Subject: Okanogan Weekend
Date: Jul 21 17:15:19 1997
From: "Andy Stepniewski" - steppie at wolfenet.com


Fellow Tweets,

Denny Granstrand and his 17-year old son Corey and I birded the Okanogan
20-21 July and had some interesting finds:

*Clark's Grebe-1 on Duley Lake on the Colville Plateau.

*American White Pelican-6 at the mouth of the Okanogan River delta.

*Double-crested Cormorant-5+, as above.

*Hooded Merganser-2 mostly grown young on Muskrat Lake.

*Greater Scaup-1 male on Muskrat Lake.

*Northern Goshawk-1 adult soaring over the Highlands Sno-Park near
Havillah. Wow!

*Golden Eagle-adults and immature-plumaged birds at the 6,500' gap just
north of Old Baldy west of Conconully. The rock slide that blocks this road
has to be seen to be believed-'tis the "Mother of all rock slides." Would
not wanted to be driving along this cliff-hanging road when the granites
here decided to cleave.

*Chickens-0. Not a Galliformes on our list. Not even a quail!
We even undertook a 3-man Spruce Grouse search, canvassing the
deadfall-choked forests in the Okanogan Highlands. After a few more of
these, Denny, already convinced this is a mythical bird, will be sure this
is so. We've already done a few of these north-country gruels, looking for
this bird. I continue to assure him they're for real, but I think my
credibility is wearing out.

*Shorebirds-an abysmal showing. High water everyplace we went must be
prompting migrants to keep moving south. We saw only Killdeers and Greater
Yellowlegs.

*Great Grey Owl-1 adult at Havillah, life bird for Denny. This bird was
perched at the very top of a big pine snag, and flew off with ponderous
wingbeats, looked very much like a small eagle in flight. Cool! We had
wandered about the forests where this bird occurs without luck near dusk,
so I muffled my very best Great Grey "Wooo...Wooo...Wooo." It seemed to
work, bringing the bird right into view, which was odd, because this owl
seems to ignore hootings (at least most of the time).

*Black-throated Sparrow-1 singing male at Milepost 142 on Hwy 17, just
north of Bridgeport. At the milepost, go east up a gravel road 100 yards;
the sparrow was singing with Lark Sparrows. The habitat here is mixed
bitterbrush/sagebrush. Has this bird been recorded in Okanogan County?
Corey thought this was the most spectacular sight of the trip-he got
perfect studies through the scope of this handsome bird at very close
range.

*White-winged Crossbill-several singing males were seen in the Engelmann
spruce uphill from Hivillah on the Mill Creek Rd. It appears to be a very
heavy spruce cone crop in the making. Are these the first reported for WA
this year? If so, this species' mid-July appearance is about the usual
arrival date (in years when it wanders south of the border) for this bird
of the subarctic spruce forests.

*Red Crossbill. The Douglas fir forests in the mixed-conifer zone and
lodgepole pines in the subalpine were full of Red Crossbills. I seem to
have a learning disorder on acquiring skills neccessary to separate the
alleged eight "Red Crossbills," so will simply say these crossbills were
one of the commoner mouintain birds.

We recorded 131 species on our trip. I found it surprising how difficult it
was to find many common breeders of the area, species that are a sure bet
in mid-June are chancy by this time in July (two of many such species were
Dusky and Hammond's Flycatchers; they had stopped singing).

Very exciting were the masses of recently fledged birds just about
everywhere we went. Muskrat Lake was full of baby ducks, grebes, and Black
Terns. The Molson grasslands were swarming with juvenile Vesper Sparrows,
bluebirds, meadowlarks, and blackbirds. The conifers were loaded with just
fledged chickadees.

Andy Stepniewski
Wapato, WA