Howdy Tweeters,
Well we spent a very weird day birding the east side on Saturday. The
weirdness began at the Travelers Rest on the top of the Pass. It was
snowing and squawking through the blizzard, were 2 Yellow-headed Blackbirds,
in denial over the weather I think. At the Elk Heights exit we had great
looks at Mountain Bluebirds and Vesper Sparrows. The marsh on Cove Road,
near the Manastash road intersection had a pair of Virginia Rail that were
very responsive to the tape deck. They didn't vocalize at first but instead
walked out of the cat-tails and pecked the speakers, then stood there 2 feet
from us and did their goofy call. Very neat. The cold weather blew down
several large flocks of warblers in the canyon itself. Only about a mile or
two up we stopped and were able to see in one flock; Towsends, Yellow,
Nashville, Yellow-rumped, Orange-crowned Warbler, a Warbling Vireo, Willow
Flycatcher and we heard a flock of Cedar Waxwings. Just after you leave the
paved road a dipper was nesting under one of the cement bridges. Another
couple miles up we had another flock of 10-15 warblers but this time it was
only Yellow-rumped. We went up the past the logging operation for lunch
(about 5 miles from paved road). It was a cool affair because it SNOWED
again but we saw a Red-naped Sapsucker, Varied Thrush and a Golden-crowned
Sparrow and another dipper. We traveled up the North Fork after lunch and
had great looks down the canyon from the road (another flock of 6 or so
Townsends Warblers). About 3 miles from lunch is a pond (it might be the
spring that is marked on the Delorme). The Barrow's Goldeneye pair I saw on
Tuesday were still on the pond. We stopped on the way back down again for 2
Vauxs Swifts over one of the fields. We had no luck on Lazuli Buntings or
Chats. We did though go down the Vantage Highway and got all the sage
species (SageTrasher,Sage Sparrow and Brewers Sparrow). We could n't find a
shrike but a mile or so west of the sage stop was a Red-tailed Hawk nest
with 3 young and some in the group saw a Western Kingbird near there as
well. Cle-Elum at 4pm was hopping on the hummingbird front. Calliope,
Black-chinned and Rufous were all sparring over a feeder on Third St. The
family at 109 3rd St. are very friendly and invited us to get as close as we
wanted (we did look suspicious but they must get enough birders to know we
weren't peeping toms). Anyway 68 species for the day wasn't too bad but the
weather could have been a little warmer.

Tracee Geernaert
International Pacific Halibut Commission
PO Box 95009
Seattle, WA 98145-2009
206: 634-1838 ext 208