Subject: Trip report from Kittitas County, 2004/02/10
Date: Feb 12 17:07:38 2004
From: Michael Hobbs - hummer at isomedia.com


Tweets - a touch late with this report, sorry. Tuesday I led a Seattle
Audubon field trip to Kittitas County. Birding was kind of slow, as it
seems to be over there this winter. There is snow everywhere, though it is
beginning to melt as compared with 3 weeks ago.

The day was sunny and gorgeous except for the fog. We had 2 very large
stretches of fog - first from the Pass and continuing past Cle Elum, then
there was a brief clearing, then we had fog from west of Ellensburg eastward
half way to Vantage.

Birding highlights:

South Cle Elum featured EVENING GROSBEAKS, which arrived at the house with
the feeders moments before we were about to leave disappointed.

Also in South Cle Elum was a TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE. We had two more in Cle
Elum.

At the East end of Cle Elum, at the Airport Rd. turnoff, we spotted
something (turned out to be a Great Blue Heron). That intersection is kind
of weird, in that you turn left for Airport Rd, then immediately turn right.
We made the first turn and not the second, and a hundred feet later, we
pulled over. There is a great field that appears to be a wonderful spot for
raptors. There were at least 3 RED-TAILED HAWKS, but the highlight was an
adult ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK on the near Ponderosa. It's plumage was very
similar to the light "Adult" in Sibley. The back had beautiful scaling on
it. Anyway, this Rough-leg let us watch for quite a while from quite close.
It then flew down into the field. Once we had all moved to where we could
view it well, the Roughy took off, flew in a circle, and then headed right
over our heads at close range into the sun. WOW. People were swooning!

>From there, we headed into the Hidden Valley/Swauk Prairie areas up 970, but
we took Red Bridge Rd. (paralleling 970 to the northwest) to get there. At
the Teanaway River crossing we had two AMERICAN DIPPER. Otherwise, there
wasn't much up there.

We dipped into Burke Rd. at the intersection of 970 and 97, and at a house
with feeders, while watching AMERICAN GOLDFINCHES, I heard alarm calls.
>From the top of a tree flew a bird that was almost certainly a NORTHERN
SHRIKE - unfortunately it flew directly into the sun and disappeared. We
didn't see another one on the trip.

Bettas Rd. proved to be the sight of several highlights. First, a COYOTE
paused on the road. As we approached by car, he suddenly noticed us, and
took off running absolutely full speed directly away from us. Terrified.
Obviously, it must have been shot at from cars before.

After watching him disappear into the hillside to the north, we noticed a
PRAIRIE FALCON sitting on a pole next to the road. The light was great, and
everyone got a good look when the Prairie took off and flew past the row of
cars. A very pretty bird.

It was sunny at the west end of Bettas Rd., but fog was pouring down from
the ridge to the left, filling the valley ahead. What a sight!

A bit further on, we drove slowly past an adult BALD EAGLE perched right
next to the road. All she did was turn her head to watch us. We proceeded
slowly, and soon the second car cruised slowly by, then the third car, then
the fourth, all passing at a walking pace within 10 feet of this beauty.

Fog made things pretty tough as we birded around and in Ellensburg, with not
much to show for our efforts. We continued to Vantage, and went down
Huntzinger Rd, where we didn't see much. But at Wanapum Dam, we did find
6-7 COMMON LOON, and a bit further south we spotted a few AMERICAN WHITE
PELICAN, one of which flew close enough to us to allow decent scope views.

We ended up with only 45 species, and none of the published "target birds",
but the great looks we had as noted above seemed to make people happy.

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