We went on a family camping trip to Okanogan county last week. We had intended
to camp at Tiffany Spring, but our Ford Explorer began showing its age (the
four-wheel drive wouldn't engage, and later she was reluctant to go into first
gear). So we camped at Salmon Meadow.

Salmon Meadow campground is located on FR 38, northwest of Conconully State
Park. There is a good gravel road (car passable) out to it. There are a
couple of very nice short day hikes from the campground, one going up to Angel
Pass, the other going up to Tiffany Mountain. We did both (at least partway up
towards Tiffany).

At Angel Pass, there were at least two grouse that I'm pretty sure were SPRUCE
GROUSE at the top of the scree slope, at the north end of the pass.

Throughout the forest from the campground, and continuing at least 1.5 miles up
the Tiffany Mountain trail were numerous Williamson's Sapsuckers. We ran
across at least 4, and maybe as many as 8 different WISAs. Curiously, all were
male - some adult, some first fall. First fall WISAs have white chins where
the adult male has a red chin. Also, the yellow on the belly is much paler.
The bird is almost black-and-white.

In the campground, in some trees at the far end of site 1, we had two
THREE-TOED WOODPECKERS, an adult and a young bird (still begging for food, and
occasionally being fed). They were removing the outer bark from the trees they
were on, leaving the bottom 1/3 of the tree quite red.

There were also Western Tanager, Townsend's Warbler, and probably Nashville
Warbler.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland WA
== hummer at isomedia.com