Tweets,

Well, I survived another weekend flyfishing. This time in the Ellensburg
Canyon on the Yakima River. The fishing was great, but the catching left
something to be desired. At least I didn't deplete the resource...but neither
did anyone else....;-}.

Birding was pretty good...and would have been better if I had a pair of light
weight, compact bins to take on the river with me. I used a small pontoon boat
Sunday morning to float from River Bend Campground (where we stayed) to Squaw
Creek...saw lots of birds, but couldn't ID most of them as too far away for
these feeble eyes.

Highlights of the trip were Saturday afternoon when I took a drive (after 5
hours of fishing, with one little fish) toward Ellensburg and saw what I
thought might be a woodpecker in a grove of Ponderosa Pine near milepost 21.
Parked & walked back...never did see a woodpecker...but did get to watch a
WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH stuff moths and/or small butterflies under the bark of
a tree. A MOUNTAIN CHICKADEE was also in the area, as were BLACK-CAPPED
CHICKADEES, as well as lots of YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS.

Sunday morning, a probable COOPER'S HAWK flew into a snag by the river in the
campground...landed long enough to see all the activity beneath the tree at
the launch and immediately took off... I really tried to make this into a
NORTHERN GOSHAWK but couldn't...too open a country for a GOSHAWK.

On the float Sunday, I did get to see several AMERICAN DIPPERS. KILLDEER, and
BELTED KINGFISHERS. Sorry, I couldn't get close enough to the KINGFISHERS to
tell if they were male or female, but did see three of them.

Saturday night about dusk we had a flock of TREE SWALLOWS (?) hawking over the
river for a short time. Whatever they were feeding on either quit or rose up
the mountain side across the river, because the flock just disappeared over
the mountain...an incredible sight.

Sunday, on the way home, there were lots of COOT near Ellensburg, as well as a
couple of WESTERN GREBES.

All in all a good trip....and I missed the rain over here....:-{


Phil Kelley
Lacey, WA
scrbjay at aol.com