Tweeters;
I spent Saturday with friends birding east in Manastash Canyon and then up
Umtanum Road to Wenas. It was a great day for the showy birds. We saw 1/2
dozen pairs of Bullock's Orioles, Evening and Black-heading Grosbeaks and
billions of Mountain and Western Bluebirds on the Wenas Road. They seem to
be having a good year. We also saw a Common Nighthawk near Ellensburg (my
first for the year). The birders I was with recorded one during their
birdathon on May 18th in the same area so I guess they have been back a
couple weeks. We had the best look I have ever had at a Yellow-breasted Chat
in Manastash Canyon. It was perched high on a dead shrub for an un-Chat-like
5 minutes. It was much showier than the picture in the field guide. We had
a great woodpecker day too. We saw a male White-headed at Wenas and a
Red-naped Woodpecker in one of the Aspen groves (nesting Downy's and a
Northern Flicker too). Very cute baby White-breasted Nuthatches were in an
old woodpecker nest hole. It was low enough that you could peer down into
the nest and see them peering back. We finally got to see an Eastern
Kingbird after checking hundreds of Western's. I was east in May as well
and couldn't find Eastern Kingbirds. Do they arrive back later? A Prairie
Falcon and Golden Eagle topped off the day. (82 species in all) A great
Saturday.


Tracee Geernaert
tracee at iphc.washington.edu