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Hell Bent For Salmon

by Jack Kintner

Winter birding around Mt. Baker ends with the departure of migratory Bald Eagles (some stay all year and do not migrate) from the Nooksack lowlands in late February and is closely followed by spring birding that begins with the arrival of birds such as Rufous Hummingbirds in early March. The Mt. Baker Highway offers some excellent lowland birding on the North Fork of the Nooksack all along the 34 miles from the Highway 9 intersection east to Anderson Creek Road next to the Silver Fir campground, and some good high country birding as well beyond milepost 47 where it begins the steep climb to Heather Meadows and the Mt. Baker Ski Area.

We’ll begin with a good spot to look for resident eagles, although they can be seen anywhere along the river anytime during the day, and then mention a few other kinds of birds you’re likely to see as the season wears on and the days get longer. Eagles can be seen anytime there’s enough light, but for spring viewing birders like to get out earlier since the kinds of birds that are arriving are most active at dawn. You don’t have to be that hard core but earlier is generally better, so these spots have also been picked because of their accessibility to vehicles.

For seeing eagles and a lot of other kinds of birds and wildlife as well, it’s hard to beat Deming’s Homestead Eagle Park. Located at the original site of the village of Deming, the park is in a pleasant setting in a lush foothills valley that was once dotted with Nooksack Indian summer camps and winter villages. It now belongs to the Whatcom Land Trust and provides several walking trails that wind and intersect through forested and open bottomland.

The ranks of locally resident non-migratory eagles are swelled considerably by migrating groups that move down out of British Columbia and Alaska following the salmon runs in a succession of coastal rivers. They’re mostly out of the area by the end of February.

Records were set this winter on the Nooksack and Skagit for the sheer numbers of birds counted, part of an environmental success story. In the early ’60s, the years that the use of the insecticide DDT reached its peak, there were less than 500 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the continental U.S. and seeing one in the wild was a rare and special occurrence. When DDT was shown to cause problems with bird reproduction it was banned for domestic use in the late ’60s though it continues to be sold and used in Central and South America to battle malaria-infected mosquitoes.

In January of this year, almost 1,000 were counted in one day on the Skagit River alone during a regular weekly count conducted by several cooperating federal and state agencies each Wednesday during the winter.

To get there, follow Truck Road (that was once the railroad right-of-way) as it turns south off the Mt. Baker Highway just east of the Highway 9 intersection and Milepost 15. The park lies along the road on the right side, marked by a small parking lot that provides access.

Spring Birding along the river bottom

From the eagle park, continue east on Truck Road about two miles to the Welcome fire station at the Mosquito Lake Road intersection. Park well out of the way of the station (and well off the road) and walk across the nearby bridge, the first of two on Mosquito Lake Road that cross branches of the Nooksack. Downstream from the bridge you can see a broad park-like area where the Nooksack’s Middle and North Forks join, once site of a large Nooksack Indian village.

Across the bridge the road forks. North Fork Road to the left has two good viewing sites with limited parking. Four miles farther on Mosquito Lake Road to the right brings you to the large iron bridge across the Middle Fork, which sometimes has very high concentrations of birds.

Return to the Mt. Baker Highway and turn right (east). There are two places, at mileposts 19.5 and 20.2, where tiny pull-outs may provide room to park. Turn right on Hatchery Road at milepost 21 for additional viewing access at the Kendall Creek Hatchery.

Across from Glacier Springs

This is one of the few elevated viewpoints where birders can pull well off the road on to the top of a bluff that offers a nice panorama of the North Fork valley back toward Deming. Just beyond milepost 30 opposite the entrance to the Glacier Springs development is an access point for a maintenance pathway under power lines that lie between the river and the highway. Once you’ve parked, there are many good viewing places within a short walk either direction. Eagles are often spotted here cruising up or down river looking for food, and sometimes you’ll see them from an unusual perspective as they fly past below you.

Douglas Fir campground/Horseshoe Bend trail

About 340 of the 600 or so species of birds of North America are “neo-tropicals,” birds that winter in the tropics and then, in a long, sometimes non-stop flight, arrive north for the summer. This is one reason why habitat destruction is one of the big killers of song birds. Imagine flying non-stop for 90 hours and arriving exhausted only to find that the woods your family has used for ageless generations is now a parking lot, where the only birds are on postcards in the stores.

One great place to see these birds is in a large grove of deciduous trees such as alders and maples at milepost 35.4 a couple miles east of the village of Glacier, just beyond (heading east) the bridge over the North Fork. Once down on the river bank, you can walk west, or downstream, into the Douglas Fir campground and wander through the Big Leaf Maples, Western Red-cedars and Red Alders or go east, upstream, for a mile or so along the rushing, rapids-filled north fork.

Some of the earlier campground arrivals will include such species as Cassin’s and Red-eyed Vireo, five or six different kinds of warblers, flycatchers and hummingbirds. Later on in May look for Cedar Waxwings, Scarlet Tanagers, swallows and Olive-sided Flycatchers.
Upstream look for dippers, the little gray bird that “flies” underwater and while perched often does push-ups, as if bouncing on a diving board before going back into the water. Red-headed Sapsuckers, the birds that methodically drill neat little rows of shallow holes in tree bark, are present all year but seem to congregate in large moving groups in the spring.

Heather Meadows/Artist Point

A real treat for kids and, really, anyone who loves birds, is to have them perch on your hand. While feeding wildlife is never a good idea, and is illegal inside national parks, the temptation is often so great when a few of these friendly little cousins to the crow and raven come around that people will draw them to their hands with people food, not a good idea since it’s often harmful to birds, especially bread crumbs like a piece of your hot dog bun or sandwich.

Instead, take along a spoonful or two of some high-quality thistle or rape seed, available in specialty stores, which will draw friendly Gray Jays to your hand but will not germinate when dropped (good seed is sterilized), and is also not harmful to the birds. Look for them around some of the isolated buildings you drive past especially near the first of the two lakes the road passes.

Swainson’s Thrushes can be found in the high wooded areas of the Cascade parkland, of which Heather Meadows is a great example. These small Robin-sized birds have beautiful flute-like songs and are sometimes heard at night while migrating.

At the top of the road, at the Artist’s Point parking lot, well above tree line at nearly a mile in elevation, you may see another bird by wandering a bit from where all the cars and people are that is identified as much from its call as from its appearance, the American Pipit. While the thrush is a close relative of the robin, the pipit is a lark, brownish like the thrush but a little smaller and with obvious white patches in its tail that it flashes in flight or as it bobs its tail while walking. Pipits often sing continuously while flying as a part of its mating display. They’re a bird that lives in the tundra and on tree-less slopes of the subalpine country at Artist’s Point and the surrounding area trails.

(Note: This information was prepared with the help of Paul Woodcock, president of the North Cascades Audubon Society. For more information of that group contact him at 360/380-3356 or go to www.northcascadesaudubon.org.)