Subject: Red birds/Olympics highlights
Date: Aug 29 10:15:02 1995
From: Jim Elder - jime at eskimo.com


I spent this last weekend backpacking in the eastern Olympics
(Dosewallips River) and thought I would report the interesting bird
highlights. Despite reports of abundant White-winged Crossbills in the
North Cascades, all the Crossbills in the Olympics appear to be Red and
they are probably the most common bird there.
On the other hand the small flock of phalaropes (6-7) seen from
the Kingston ferry on the way over were also Red. Well actually they
were gray but us birdwatchers with our heightened sense of color see them
as red anyway. More specifically the one bird that I chose to focus on
was a Red Phalarope but I think the others were also. This is the first
time I've seen Red Phalaropes on the sound so it made a pretty good start
to a trip.
Back to finches, in addition to the gazillion crossbills there
were two Pine Grosbeaks (both female) feeding on Mountain Ash berries
about 10 miles up the valley but not a single Pine Siskin the entire
three days.
A final highlight were 4-6 (some may have been repeats) Ruffed
Grouse near Dose Meadows, which I believe was recently named in honor of
Jerry Garcia :-) This area is near the head of the valley at 4400'
elevation. I would have expected Blue Grouse but that's not what is
there. Does this strike other people as high for Ruffed Grouse in this area?

Jim Elder
jime at eskimo.com
Seattle, WA