Hey tweeters, Hamlet had his dilemma; we have ours. To chase or not to
chase, that is our question. Whether it's better to spot a life bird right
out of the gate or wander aimlessly in your car with scopes a-droop....
Okay, I'll stop now. However, the question does remain: When a fellow tweets
posts a red-hot rarity, what to do? What to do?

On the one hand, we have the Sullivans' Port Orchard mountain quail, who
apparently were quite happy to march around as openly as a Sousa band when
everyone else showed up to view them but who stayed hidden in the Scots
broom and hooted derisively at us when we tried - no less than *four* times.
We never did see them.

On the other hand, we have Hal Opperman's and Idie Ulsh's Belfair mountain
quail. Hal, you may recall, gave explicit directions on how to find a family
of mountain quail near Idie's property. So accurate was he that he even
mentioned we should look "halfway up the second hill."

So yesterday we set out from Seattle at 4:30 a.m., the birding hour. My
husband, I must confess, was not sanguine. His memories of Port Orchard were
too green. Well, maybe fluourescent turqoise, the color of the Asarco-like
quarry ponds that border that ugly, ugly site. "Not the quail," he wailed. I
had to lure him out to the car with promises of donuts at the local 24-7
donut shop. Even then, it took an apple fritter and a sugar donut to gruntle
him, not to mention two supersized coffees.

But by gum, we found the quail. Right where Hal said it would be. Standing
right out in the open. For two full minutes. Oh the ecstasy of seeing a life
bird. The light shines brighter. The grass looks greener. Humanity seems
kinder. In short, all is right with the world.

Right? Heck, miraculous might be a more apt word to describe the world we
encountered yesterday. Because shortly after spotting Hal's quail, we were
driving along another gravel road and flushed a second bevy, consisting of
three adults and one baby. An hour later, we found another family of five
babies and two adults. The area was positively stuffed with mountain quail.
We're still evanescing.

If you'd like to go see the mountain quail convention, here is a copy of
Hal's directions, plus some additions from us:

HAL's DIRECTIONS FROM TACOMA: From I-5 in Tacoma, take the exit for
Highway 16/Gig Harbor and cross the Narrows Bridge. Stay on Highway 16 for
several miles until you see on the left-hand side, just beyond Port Orchard,
the exit to Belfair and Highway 3. Take that left exit and stay on Highway 3
until you get to the first stoplight in Belfair. This is just beyond a large
Safeway store. There will also be a sign there pointing to Belfair State
Park.

Turn right at the stoplight onto Highway 300. You will shortly come to a
four-way stop by a QFC store. Go straight through that intersection and in
about 3-4 miles you will pass Belfair State Park. Keep going. About 0.3 mile
beyond the park you will come to a major intersection (Belfair-Tahuya Rd).
Turn right up the hill and stay on this road for a little over nine miles
until you pass the second fire station and will see a sign pointing to
Maggie Lake and NE Lakeshore Drive. Take the next left after the Maggie Lake
entrance onto an unnamed dirt road with a large stump on either side. The
quail were seen about half way up the second hill on this dirt road on the
right side.

OUR DIRECTIONS: On the Belfair-Tahuya Road, there is a prominent sign
indicating the Maggie Lake turnoff. At .1 mile south of that turnoff, you
can turn left (east) between two stumps and go to the second hill. This is
Hal's quail site. Now, return to Belfair-Tahuya Road. Proceed .3 mile south.
Look for a broad, well-traveled gravel road on the right. No markers at all.
Turn down that road. Ignore all the gated side-roads. Stay on the main
gravel road. Eventually you will pass Rodney White's Slough (at .5 mile) -
look for a small wooden sign. Keep going on the main gravel road until you
come to what we think is Wood Lake (1.6 mile past Rodney White's Slough).
This is a small lake on the right side of the gravel road. You can find
where you are by looking at DeLorme p. 61, section A-8. The roads through
here are very twisty, so be sure to consult your DeLorme.

We saw the second bevy of quail 100 yards short of Wood Lake.

Return to Belfair-Tahuya Road. Go south to Tahuya. Then proceed west then
north on the Northshore Road of the Key peninsula (shown clearly in
DeLorme). You will pass through a beautiful forest that reminded us of
Interlocken Drive in Seattle, only bigger and nicer. The forest extends for
some 15 miles and ends at Dewatto Road. Proceed north on the Dewatto-Holly
Road. We saw the third batch of quail on the Dewatto-Holly Road, 400 yards
west of Milepost 3 near Dewatto Firestation #8.

Also seen on our trip:
pelagic cormorant
great blue heron
mallard
killdeer
California gull
glaucous-winged gull (including a stripey baby on the pylon at the Bremerton
ferry)
Caspian tern
pigeon guillemot
bald eagle
osprey
red-tailed hawk
mountain quail
rock dove
band-tailed pigeon
belted kingfisher
northern flicker (red)
willow flycatcher
purple martin (great colony at Seabeck)
barn swallow
Steller's jay
American crow
chestnut-backed chickadee
red-breasted nuthatch
Bewick's wren
American robin
spotted towhee
European starling
dark-eyed junco
song sparrow
house sparrow- Connie Sidles, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com