greetings tweeters

just wanted to share some nice birding today. i started out with the
SAS trip over to lake sammammish. i saw hal's post about it so won't go
into detail about that part of the trip. saw a lot of nice birds, and
it was a great way to start the morning. anyway, i separated from the
group rather than going on to the slough, and headed out east. i was
on a mission to find mountain chickedees, a bird which has eluded me on
three prior trips out that way. hal and his wife gave me some
suggestions about where i might find them, so off i headed.

my first stop was to look for lincoln's sparrows on the west summit road
of snoqualmie pass. i spent about an hour hiking up through the
meadows, but had no luck. lots of song sparrows, but no lincoln's. is
it too late in the season for them??? i did get a wonderful look at a
RED TAIL HAWK, both perched and in flight. he appeared to be a juvenile
bird, he had quite a bit of streaking still on the breast.

next stop was stampede pass. i followed FR54 down to the yakima river
and made several stops along the way. i was able to get great looks at
2 RED BREASTED SAPSUCKERS. also saw TVs, and BELTED KINGFISHER. the
best part for me was a group of 3 COMMON NIGHTHWAKS that stayed in that
are for the better part of 15 minutes hawking insects along with the
swallows. on two of their passes, they were accompanied by a BLACK
SWIFT. this was a life bird for me. i even managed to get a good look
at it in the scope. it was mostly soaring, quite in contrast to the
swallows around it. it was all dark, with very sickle shaped wings,
long tail which was clearly notched, but not deeply forked. it was
smaller than the nighthawk, but larger than the swallows. exciting
business!

next stop was at the yakima river where i spent the better part of 30
minutes trying to identify flycatchers. will have to keep working on
that one.

i then drove on to the roslyn/cle ellum area and investigated the
"trendwest" mega area. this was where hal said i would most likely to
find my target bird, the elusive mountain chickadee. why is it that
everyone i talk to says they are absoultely "everywhere" over there, but
i can never find one. that's how it went again today. although i
missed on the chickadee, i was rewarded with several RED CROSSBILLS,
another lifer for me. also in that area i found HAIRY WOODPECKER,
WESTERN WOOD PEWEE, CASSIN'S VIREO, RED BREASTED NUTHATCHES
(GAZILLIONS!), COMMON RAVEN, WESTERN BLUEBIRD (juvenile male), YELLOW
RUMPED WARBLERS, DARK EYED JUNCOS and of course CHESTNUT BACKED AND
BLACK CAPPED CHICKADEES. i thought i would try one more place and
checked out the roslyn cemetary. what an interesting town and area! i
spent 30 minutes tracking a mountain chickadee by voice, but could never
actually lay eyes on the bird. around 4 i finally gave up and decided
to go back into roslyn for lunch, then headed home. the weather was
great and i even managed to get 2 lifers i wasn't looking for. maybe
next time i'll get the chickadee, too

marissa j. benavente
vashon island
junebug at pol.net (just for you dan)