hello tweeters:

just a brief report about a few days spent earlier this week birding in
parts of okanogan county, primarily in the pasayten wilderness area. i will
only mention some of the highlights.

two lifers on the trip: a pair of SPRUCE GROUSE on the roadside on hwy.
530, just outside of darrington, and several WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILLS in
various places in the hart's pass area. on the pacific crest trail, we had
three members of a BLUE GROUSE family cross right in front of us. they
spent several minutes feeding, oblivious to a similarly engaged
WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW. also on the same trail, two first year TOWNSEND'S
WARBLERS. closer to sun mountain in the methow valley, we were surprised to
hear at least four CASSIN'S VIREOS singing. we eventually saw two of these
vireos during a nice call-and-response performance.

as others have reported, migration is definitely happening. we noted some
large flocks of VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOWS feasting on the abundance of insects.
several WARBLING VIREOS were also seen.

one last note: a somewhat late EASTERN KINGBIRD was seen on a fence post on
hwy 97, just north of wenatchee.

it was nice to experience the higher elevation birds. the weather was
cooler up there, but quite HOT on the way back through central washington!

good birding,
isadora arevalo wong
seattle
chupaflor at igc.org