Tweets,

Yesterday afternoon about 3 PM (after 21 hours straight birding on our
"split shift" birdathon big day we (me, Colin Thoreen, Tylor Davis, Brendan
McGarry, Ryan Merril, and Peter Klein) were puzzled by a very odd pair of
ducks at the junction of Frenchman Hills Road and Dodson. At first we
thought "Garganey," but they were closer to Hooded Mergansers, but
strikingly different in some respects and like nothing I've ever seen, in
life or otherwise. We didn't have a camera and, though the light was
excellent (sun behind) we could get no closer than 100 feet. They fed
actively, obviously of the merganser persuasion, diving frequently, narrow
blackish bills, long wedge-shaped tails, which they frequently cocked up at
about 30 degrees, more like a Ruddy Duck than what I recall of mergansers.
The male (we assume that's what it was) was the size and shape of a Hooded
Merganser, but in place of the white face patch of a Hoodie male, this bird
had a silvery-white plume-like patch on its black head that extended from
just behind the yellow-orange eye to the margin of the crest above the nape,
with just a hint of dusky outlining the rear border. Thus the resemblance to
a Garganey. The male did inflate its crest a few times, as a Hoodie might,
which clearly showed that there was no well-defined black border to the rear
of the patch. The belly of both birds (more on the presumptive female in a
minute) was white, seen when they reared up to flap a bit. The male's neck
was dark reddish, the breast a mottled gray, however, not white, and not
cleanly set off from the darker head; the forward flank area was dusky with
a somewhat indistinct vertical white bar behind (like a rather indistinct
version of the male Hooded Merganser pattern here), ahead of the grayish
flanks (which Peter thought showed a hint of cinnamon wash on one side only
??).

The presumptive female looked even less like a female Hooded Merganser than
the male looked like the male of that species. It more closely resembled a
female Long-tailed Duck! The face was whitish, contrasting with a black chin
and a dusky eye patch, which set off the yellow eye sharply. It had a
restricted, lax dark gray crest, but not at all like the translucent brown
axe-head crest of a female Hoodie. The bill was essentially as the male, but
perhaps not quite asblack, but long and narrow. The back and wings and tail
were dark (so the body was dark to the waterline, unless the bird rolled
slightly, showing its white belly), brownish black or blackish brown. No
contrasting pale margins were visible on the wing feathers of either bird.
There was a normal Hooded Merganser pair nearby for comparison.

Perhaps we'd been up too long without sleep (we completed our 24 hour
marathon shortly thereafter, with 150 species for the "day"). Any ideas
about these birds would be appreciated. I suspect some hybridization with
something, but can't imagine what. There's no merganser like it in the
world, according to my Madge and Burn book.

Other unusual sighting included a Red-breasted and a hybrid Red-breasted x
Red-naped Sapsucker (male) at the 90 degree bend along Umtanum Road halfway
to Wenas from Ellensburg and two Lewis's Woodpeckers along Frenchman Hills
Road between I-SW and Dodson. Also an immature Ferruginous Hawk east of
Kittitas along the Old Vantage Road.

Our attempts at owling in the Liberty area came up short. It was about 28
degrees and not a peep out of the usual suspects there, most notably
Flammulated Owl and Poorwill.

Gene Hunn.