Tweets - today I lead a Seattle Audubon field trip to the east slopes of
the Cascades. Unfortunately, we ended up unsuccessfully dodging heavy
rain most of the day, completely upsetting my careful arraingements. It
looked for a while like people were mostly going to discover good places
they could return to when the weather was better. But late in the day
some sun appeared in the Teanaway valley, so off we went.

We only had time for one stop, so I turned off North Fork Teanaway Road
onto FS 9738 (the road to Red Top Mountain), and immediately parked on the
wide spot on the left. As soon as we started walking up the road, it
began to rain hard. But I said that we would keep walking while it
rained, then bird our way back. We got about half-mile before the rain
stopped, and the afternoon suddenly became sunny. The birds emerged.

The first thing we heard was a PILEATED WOODPECKER drumming, and we got to
see another one in the same general area (we never did see the one that
drummed). Then we came upon several WESTERN TANAGERS that gave us very
good looks. There were also about 40 BLACK SWIFTS speeding overhead, some
high, some low, nonstop throughout our walk.

The best birding, though, was just near our cars, in the riparian area at
the southeast corner of the intersection. The highlight there was a
1st-year male AMERICAN REDSTART. In our extensive attempts to get Pam and
Bruce a chance to see this bird, we were also treated to views of WARBLING
VIREO, YELLOW WARBLER (on a nest), DUSKY FLYCATCHER (on a nest), NASHVILLE
WARBLER, YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER, SWAINSON'S THRUSH, HOUSE WREN,
BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK, DOWNY WOODPECKER, and enough Western Tanagers that
the stopped being notworthy. CASSIN'S VIREO, OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER, and
VEERY were also heard in the area, and the Black Swifts never stopped
wheeling overhead. Annoyingly, every time the Redstart came out in the
open, the male Yellow Warbler would chase it off.

Earlier in the day, we had about 4 VESPER SPARROWS, a SAY'S PHOEBE, and a
SAVANNAH SPARROW at Swauk Prairie, along with many WESTERN BLUEBIRDS,
WESTERN MEADOWLARKS, CHIPPING SPARROWS, and MOUNTAIN CHICKADEES.

At the top of the Forest Service road above Hyak (I forget the number), we
heard FOX SPARROW singing on the King County side, HERMIT THRUSH singing
on both sides, and had good looks at TOWNSEND'S WARBLER, VARIED THRUSH,
and OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER on the Kittitas side.

So we all ended up pretty happy with the day, though the day ended up much
longer than planned due to attempts to dodge the rain, and attempts to see
the Redstart. There are also all my planned sites which must await
another day.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.scn.org/fomp/birding.htm
== hummer at isomedia.com