4-Day Cassia Crossbill Plus Trip

Adult Male Cassia Crossbill.

Saturday Ken, Art, Terri and I met at 6 AM in Tacoma and went to the traveler’s rest stop at Snoqualmie Pass to meet Diane, Fay, Carol and Laurel to head out on the long awaited Cassia Crossbill trip to their relatively tiny range in Cassia County, Idaho. As you likely know the Cassia Crossbill achieved full species status by the AOU and ABA last year, so is now a must-go place to visit for ABA listers. Diane and Faye planned this trip, and did a great job with getting key information out to all of us, most importantly a link to the article discussing the species split with links to the contact call recordings of Cassia and Types 2 and 5 Red Crossbills https://idahobirds.net/birding-idaho/cassia-crossbill/ , the three possible types in the Cassia County area in summer.

A streaky Juvenile Cassia Crossbill.

From there our two cars races southeastward on I-90 to I-82 with our first more-than-potty stop at the Selah Canyon Rest Area where a brief scope off the cliff edge yielded nice looks at espected White-throated Swifts and a high soaring Prairie Falcon, and an unexpected showing by a Barn Owl who walked to the opening of a scree-marked cave for long enough for us to all get a distant scope look.

A Black-necked Stilt at the Blood Ponds.

The first real birding stop was by the Blood Ponds in Walla Walla County, where we hoped for a nice assortment of shorebirds. Before viewing the ponds we drove past to turnaround to park on the near side of the road, and checked a sand pit that had nest holes for Bank Swallow and lots of Cliff Swallows. Another Barn Owl flushed from the sand pit area and oddly flew right in front of us to settle into a wet cattail marshy area. Overhead a large kettle of Common Raven gave us a great show.

Mountain Chickadee
At the Blood Ponds, named we think for the cattle slaughtered here, we found American Avocets and Black-necked Stilts with young, as well as Baird’s, Least, and Western Sandpipers, Killdeer, Greater Yellowlegs, and a lots of blackbirds. Baird’s was FOY (first of the year) for man of us for WA. We kept the stop brief as we had lots of miles to cover, and from there drove on to Twin Falls, Idaho. Marcus Roenig was kind enough to meet us at dinner to debrief us on his trip to see the Cassia Crossbills over the 24 hours prior or so, as he and Heather had camped there the night prior.

Butterflies were abundant for most of the trip.

Sunday we were up early to head to Porcupine Springs Campground, in the Rock Creek drainage area where as promised Cassia Crossbills were calling frequently and flying from the top of one pine tree to another, giving pretty good looks in spotting scopes, but relatively poor photo opportunities. We did spend a couple of hours enjoying them, trying for better photos, and attempting to record them, all with lots of fun but marginal technical success.

An Audubon's Yellow-rumped Warbler at Porcupine Campground.

The road back out of Rock Creek was very birdy, but also noisy and busy with a steady, stream of RVs, motorcycles, quads, and trucks. We got nice looks at Green-tailed Towhee, Cassin’s Finch, Red-naped Sapsucker, MacGillivray’s Warbler, and Rock Wren along with a list for the drive of 28 species.

A drive up Wahlstrom Hollow Rd was quiet, but a pair of Northern Harriers coursed over the meadows, and a nice mixed flock of Mountain Chickadees, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and MacGillivray’s Warblers was found on the ride out.
From here we reshuffled car riders, and split into two groups. Diane, Fay, Art and Carol headed back to Boise, ID for the night and then birded their way home from there. Ken, Laurel, Terri and I headed south to stay at Elko, NV to try for Himalayan Snowcock in the Ruby Mountains the next morning. On the way back to Twin Falls we found the Rock Creek Gravel Pit Ponds, where a large flock of gulls got our attention enough to get scopes out and find 4 Marbled Godwits, American White Pelicans, one Caspian Tern, and a local birder who posted pretty good photos of the 4 MAGOs but called us out as incorrect and identified them as Long-billed Dowichers. We all got a good laugh about this on our long ride home Tuesday when Ken found his list and discussion on eBird. We clearly saw the bi-colored bills and size about the same as nearby gulls.

From here the trip was long drives interspersed with great birding stops. We drove pretty much straight to Elko, about a 4 hour drive, with a stop long enough to photograph this Golden Eagle. It reminded me of the Hawk’s Class clue that if a raptor looks as big as the power pole it’s an eagle.

