Subject: Trip report: Chewack River (Pasayten Wilderness, Okanogan Co.)
Date: Jul 29 18:50:14 1995
From: "M. Smith" - whimbrel at u.washington.edu


On Fri, 28 Jul 1995, H. Cui wrote:
> It was the grating rattle of a White-winged Crossbill. A small
> flock of them alighted in a tree top and I got good looks at
> them. One bright red male and the rest all females/Juvs.

Hi Tweets, just got back from a 5-day trip up the Chewack River with my
boss (and fellow tweet), Kelly Cassidy. We were surveying small mammals
in the area, and birding along the way. We hiked from Thirtymile
Campground, about 11 miles in along the Chewack. We sampled at this site
in lodgepole pine forest, along the river, and farther upstream at a
subalpine marsh. I have 2 interesting bird-related findings to report:

First, a pair of Lazuli Buntings nesting in this marsh, 5200' above sea
level. This seems to me very high for what I picture as Lazuli Bunting
habitat, but then Jewett reports them as being at 5000' in the Blues, and
Gilligan et al. (1994) report them in the Oregon Cascades and Siskiyous to
6500', so it's not *that* unusual. Still a pretty high site though. It
was funny to see Lincoln's Sparrow and Lazuli Bunting breeding in the same
spot, surrounded by lodgepole pine, subalpine fir, and engelmann spruce.
The marsh vegetation was willows and sedges. There was also a Great Blue
Heron here. This marsh was very interesting, teeming with life in what
was basically an 'avian desert' of lodgepole pine. It is in T40N, R22E,
section 31 (and contrary to the DeLorme represenatation of this area, it
*is* heavily forested).

Second, and the reason I included the snippet above, is that White-winged
Crossbills were *abundant* along the first 5 miles of the trail (along
the Chewack River above Thirtymile campground). From the campground, 2 or
more could be heard, and all along the trail, they were singing. Once
the trail gets into pure lodgepole pine forests, they just disappear.
But on a hike on Wednesday, I came across a few more above the marsh in
subalpine fir/engelmann spruce areas. Total numbers along the river
were in the range of 20-30 singing males.

A female Spruce Grouse with a brood of 5 was about 6-7 miles up, in
lodgepole pines.

Some migrating warblers were seen, 2 mixed flocks, one of 5-10
Yellow-rumped Warblers and a single female Townsend's, and another of
Nashville and Orange-crowned.

Total was a (not-really-astounding) 34 sp., but considering that we
camped in a lodgepole pine monoculture, I was happy with whatever little
diversity came along.

We had intended to hike up to alpine habitats on Wednesday, but mammal
surveying circumstances kept us from doing that.

Here's the species list, * = probable breeder, ** = confirmed (based only
on this trip's observations)

Great Blue Heron
**Spruce Grouse
Belted Kingfisher
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
Olive-sided Flycatcher
W. Wood-Pewee
Pacific-slope Flycatcher
Gray Jay
* Clark's Nutcracker
Common Raven
* Mountain Chickadee
* Red-breasted Nuthatch
Winter Wren
* Golden-crowned Kinglet
Mountain Bluebird
* Townsend's Solitaire
**Swainson's Thrush
* Hermit Thrush
* American Robin
Varied Thrush
Cedar Waxwing
Orange-crowned Warbler
Nashville Warbler
**Yellow-rumped Warbler
Townsend's Warbler
Western Tanager
**Lazuli Bunting
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
**Lincoln's Sparrow
**Dark-eyed Junco
* White-winged Crossbill
* Pine Siskin

I would include a list of mammals surveyed, but they're not all ID'd
yet (maybe later).

And, although it was a fun trip in an interesting area, I'm sorry I had
to miss the 'yakathon', I would love to have gone and met all you tweets.

-------------
Michael R. Smith
Univ. of Washington, Seattle
whimbrel at u.washington.edu
http://salmo.cqs.washington.edu/~wagap/mike.html