On the Bird Banter Podcast #110 with Andy Stepniewski we delve into the shrub-steppe habitat that Andy is so intimate with, as well as his work on the fabulous Birder’s Guide to Washington that is available free online. This book has been a great resource in both the first and second editions, and Andy talks about the genesis of his interest in site guides that go back to having Jim Lane as a mentor in his early birding years. Birders have likely used the “Lane Guides” now published as the ABA Bird Finding Guides series of which the Birder’s Guide to Washington is a part.
I remember when Andy came to Tacoma to talk with our ABC Birding Club about the shrub-steppe habitat. It was a great presentation, here is a link to the blog post about the presentation. Here is a link to the trip report from the field trip the following spring that I lament missing. Andy talks also about the issues with weeds in the habitat, leading to wildfires that are devastating, especially given the many decades that it takes to grow mature sagebrush, and the carpet of cheat grass that has replaced the native bunchgrass in many areas. The carpet of invasive weeds leads to carpet fires that cover gigantic areas.
I enjoyed the podcast on Bird Notes about the challenges to Greater Sage Grouse that talk at length about habitat issues. Check out the 8-part series here.
Andy also wrote the Birds of Yakima County that is still available on Amazon and elsewhere. If you just read the introduction part you get a real feel for how intimate Andy is with the intricacies of this habitat, the birds and other critters that rely on it. I said on the podcast episode that I’d give a link to the findings of the Audubon study of shrub steppe in WA. The best I can provide is a good article on the Audubon site by Kim Thornburn and a video.

One thing we did not talk about on the podcast is Andy’s time in Alaska and his early life threatening experiences. You can read about these here. Do you know anyone else who has survived a grizzly bear attack and a fall through an ice bridge over a mountain crevasse? Not me!
For listeners for outside WA who don’t know where Yakima County is located, here is a county map of WA. Yakima County is on the north shore of the Columbia River and includes lots of habitat in the Columbia basin as well as neighboring ridges and valleys.

Here are links to some of the episodes I mentioned in this episode with
Will Brooks
Peter Wimberger
Thanks again for listening.
Good birding and good day!