Hello Everyone,

This is my first posting to Tweeters. I am a novice bird watcher. My interest
in this began when my wife bought me a bird feeder this past Christmas. Now I
have several feeders, including one on my window at my office.

Anyways, on Saturday, I went hiking in the drizzle to Kendall Lakes near
Snoqualmie pass. I spotted a female or immature Townsend's Warbler perched in a
spruce on the edge of a clearcut and also a MacGillvray's Warbler hopping
around in the blueberry bushes of the understory. This was my first sighting of
the Mac. Warbler so I was pretty excited. (I like checking off the boxes in my
bird log book.)

I also spotted some sort of fly catcher that I could not identify. It appeared
to be about the size of a cedar waxwing although maybe my binoculars just made
it look that big. In any case, it was yellow-olive (more yellow than olive) on
its breast and brown on top with two prominent wing bars. It would perch near
the top of a spruce, then fly out a few feet, grab an insect, then fly back to
its perch, or to another perch on a nearby tree. It hardly stayed at its perch
more than 5 seconds before flying off to grab another bug. Watching for a few
minutes, I noticed that there were at least 4 of these birds in a loose flock
slowly moving across the mountainside feeding on the insects flying near the
tree tops.

I also saw passed by a few flocks of kinglets and saw two thrushes of some sort
on a log acros the trail. I did not get a good look at them before they flew
away.

I heard but did not see lots of chickadees, nuthatches, some woodpeckers (both
their calls and hammering). I also saw numerous gray jays, a few stellar jays
and some ravens.

I was fly fishing up at the highest lake when I took a break to eat some fruit
and ginger snap cookies. As I was sitting, I saw a gray jay in the distance
slowly flying my way from tree top to tree top. Soon I lost sight of it, but
then heard it settle down on a branch above me. I turned around and suddenly
saw several gray jays. They seemed to just magically appear out of nowhere.

I broke up one cookie and tossed it a few feet away from me. With no
hesitation, one of the jays flew down, grabbed a piece and flew back to its
perch. This was repeated by the other jays until the cookie pieces were gone. I
had been reading a book on hand feeding wild birds, so I decided to see if I
could get them to feed from my hand. I broke up another ginger snap into into
aobut 8 pieces and stretched out my hand. With no hesitation, one of the jays
flew down, landed on my hand, grapped a cookie piece and flew away. Within 20
seconds, 4 jays landed on my hand and finished the cookie.

I did not feed them after that as I felt guilty already for feeding them in
this unnatural way. I know gray jays tend to be friendly, but I did not expect
them to be that tame.

For those of you who share my passion with fly fishing, I caught and released 2
rainbows from the upper lake. Both were pansize, healthy and fat.

On labor day weekend, I was in the Vancouver Wa. area visiting my sister. One
afternoon, we went to Ridgefield wildlife refuge. There were lots of ducks
which I spent no time eyeing. From the observation blind, we saw a flock of
great egrets. At least that's what I think they were. They were about the size
and shape of Blue Herons, but were all white except for yellow beaks. I could
not see their legs or feet. Incidentally, there was a barn swallow nest with
three babies in the blind. An adult periodically flew into the blind and fed
the birds. The babies looked ready to fledge, and in fact, one of the three
flew away while we were watching. It had no problem flying as it left.

Later that afternoon, while walking in a field, I spotted two black-billed
magpies on top of a tree. While I was watching, one of them flew off the tree,
grabbed some big bug out of the air and returned to the tree. I was surprised
to see the magpies since my Peterson's guide does not show Western WA as part
of their range.

Good Birding to you all,

Jack


--
Jack Castro (206) 641-7001
Sr. Technical Representative
The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation
15400 S.E. 30th Place, Suite 101
Bellevue, WA 98007
Fax: (206) 641-6924
Email: jack.castro at macsch.com
WWW: http://www.macsch.com/