Is there anything worse than going on a wild goose chase without any wild geese to chase?
That was the warning I got when I stopped at the headquarters of the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge in Othello, Wash. Flocks were winging their way from the north, but large numbers had yet to arrive early in November.
I wondered if it would be a waste of time to spend two days looking for wildlife in Eastern Washington's Potholes region after the refuge staff told me not to bother.
Well, perhaps it would have been for someone who lives close to the desert refuge. But it was most definitely not a waste for someone who lives in a big city.
As soon as I turned off O'Sullivan Dam Road onto the refuge's gravel road, a noisy flock of Canada geese flew past. Strings of geese, mostly 20 to 30 birds flying in V formations, followed suit the rest of the afternoon.
(Bird-watching will get even better when Alaska and British Columbia freeze up, sending flocks south toward us.)
So what exactly is this Potholes region, only a small portion of which is protected in the Columbia refuge? Why do a hundred thousand geese and ducks at peak season descend on an area that sees only seven inches of rain each year?
Located between Moses Lake on the north and the Tri-Cities on the south, the Potholes ecosystem sprawls over 107,000 acres of wildlife lands, about three-quarters managed by the state and the rest by the federal government. This is Washington's counterpart to Oregon's Malheur, Warner and Summer Lake wildlife areas.
The Oregon desert wetlands, however, have a precipitation-catching mountain range above them, while the horizon around the Potholes could be mistaken for Kansas.
Washington's desert wildlife area gets water from two sources: an amazing little creek, with augmentation from the vast Columbia River irrigation system.
Crab Creek, at nearly 200 miles long, is said to be the longest named creek in the country. It begins in 3,000-foot-high hills west of Spokane, meanders through the remote farm communities of Odessa, Corfu and Smyrna, then joins the Columbia at Beverly.
How the creek maintains a clear, cold flow throughout the year as it passes through such a dry landscape is a bit of a miracle. Much of its course is protected for wildlife.
In addition to the creek, the Potholes gets plenty of water from the Columbia Basin reclamation project, one of the West's largest. The miles of irrigated fields, with their orchards, vineyards and dozens of other crops, make the Potholes' concentration of wildlife habitat that much more important.
Unused irrigation water drains into the Potholes, where it is held behind a number of small dams before joining Crab Creek.
The landscape is stark and open, with basalt rimrock cliffs rising above treeless plains covered with head-high sagebrush and waves of grass. Dunes of black sand, flooded behind Potholes Reservoir, create a thousand islands during high water of spring.
Valley bottoms, called channeled scablands, were scoured by ice age floods 15,000 years ago. Recognized as the Drumheller Channels National Natural Landmark, the scablands' reservoirs, cattail marshes, sloughs and wetlands provide a feast for the birds.
It's also a feast for the human eye.
But unlike parks, national wildlife refuges are not managed for human visitors. Much of their land is off-limits to protect wild things, with most visits limited to daytime hours.
The Columbia is a bit different, with one small campground at Soda Lake. It also has an interpretive hiking trail, scenic viewpoints and seasonal waterfowl hunting. The majority of visitation is in the larger Potholes system, where state land is managed for fishing and hunting.
After driving from Portland, I arrived in mid-afternoon on what would be the last dry day before the first significant rain since April. I hiked a pair of two-mile loops, Frog Lake and Marsh, both from the same trailhead a couple of miles south of the campground.
Black-and-white magpies flitted between stands of rabbitbrush. A flock of California quail sprinted for cover beneath the dried bluebunch wheatgrass. A solitary golden eagle soared overhead. Mallards, ringnecks, redheads and teal cackled from the marsh.
The raucous howling of geese flying overhead echoed from the cliffs, making the flocks sound bigger than they were.
A mule deer buck gazed at me warily, but it seemed to know that it was safe from hunters as long as it stayed inside the refuge boundaries. The buck strutted beneath the rimrock as the last rays of sun brought the softness of a Monet painting to the desert scene.
I hadn't been on a wild goose chase after all.
(Published Nov. 26, 2006)