I spent this morning at the burn in Lewis County west of White Pass on Forest
Road 1284 with goals of seeing Black-backed Woodpecker, a species that has
eluded me for a while. Patricks directions to the site worked great, and the
weather was outstanding! Clear skies and quite warm. Once I first headed
west. I walked around for about an hour and hiked back to about where I
started. So far no woodpeckers. So I sat down on a log and waited for them
to come to me. After about 5 minutes of sitting, I heard the call of a
Three-toed Woodpecker, and the drumming of another woodpecker in the
distance. I checked out the woodpecker that was calling and found it to be a
juvenile male THREE-TOED WOODPECKER. (very short tail, and a bit of down
still on its cheek) I then hiked to the east end of the burn, with another
hour passing and only another THREE-TOED being sited. I was getting to be a
bit discouraged and on the verge of frustration for searching the burn for
about 2 1/2 hours and no Black-backed, when I heard a different call close
by. a "Tick, Tick, Tick" much lower pitched than the normal Three-toed call
I was used to hearing earlier in the day. I checked it out and sure enough,
it was a BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKER! also a juvenile bird, but thats ok, all
that mattered to me was it had a solid black back! I decided to call it a
day, and as I walked back, I heard another BBWO calling in the distance and
another TTWO calling aswell.

I recomend that if anyone else does this hike, as it is very steep in places
with a good elevation climb, to bring some flagging tape to mark your
entrance to the burn, as I took a different (and much more steep) route down,
falling on my behind several times!
Also a little warning to people with low-clearance vehicles, there is a large
rut in the road at about the first mile up, that is easy to bottom out in. I
was very close to bottoming out in my Honda this morning. A vehicle like an
(SUV or truck) with high clearance should have no problem traversing this
road.

Other birds:
BLUE GROUSE
GRAY JAYS
CLARK'S NUTCRACKERS
BLUE GROUSE
MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD
LINCOLN'S SPARROW
MACGILLIVRAY'S WARBLER
NASHVILLE WARBLER
WILLIAMSON'S SAPSUCKER
the sapsucker, NAWA, and Mac Warbler were at the summit of White Pass.
Thats it, Good birding.

Ryan Shaw
Lacey, WA
RTShaw80 at aol.com
http://hometown.aol.com//rtshaw80/index.html