Subject: 3 November on the Yakima Training Center
Date: Nov 5 21:00:11 1996
From: steppie at wolfenet.com - steppie at wolfenet.com


Migration of passerines along upper Cold Creek on the southern Yakima
Training Center has virtually ended it seems - after all it's November now.
It seemed like November too, with a brisk and cold westerly wind, especially
on the ridges. But there was still plenty to see, especially raptors.

Jonathan Soll, Bev Clark and myself viewed but a handful of robins, one
Purple Finch (where are these guys coming from and where are they going?),
another handful of siskins and goldfinches moving overhead in two hours
along upper Cold Creek.

Most exciting there was a 15-minute show between an adult Northern Shrike
and an American Tree Sparrow. The sparrow, who chose thick masses of Douglas
hawthorns to escape the shrike couldn't seem to shut up, thus giving the
shrike a pretty good clue as to its whereabouts. A few times a minute it
would utter its thin, lisping "seet" call, thus allowing the shrike to zero
in again. With each lisping call by the sparrow, the shrike would hover
right above the sparrow, then dive into the thorny mass. Each time we
observed this, the sparrow sneaked off, usually to an adjacent hawthorn. In
the end, the shrike tired of this teasing sparrow. It seems a rather risky
game, though. I thought it odd the sparrow called so frequently. If it had
kept quiet, the shrike would of had a much harder time on this chase.

Both species most likely know each other well as both are characteristic
summer residents of the vast band of stunted willow and birch thickets in
the subarctic of North America.

All raptors continue their seasonal decline in numbers. If quantity was on
the wane, quality surely wasn't! The bird of the day was a most beautiful
Gyrfalcon which we observed dashing along the summit ridge of Umptanum Ridge
to perch momentarily on a spire of rimrock only to resume its wild eastward
flight. This was my earliest fall sighting of a Gyrfalcon in eastern Washington.

The tally which included upper Selah and Cold Creek and Umptanum Ridge:

Mallard-11
Northern Harrier-27
Accipiters-0!!!
Red-tailed Hawk-9
Rough-legged Hawk-16
American Kestrel-2
Prairie Falcon-1
Gyrfalcon-1, I believe a gray-phase adult female
Gray Partridge-1+
Sage Grouse-1
Ring-neckedPheasant-2
Great Horned Owl-1
Long-eared Owl-1
Short-eared Owl-2
Northern (Red-shafted) Flicker-2
Horned Lark-5
Black-billed Magpie-6
Common Raven-9
Red-breasted Nuthatch-1
Winter Wren-1
Golden-crowned Kinglet-13
Ruby-crowned Kinglet-2
American Robin-12
Varied Thrush-4
Hermit Thrush-1
Northern Shrike-4
American Tree Sparrow-2
Song Sparrow-2
White-crowned Sparrow-1
Dark-eyed (Oregon) Junco-5
Red-winged Blackbird-1 male
Purple Finch-1
House Finch-15
Pine Siskin-16
American Goldfinch-7

Andy Stepniewski