Perfect Time For A Look At Passing Birds

It’s not spring until March 20, but migrating birds don’t know it. They’re filling the Inland Northwest’s lakes and ponds as they wing their way toward their breeding grounds.

This is a time of year when wildlife watchers can see - up close and personal - not only migrating ducks and geese but wild turkeys and other birds, as well as wild animals. It’s a time when much wildlife doesn’t feel threatened by people.

Lee Webbert, as enthusiastic an angler as he is a hunter, wanted to show me a spot along Lake Roosevelt where he had been catching five-fish limits of big rainbows and a few kokanee the last few weeks.

“You can use your fly rod,” he said. “The fish are in close and they’ve been rising every time I have fished the spot.”

That did it. I picked Webbert up at 6 a.m. a few days ago and headed for the big, popular lake.

Some ponds were ice-covered; most were open. Nearly every open pond was loaded with ducks and geese. A few geese skidded on thin ice covers of ponds. Winter wheat fields were dotted with feeding geese.

The northward bird migration is well under way.

The ducks and geese aren’t quite as skittish as they were during the hunting season.

Most of the thousands of ducks we saw were mallards. However, we saw more pintails than we had seen during the hunting season. The long-necked drakes, now in full breeding plumage, were strikingly beautiful. So were the wigeons and teal.

What a wonderful time, I thought, to get close-up pictures of several different waterfowl species dabbling and courting. All a person would need is a blind near the water and a lot of patience.

The migration likely will last only a brief period. Ducks and geese will move east and north as fast as ponds shake their ice covers and snow melts, revealing harvested grain and winter wheat fields.

As we traveled along a gravel road softened by frequent rains, Webbert pointed out some excellent cover along a stream. That cover, he said, was where he has had his best pheasant hunting the last few years. Surprisingly, although the stream was only about 3 or 4 feet wide, about 25 mallards had decided to rest on the water and eat the nearby vegetation.

We began seeing wild turkeys as we drove down a steep, gravel road to Lake Roosevelt. When a small flock decided to cross the road in front of us, I stopped and Webbert got out his camera. The two jakes and four or five hens started to run and then flew. Webbert thought he got a fairly close up picture of turkeys flying, their big wings pumping.

Once the turkey hunting season opens next month, the birds will quickly become wary of people.

Webbert is one of those people who, as the result of his hunting, has learned to see wildlife when most others never get the hang of seeing deer, bear, elk and other animals unless they are moving. He quickly spotted deer, even those that were a quarter-mile away in partial cover.

As we sighted Lake Roosevelt from the road above, I could see why some people had decided to build houses in the somewhat remote area. The scenery was breathtaking.

Finally, we stopped along a sandy shoreline, assembled our fishing equipment and started fishing. Webbert threaded marshmallows and worms on a hook that was rigged about 14 inches below a sliding sinker, tossed the bait about 30 yards, propped up his rod and sat down on his bucket. I rigged up a fly rod, tied a 10-foot tippet to a short leader, threaded an indicator (bobber) on the tippet, tied on a chironomid larvae pattern and began casting.

“I’ve never been skunked at this spot,” Webbert said. “In fact, I’ve usually caught my limit.”

He said most of the rainbows he has caught were 14 to 22 inches long. Once in a while, a big kokanee would take his bait.

Two bald eagles that had been eating scrap fish that anglers tossed on the sand apparently had left. We had hoped to get closeup pictures of the eagles feeding on suckers.

We finally gave up. For the first time, Webbert had been skunked.

There will be many days when the fish bite. Even though we didn’t catch any fish, we enjoyed seeing all of the birds and animals. The winter was ending and the birds were eager to start raising families.