Sunday 9 June, Ben Feltner, Paul Cozens and I located a singing Clay-colored
Sparrow in dense big sagebrush at Taylor Pond on the Yakima Training Center
T13N R21E Sec 3).The bird sang for the whole time we were there: a
"monotonous "bzzz...bzzz...bzzz," sometimes barely audible above the
near-constant din of a huge convoy of National Guard manoeuvering (7,000 of
them - we were even detained once for 15 minutes while they "checked" us
out). We had personal views of this new bird for Yakima County - # 300 on
the growing list of birds in the county.

I have been doing bird community work out there since April and have thought
many stands of 3-tip sage, especially those on high north-facing slopes are
reminiscent of those in Spokane and Okanogan Counties where Clay-colored
Sparrows are occasionally noted and sometimes breed - overshoots from their
usual range 100 km n. of the border in the Okanagan Valley or from points
east in Idaho or Montana. I'm wondering if these ridges support the odd
breeding pair - though Brewer's Sparrows are certainly very common. By the
way, we had 8 sparrows: Brewer's, Clay-colored, Vesper's, Lark, Sage,
Grasshopper, Song, and Lincoln's (late). Also a bit on the late side for the
lowlands were Warbling Vireo, Wilson's Warbler and Western Tanager.

Andy Stepniewski
Wapato WA