Hi Doug,
Was most interested in your species list of birds seen on Orcas while you
were visiting. If you were here on earthquake day, you were treated to some
nice weather. The sightings that I was most interested in were the Clark's
Nutcracker and the Black-capped Chickadees. Both are extremely rare here.
I have not seen either in my 6 years living and birding here. However, I
live near Moran State Park and am going to go down there today and try for
the nutcracker. I think if you had checked more closely, the chickadees
you saw were Chestnut-sided Chickadees, as they are the only ones we have
commonly on the island.
Gayle Benton
Eastsound, WA
gbenton at rockisland.com


> Just returned from Orcas Island today and had some time to bird
> parts of it including Mt Constitution. There were large numbers of
American
> Robins at the 2000 ft level along with: 22 Varied Thrush, 4 Brown
Creepers, 6
> Red Crossbills, several Ravens, 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk and 3 Bald Eagles.
At
> Cascade Lake, just past the entrance, I counted an incrediable 350
> Ring-necked Ducks and 1 Clark's Nutcracker! Also 8 Common Merganser and 5
> Lesser Scaup. The Frank Richardson Wildfowl Preserve had: 1 pr of
Cinnamon
> Teal, 4 Wood Ducks, 22 Gadwall, 2 Virginia Rails, 1 Sora, and and
assortment
> of Bufflehead, Hooded Mergansers and Mallards. Finishing the trip at Deer
> harbor we had: 4 Greater Yellowlegs, 4 Red Crossbills, 2 Yellow-rumped
> WArblers, 5 Red-breasted Nuthatches, 1 Swamp Sparrow, 2-3 Lincolns
Sparrows
> and 24 Black-capped Chickadees. Scoping out West Sound: 32 Long-tailed
> Ducks, 7 Marbled Murrelets, and 8 Pelagic Cormorants.
> I probably missed a few but these were the highlights. I
> also missed the quake; it was hardly felt up there.
>
> Good birding, Doug Watkins
> dougnpip at aol.com
> Bainbridge Is Wa
>