I had a chance to observe what I believed to be a Hammond's Flycatcher
in the woods along the White River near Lake Wenatchee. As I had the
bird in my scope it opened it's mouth a few times and then regurgitated
a suprisingly large amount of bug parts. The interior of it's mouth was
bright orange. Is this a feature of all empidonax flycatchers? I have
searched through all the field guides including Kaufman's Advanced
Birding and find no mention of it except in Peterson's Western Birds
where it shows the orange mouth of a Nutting's Flycatcher. Do some
species have it, whereas some do not?

Also, on the same trip, I birded Chelan Butte Road (delorme pg. 83 B-8)
from the south side of the lake over the ridge back to the Columbia
River and saw an amazing number of birds including:

Red-tailed hawk
Mourning Dove
Great Horned Owl (just fledged)
Vaux's Swift
White-throated Swift
Northern Flicker
Say's Phoebe
Western Kingbird
Eastern Kingbird
Violet-green Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-billed Magpie
American Crow
American Robin
Black-headed Grosbeak
Lazuli Bunting
Spotted Towhee
Brewer's Sparrow
Lark Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Western Meadowlark
Brown-headed Cowbird
Bullock's Oriole
American Goldfinch

No real rarities but the high numbers of almost all the species were a
real treat (and the views from the top were spectacular).

Scott Hoskin
bludog at earthlink.net
Seattle, WA
"If you're too busy to go birding, you're too busy"