Hey Tweeters, this is a bit late but I thought I'd report it anyways.
Saturday the 10th seven of us went on Tom Schooley's Black Hills Audubon
trip to Kittitas county. We ended the day with about 80 species, and saw
some wonderful scenery around Cle Elum, Thorp, the Yakima River, and
Manastash Ridge/LT Murray Wildlife Area. We had great luck finding nesting
activity, everything from Tree Swallow in holes to Dippers under a bridge.
Sorry I can't provide more adequate details about locations, but I was too
busy being a passenger. Others present may feel free to correct my
mistakes.

Birds seen from Snoqualmie Pass to Cle Elum:
Turkey Vultures (sunning themselves in a dead tree)
Band-tailed Pigeon
Vaux's Swift (good numbers around, some flying real low in Cle Elum w/ V-G
Swallows)
2 Rufous Hummingbird
1 R/B Sapsucker (at a stop just after Snoqualmie, I've forgotten the exit)
1 Pileated Woodpecker
5 Mountain Chickadee
Yellow-rumped Warbler (never saw a Myrtle the whole day)
3 Townsend's Warbler
5 Chipping Sparrow
W/C Sparrow
G/C Sparrow
10 Cassin's Finch
4 Red Crossbill
Evening Grosbeak (heard all day, never saw a bird though)

Junction of Teanaway River (?) and Yakima River:
1 Spotted Sandpiper
1 Red-naped Sapsucker
1 Warbling Vireo
3 N. Rough-winged Swallow
2 A. Dipper (with at least 3 chicks in the nest, very cool)
2 Western Bluebirds (female flew out of nest box)
1 O/C Warbler
3 Yellow Warbler
1 B/H Grosbeak (heard)

Durr RD, off Umtanum RD (DeLorme Pg. 50 A-4, note you would need higher
clearance and 4 wheel drive on this road. Also feel free to bring along
your handgun/shotgun/automatic weapon as there is plenty of target shooting
a few miles in. We watched a couple of star-crossed lovers shooting a
handgun together. If only these folks would pick up their empty
shells/casings/beer bottles. We only drove down as far as the Umtanum
Creek, here the road is under a bit of water.)
A. Kestrel
1 Lewis's Woodpecker
1 Dusky Flycatcher (we had two empids, we heard a 'wit' coming from the
bushes where one bird disappeared . The other bird perched for us, but was
silent. It was either Hammond's or Dusky, we felt it best to leave it
unidentified.)
1 Loggerhead Shrike
1 Horned Lark
1 BEWICK'S WREN (heard, w/brief sighting. Found in riparian zone along
Umtanum Creek. It was only singing the end trill of the song, higher
pitched than the birds I hear around Olympia)
House Wren
Mountain Bluebirds
3 Sage Thrashers (two close looks at singing birds, one perched on a
bluebird house)
3 Vesper Sparrow (one singing)
Brewer's Sparrow (easily 10 birds, they were plentiful-sometimes 3 singing
at once)
W/C Sparrow
Brewer's Blackbird (interesting to watch them in the middle of the
sage-steppe, nowhere near humans or cattle)
1 BULLOCK'S ORIOLE (male flushed towards riparian area as we were driving
away)
1 two-foot long Western Rattlesnake!

Other birds of the day:
2 R/N Duck
2 Osprey
15 California Quail
3 R/N Sapsucker
1 Hairy Woodpecker
2 Western Kingbird
All expected swallows minus Bank
3 W/B Nuthatch
1 R/C Kinglet (song)
Pine Siskin

Durr Road off Umtanum had great views of the sage-steppe birds, without the
traffic of Vantage Hwy. It doesn't have the Sage Sparrows (Tom has never
had them along this road) but does allow better looks at other birds as the
sage comes right up to the roadside. A nice place, allows for an
interesting diversion on the way to Wenas. The road had some nice
wildflowers out now (phlox and a larkspur of some sort), also ran into (not
with the car) quite a few chipmunks and ground-squirrels, made me wish we'd
brought our other field guides!

Jason Paulios
JPaulios at hotmail.com
Olympia, WA

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