Greetings All,

Well just got back last night from a whirlwind Okanogan County birding
adventure for the day birding with Steve Mlodinow, Sam Terry, and Marv
Breece.
What a day, I left my house at 2:00AM, picked up Sam in Seattle at 3:00AM,
met Steve at his place in Everett at 3:45 AM, and drove Highway 2 to 97 up
to Twisp where we arrived at the house where the Yellow-throated Warbler has
been visiting.

(Just a note, the directions Andy originally sent are actually the correct
ones, except Ainsworthe is actually off Highway 20 after you pass the
Chevron on the left side of the highway, turns into Burgar road).

We arrived at about 8:15 and found Marv Breece waiting there with a big
grin. He had already seen the bird, and it had just flown off just before
we had gotten there. We were a bit worried at that moment, as apparently
this bird only hangs around in the early morning, then isn't seen again for
the remainder of the day.
We waited for about 10 minutes with Bohemian Waxwings flying overhead to
keep us occupied, and then we heard the distinctive chip note repeated
several times of the Yellow-throated Warbler. It flew down into the
backyard it has been frequenting for the last week, landing on the apple
trees and started feeding on an apple. It moved around quite quickly, and
was quite energetic. Black-capped Chickadees were all over the yard, and
the boisterous Yellow-throated Warbler seemed to enjoy playing games with
the hapless chickadees, chasing them around and literally beating them up.
It fed in the yard for about 20 minutes, chipping quite merrily, feeding on
both apples, and the ample suet supply in the backyard. What an interesting
sight, a Yellow-throated Warbler, in the snow, with Bohemian Waxwings flying
overhead...Unreal.

But seeing the bird right off the bat was great for us, it gave us all the
rest of the day to actually bird the area, something we were all really
looking forward to doing, with the warbler being a bonus. So Marv joined us
for the rest of the day and we started off just birding the neighborhood
around where the Warbler had been hanging out. We encountered alot of
chickadees, both Mountain and Black-capped in the neighborhoods of Twisp. A
few Solitaires, Robins, Juncos, and House Sparrows. And an interesting note
to our birding...We were actually quite a bit away from the house the
Yellow-throated has been visiting, when we were working a Chickadee flock,
and out pops the Yellow-throated Warbler surprising all of us. So if the
bird is not visiting the yard, it is undoubtedly keeping close to a certain
chickadee flock working the rest of the neighborhood.

One of our goals for the day was to try to find Redpolls, in attempt to pick
out a potential Hoary Redpoll, so after birding the town of Twisp, (and a
good little breakfast stop at the Cinnamon Twisp), we headed farther west up
Highway 20 to Winthrop.
We started up the road towards Pearrygin Lake, and encountered several
flocks of BOHEMIAN WAXWINGS. And on the road to the lake, we found our
first flock of Redpolls. We were able to get real close to them, and study
them all carefully, finding nothing but Commons. 70 birds total.
Up towards the lake, we had a Golden Eagle sitting on a telephone pole, and
several Bald Eagles flying around the area. Many Red shafted Flickers all
over the place, as were lots of Downy's, and a Hairy. A Pileated was heard
during the day aswell. One woodpecker of interest was an apparent hybrid
Sapsucker, showing mostly genes from a Red-breasted Sapsucker. It had
several other odd plumage characteristics that I'm too tired to get into on
this forum right now. Near the lake we found a group of California Quail,
that seemed to enjoy "snowboarding" down a small snow embankment, while they
leaped off the ground pulling down some seed from vegetation sticking out of
the snow.

We found another flock of Redpolls mixed in with some Goldfinch and a few
Siskins farther up the road away from the Lake. This time we found 80
Redpolls, and again the only thing that we could find that had all white
undertail coverts were the American Goldfinch. Just as we were going to
leave, Sam was looking in the other direction, spotting a few Pine Grosbeaks
in a Willow near a small orchard. We inspected the flock for several
minutes, and counted 47 PINE GROSBEAKS.

We all birded our way back to Twisp, then Steve, Sam and myself parted ways
with Marv at about 3:00 and we ended up birding our way back down to the
main highway stopping at several places along the Methow River to count
waterfowl.

Notable Species, and numbers:

- Methow River -
Common Loon - 5
Horned Grebe - 25
Pied-billed Grebe - 18
Western Grebe
Canada Goose - 300
Mallard - 400
Gadwall - 20
American Wigeon - 750
Canvasback - 300
Redhead - 20
Ring-necked Duck - 150
Greater Scaup - 250
Lesser Scaup - 50
Barrow's Goldeneye - 2
Common Goldeneye - 50
Bufflehead - 15
American Coot - 2500
Ring-billed Gull - 10
Herring Gull - 5

- Other Totals throughout the Methow Valley from Twisp to Winthrop -
Golden Eagle - 1
Bald Eagle - 20
California Quail - 100
Mourning Dove - 25
Northern Flicker - 20
Hybrid Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker - 8
Hairy Woodpecker - 1
Pileated Woodpecker - 1
Steller's Jay - 8
Black-billed Magpie - 30
American Crow - 1-2
Common Raven - 30 even had one calling like a Pygmy Owl as it was in flight
Black-capped Chickadee - 110
Mountain Chickadee - 10
White-breasted Nuthatch - 1
Red-breasted Nuthatch - 15
Golden-crowned Kinglet - 2
Townsend's Solitaire - 2
Bohemian Waxwing - 615
YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER
House Finch - 30
Red Crossbill - 4
Pine Grosbeak - 55
Pine Siskin - 15
American Goldfinch - 40
Common Redpoll - 150

Not our entire list of species, just all I that I sort of kept track of.
Ended up getting back home at 9:30 Saturday night, so a nice long day with
great birding after getting extremely good looks at the Yellow-throated
Warbler.
Cheers
Ryan

----Ryan Shaw
----Lacey, Washington
----rtshaw80 at hotmail.com
----(360) 491-1084
----AIM: RTShaw80

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