Winter Camping at Deception Pass, Day Three

My strategy for the second 24-degree night worked out pretty well. Knowing that my sleeping bag would be less than warm and cozy I kept the fire going, and sat by it until I could barely keep my eyes open. I had brought a little reading light and was revisiting "Ravens in Winter" by Bernd Heinrich. I had a flask of brandy, which I heated so it would warm me in two ways. I'm mostly a beer guy, and when I do drink liquor it's usually not brandy. It had seemed like a good pick for the cold weather though, and it turned out that it was indeed. I comfortably sipped my warm flask and turned the pages, scarcely aware of the cold and darkness that surrounded me. At one point I thought that it must be pretty late, so I checked the time on my phone. Ten o'clock, and it wouldn't be light 'til 8 AM. I needed to stay up a couple more hours, and was happy to do so. When I finally got into my tent and zipped my cold sleeping bag up around myself I was nicely buzzed and definitely sleepy. 

I slept much better than the first night, but the cold still woke me several times. First thing in the morning I enthusiastically built a fire. After a couple cups of strong coffee with sugar and instant milk I broke camp. This was my last day here. With my backpack full of camping gear I headed back to Cranberry Lake where I spent my first afternoon. It was cold with clear skies, just as it had been the last couple days. I was looking forward to the southern exposure at the north end of the lake. The walk through tall conifers was pleasant, and my heavy pack was not a burden but a welcome generator of body heat. The tiny, musical voices of busy chickadees and kinglets rained down from unseen places in the trees. When I reached the sunny opening at the north shore I sat to eat some trail mix. I had skipped the instant oatmeal this morning, and now I was more than peckish. As I poured large handfuls of nuts, dried fruit and chocolate chips into my mouth I heard a soft tapping on the small Pacific crab-apple tree beside me. It was a female downy woodpecker who was very busy finding her own breakfast, one little bite at a time. I pulled out my camera and attached my long lens as she went about her business. She rapidly pecked at the lichen crusted bark as she made her way up and around each branch. Occasionally she found something, probably the eggs or larvae of insects, and paused for a split second to eat it. She was almost always obscured by twigs or facing away from me, but I snapped away at every brief interval of decent visibility. 

After dozens of shots that weren't likely to be usable this female downy woodpecker finally reached a clear, open spot. Unfortunately she was in the shade, but when she stopped for half a second to look at me I got my first decent shot of the day. Luckily she decided that I wouldn't eat her, or that I could't catch her if I wanted to, and she continued searching the branches for food. 

Here I finally caught a good view of her with in some decent light. Downy woodpeckers, Picoides pubescens, are North America's smallest woodpeckers at 6.75 inches long. That's three inches shorter than their close relative the hairy woodpecker, Picoides villosus. Hairy woodpeckers have a much longer bill which lacks the conspicuous tuft at its base. They are associated with mature forests where they forage on the trunks and larger branches of trees. Downy woodpeckers on the other hand prefer riparian habitats where they forage on small branches, just as this one was doing. 

Hermit thrush, Catharus guttatus. A short walk away from my downy woodpecker encounter I spotted this one hopping around at the forest edge. Hermit thrushes are distinguished from the other four members of their genus by their reddish tails and unbroken eye rings. They are also the only one that is regularly seen in North America during the winter. This hardy thrush forages for invertebrates on the ground, and is often hidden by the brushy understory of its forest habitats. 

After seeing the thrush an hour or so passed without any photo-worthy wildlife spottings. So I switched my long lens for my 18-140 mm to take some landscape shots. I mostly came up with a bunch of crap, but I do like this one. 

Nootka rose hip, Rosa nutkana, with madrona bark, Arbutus menziesii. Even in winter Nootka rose is easily distinguished from our other wild roses by having two large thorns at its leaf bases with otherwise smooth stems.

Pacific wren, Triglodytes pacificus. I didn't have my long lens on when this little beauty popped out of the bushes by the trail, so I couldn't zoom in much. It hasn't been long since ornithologists split what was formerly just know as the winter wren, Troglodytes hiemalis, into the Pacific wren of the greater Pacific coastal region and the winter wren east of the Rocky Mountains. So you still often hear people referring to Pacific wrens as winter wrens. Both live in wet, shady areas. This makes them uncommon across their ranges. However, in much of the Pacific Northwest, including western Washington, Pacific wrens are common thanks to our mature and old-growth forests. At just four inches long this really is a tiny bird. But their song is far from that, and it can even be enjoyed outside of the breeding season. Hence the name "winter wren" for the original, lumped species designation.    

Mere moments after my wren friend returned to the undergrowth I heard the soft tapping of beak on wood that led my eyes to this lovely male downy woodpecker. He was near, but not close enough to photograph with my shorter lens. Fortunately he stuck around while I changed lenses, and for several minutes afterwards. The red patch on the back of the male downy woodpecker's head is the only thing that distinguishes him from the female.

This was definitely the best photo opportunity of the day, and one of the best of the whole trip. The woodpecker was in direct light, there were no distracting branches blocking or crowding my view of him, and there was enough empty space behind him to render the background into smooth colors with little distracting detail (bokeh).

Here the shading of the woodpecker's face sacrifices an essential element of most effective portraits: a good look at the subject's eye(s). But I still think he looks handsome, and there's a lot of natural history in this shot. Three essential aspects of woodpecker morphology are on display; stiff tail feathers that help steady their bodies while foraging on trees, the orientation of their toes, with two in front and two in back, that facilitates their tree climbing, and last but not least their long, sticky tongue. Here we only see the base of that tongue, but the part that is now probing the tunnels of tree beetles or carpenter ants is coated with tiny barbs. These grab ants and beetle larvae on impact, enabling them to be drawn into the woodpecker's mouth.    

When you take a bite that's so damn tasty you just have to close your eyes and savor it.

Actually this is the moment right after the bill's impact, and you can barely see the tiniest specks of flying debris above it. Woodpeckers close their eyes when pecking to protect them from chips.

When I ran into the male downy woodpecker it was well into the afternoon and I was slowly moving towards the highway to catch my bus. The encounter was a fitting way to cap off a day of shooting that had started with a female downy woodpecker. It was also a most welcome chance to get a few good shots before wrapping up a day that hadn't been particularly productive.

That's the nature of wildlife photography though. Sometimes you you hit the jackpot, sometimes you get mostly crap, but still end up with a few usable images, and sometimes you end up with nothing. So ending up with more than nothing can reasonably be seen as a success. Even ending up with nothing isn't so bad, as long as you're not on assignment. A day spent in wild places is a day well spent.

As always I kept my camera out until the last minute, and on my way to bus stop I enjoyed the company of several chestnut-backed chickadees, Poecile rufescens. While I didn't have the benefit of good lighting I couldn't resist photographing this little charmer when he briefly perched nearby. Although my subject is poorly lit I like the atmosphere of this image. There are many ways of creating a good photograph. The one thing they all have in common is making the best of the circumstances. 

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