An Evening with the Poorwills

I'm in Ellensburg this evening, because Reecer Creek Rd, climbing up into the foothills above the town, is where everyone goes to see Common Poorwills, a nocturnal insect-eating bird of eastern Washington.

After I checked into my hotel, I went to eat at a restaurant across the street by the truck-stop. It was a typical sort of place, and busy enough, decent food at reasonable prices, but nothing exciting. Two truckers were at the table alongside mine, and part way through my meal, one of them asked me a couple of questions - where are you from, where are you headed to kind of stuff. I think I exchanged four sentences with him. And then at the end of my meal when I went to pay, I discovered that the trucker had paid for my meal, including tipping the waitress! So I tipped the waitress again with the price of my meal, figuring I might aswell pass along some of the good karma.

Anyway, at 9pm, with the sun setting behind the Cascade mountains and an orange glow across the western sky, I headed up towards the foothills. A common nighthawk, another nocturnal bird, was diving his display flight over the fields below the hills, and a great horned owl sat on one of the roadside poles. At first I thought he was Bubo plasticus, because very obvious owl silhouettes planted up high on poles are always plastic owls, but then he turned his head to watch me pass!

I drove up the single-track road to nowhere as it began to climb alongside the creek, lined by scrubby bushes among the semi-desert hills. I stopped at the point recommended to me, and heard the first of the poorwills beginning to call as the last of the veeries sang like spiralling multi-toned bells by the river in the fading light. The half-moon hung in the sky above me and I put the car in neutral and coasted back down the hill on the brakes, toasty warm with the roof off and the heater on, and the cool wind that had swept along the valley earlier dying back fast. Various long, skinny mammals tried to commit suicide under the wheels as the moths fluttered before me. And there was a poorwill sitting in the middle of the road, the first thing seen the orange reflection of his eye, and then as I drew closer, the whole mottled bird, a male with his distinctive white tail corners. They sit in the road, apparently mesmerised by the headlights, motionless as you draw closer and closer, until you have a poorwill in full view three feet in front of the wheels, with big head and white collar. And then as you turn the wheels to drive around them and the headlights move away, they fly off silently into the surrounding dark.

I saw three poorwills in all along that section, then turned around for another run, waiting in the silent night listening to the creek babble alongside. The poorwills had stopped calling - oddly enough, after I started seeing them, I never heard another peep out of them. I found one more poorwill floating off the road ahead of me on the return trip, and then I headed back to the hotel, with the wind on my skin and the moon and the plough before me. And now I sit here in my hotel room sipping wine, and trying to make you wish that you too went looking for nocturnal birds on little-known roads at dusk.

Tomorrow I'll head out early to hike the nearby Umtanum Creek Canyon before the heat hits, and be back home around mid-afternoon, plenty of time to enjoy a soak in my new air-jet bathtub before I go to see Eddie Izzard at the Paramount. Whee, Eddie!

In other news, a lady at the vets today told me how very strongly I reminded her of her sister, a tax collector. Except not, because her sister the tax collector never smiles, and I do.

I think if there has to be one feature distinguishing me from a tax collector, that's a good one.