Tweets,
This morning I had a quanity of warblers that I usually do not see in such
concentrations on the western slopes of the Cascades. The report is on the
bird box but I thought I'd go into a little more detail here. The road
into the Fire training Academy off of Exit 38 goes through a gate, and
then crosses a bridge. Along this stretch I had an estimated 30-35 HETO's
(Hermit x Townsend's Warbler), 1 male Nashville Warbler, 10-15
Black-throated Gray Warblers, 2 MacGillvaries Warblers, 2-3 Wilson's
Warblers all in about a 200 yard area. Hal's report of birds in the
strange weather had to make me chuckle as I witnessed similar weather
situations this morning. While I was watching the warblers I had to
frequently clean off my binocs from... rain, no; snow and sleet. That's
right I was watching neotropical warblers that were singing their hearts
out and foraging in weather barely fit for the resident Varied Thrushes
that were nearby. The HETO's were a nice mixture of the two species both
in plumage and in sound. The males had a Townsend's head, while the body
was a fairly clear Hermit in origin. I was a bit suprised to see no pure
Hermit or pure Townsend's despite being right in the middle of the hybrid
zone where the HETO's will predominate. The song was a buzzy warble the
fist part, followed by two upnoted seedle-seedle.
There was also a calling pygmy owl in the area.
Back to the varied thrushes I heard. The females were doing a squeak call
that I'm wondering what the origin of it is? This was seperate from their
regular call note, resembling a almarmed squeak. Any ideas?
Yesterday I had my first Hammond's flycatchers of the year at Rattlesnake
Lake. Hermit thrushes are defiently moving up into the mountains at they
were abundant in the forest at Twin Falls ST. Park.
BTW, Rattlesnake lake is off of Exit 32 near North Bend, Twin Falls is off
of Exit 34 past North Bend. These exits are off of I-90.

Scott Downes
sdownes at u.washington.edu
Seattle WA

"Birds don't read bird books. (That's why they are seen doing things they
are not supposed to do)." -Mary Wood