Tweets,

This reminds me that I had oodles of Red Crossbills calling and SINGING
in the Little Naches River valley August 26, Saturday. I neglected to
note the exact mix of trees where I got some good recordings. The
sonograms confirm that they were type 3. The others I heard just west of
the crest in the Upper Green River of King Co. sounded the same. I
believe that's the spruce-hemlock specialist.

Re. Red Phalaropes: keep your eyes out as we have to date but one
unconfirmed Red Phalarope record for King County. It's overdue.

Gene Hunn.

On Tue, 29 Aug 1995, Jim Elder wrote:

> 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
>