Rock Wren

We arrived at Elko, Nevada by about 7:30 PM and went out a quick dinner and tried to “sleep fast” so we could be up early for the try for the Snowcock. Up at 3:40 AM to be in the cars by 4 AM, and raced to the trailhead hoping to be on the trail before 5 AM. We got there without difficulty, and parked. Then the confusion began. I found what appeared to be the trailhead at the end of the parking loop, and started to charge up the hill. Fortunately Terri paused to read the trail map sign, which seemed to show two trails, the one I was taking NOT to Island Lake Campground, and the one I was on to a much more distant campground in the exact opposite direction. We walked a loop trail, I drove off looking for another trailhead that seemed to be before the parking area, and finally Ken located the correct trailhead, a small appearing trail maybe 30 meters before the beginning of the loop around the parking area. This took at least 30 minutes and we were all worried it would be too late to hear or see the birds. We all headed up the trail, each at our own fastest possible pace. It is a steep trail with switchbacks, and birdsong was everywhere. White-crowned Sparrows, Rock Wrens, MacGillvray’s Warblers, and Cassin’s Finches seemed to be constantly singing, but by half way up the sun had fully risen, and it was already starting to get warm. We were really worried we had blown our chance to get there early and hear the birds calling, and maybe see them fly down the slopes at the crack of dawn.

On arrival Ken and I got there first, and set up our scopes. A little boy was fishing, and caught a big Brook Trout, I managed to see two very distant Mountain Goats, but no sign of a Snowcock. Ken and I took two separate approaches. I thought the only hope was to find a HISN silhouetted against the sky on the ridge crest Ken thought they would be feeding by then, and looked for any movement in the grassy areas on the slopes. It turned out my approach worked, and I found a Himilayan Snowcock standing on the rim to the West, nicely lit in the morning light, and we all go good looks before it turned and appeared to fly down the back of the slope. Here is a digiscoped photo.

Shortly later I found one more HISN that was considerably closer, more to the Southwest and again on the rim. Here is that photo.

We celebrated, and stayed a bit longer, and then birded our way back down the trail, this time stopping for birds, flowers and butterflies as well as the beauty of the area.

Female Dusky Grouse

A species of butterfly in the Admiral family.
After getting down we headed off on the long ride to Mare’s Egg Spring, near Klamath Falls, Oregon. This was a grueling 8 hour drive that we split up among Ken, Terri and me. We made a couple of stops, but by far the best was at the Adel Ponds in Lake County, OR. This is a large wetlands just loaded with waterfowl, but also with good numbers of White-faced Ibis, lots of shorebirds of 11 species including 5 Baird’s Sandpipers, Willet, a single Marbled Godwit, and Wilson’s Phalaropes. Here is a link to the eBird list for the Adel Ponds.

A butterfly in the Hairstreak family.

We raced from there to the Mare's Egg Spring place where Kay and I had Yellow Rail a couple of years prior. This time it was windy, and we had zero rails of any sort. This was to have been the #3 lifer for the other three in the car, but didn’t happen despite waiting nearly 2 hours.

Pinyon Jay
We headed north to a room at the Timbercrest Inn in La Pine, where I had reserved on Priceline two rooms. I called before dark to let them know we would arrive late, maybe midnight, and to assure the rooms each had two beds. The fellow I talked to assured me that the 2-bed rooms were available, but seemed to not know much about Priceline. Anyway we got there, exhausted, and they charged us $160./ room, not the $99 quoted on Priceline. No negotiation helped, and we just felt stuck with the pricy rooms.

Pygmy Nuthatdh

We left there about&;30 and went north to Bend for breakfast. When we got there I realized I’d left my binoculars in the room, so left the others for breakfast while I dashed back to retrieve them successfully. Our first birding stop on the trip home was in Sisters, OR. This is named after the three “sister” mountains in the area, and we had a great time tracking down a lifer Pinyon Jay for Laurel. We saw one at the Best Western feeders, along with lots of nuthatches and a nesting Dusky Flycatcher. After that we birded another area Terri know about near Trinity Way, and after a bit of looking found about 40 PIJA working a vacant lot with large Pine trees and using both the trees and some residential home feeders.

A female Cassin's Finch.

A final stop in Clark County at the Vancouver Lowlands yielded FOY Lesser Yellowlegs and a nice variety of shorebirds and waterfowl.

Two Pinyon Jays

From here only a bit over 2 hours drive got us home safe, happy and very tired.
This is a big driving 4-day trip, but quite rewarding and doable for anyone from this area who wants to do it. In my opinion going a little earlier in the year would increase the odds of YEAR at Mare’s Egg Spring, and might give closer up looks at HISN in the Rubys, but our dates made for good weather and a great trip too.

American Robin
Good birding.