Hi Tweets,
Here's a quick report of my day at Slate Peak in the North Cascades above
Hart's Pass. Last weekend Nancy Taylor and I ventured up and found little
more than an impressive preview of winter--heck of a storm Sunday night with
snow flurries for breakfast. Up at the summit on Sunday, we had a couple of
hours between fronts and picked up around 15 raptors. Monday was mostly
windy, cold, socked in, flurries. We pulled out at noon.

Yesterday was a different story: classic alpine Indian summer. Glorious
sunshine. I had 44 raptors between 10:30 and 3:00. First bird, adult GOEA on
a full glide north to south at eye level. The biggest category was
Unidentified Accipiter--10. Many birds where soaring up out of the valley to
the northwest of the ridge and literally soaring out of sight without
leveling off and coming by, making positive ID difficult. Steady easterly
wind most of the day. At 2:00 it virtually stopped.......boy, that spacious
silence is delicious. Here's my raptor list:
NOHA--3
GOEA--2
RTHA--5
AMKE--4
PRFA--1
SSHA--7
COHA--7
UA--10
UR--5

I was quite surprised to see no TV's or migrating Ravens. There is a
resident group of about 6-8 Ravens that forage along the ridge. Other
notable birds: Pipits; Horned Larks; a single Mountain Bluebird; one
Yellow-rumped Warbler; Clark's Nutcracker;Townsend's Solitaire; and a
surprise down by Mazama; a White-headed Woodpecker, an illusive life bird
for me.

Good birding!
Joe Mackie
jmackie at cc.wwu.edu
Bellingham