from Russia."

Hoffman wasn't exactly sure how such birds, called "erratics," end up in the area, but she said sometimes they are "blown over from a big storm or mixed up in another flock."

Oriole chickadees, sage grouse and sharp tailed grouse, and "lots and lots of eagles in the winter time" are some of the rarer birds that call the Grand Coulee Dam area home. 

"You can see bald eagles while driving to work, which is pretty cool," Myers said. 

Hoffman rattled off the name of some other species they see locally.

"We've had northern pygmy owls in the yard, which are so tiny," she said, comparing them to the size of a baseball. "Sharp shinned hawks, not really any bigger than a robin, in the winter especially. They're so good at being hidden."

The colorful western tanager is another species you can find around the coulee. 

She said the habitat in Electric City includes the urban habitat of modern sized trees and shrubs which attract certain birds, but also the sage brush which attracts other types of birds. 

In their yard, they have seen calliope, black chinned, and rufous hummingbirds, attracted to their five hummingbird feeders.

In addition to those feeders, they have about six or seven other bird feeders which attract seed birds such as goldfinches and house finches. Millet mix attracts birds such as house sparrows, juncos, and chickadees. And the birders are getting ready to put out a feeder platform for waxwings. 

The couple said that spring and fall are the best times for birding. 

The pair is equipped with a higher-end point-and-shoot Canon camera and  Nikon brand Monarch binoculars.

"You should buy the best pair you can afford," Hoffman said. 

Sometimes they identify the birds by their song or call. 

"This is helpful because it can tell you where to look for the bird," Hoffman said. "I remember the first time I heard Sandhill Cranes; I snuck through tall grass for about a mile before figuring out they were flying over, and I was hearing the echoes off the ground!"

Hoffman said about her favorite bird that she will "flip flop between the long-billed curlew and pretty much whichever owl I'm looking at on any given day."

Myers can't pick a favorite. 

He said the coulee area thrives as a birding location because of the variety of habitats, including the big lakes bring in some unusual birds, like long tailed ducks. Its riparian (river area) habitats like the Washington Flats and the San Poil river area, the sage brush, and the agriculture areas ("wheatfields have their odd stuff") add to the variety.

"We have a good diversity of birds and lots of them," he said.