Tweets - today, Megan Lyden and I scouted Kittitas County in advance of a
Seattle Audubon field trip I'm leading there next week. There was about 6"
of snow everywhere, which may have contributed to some rather sparse
birding, but I'm not that familiar with birding there in January, so maybe
it's normally rather sparse. The weather was good though, with clouds, but
no wind. It wasn't too cold either.

There were a lot of species I was hoping to see that we didn't (no Purple
Finch, Cassin's Finch, Pine Grosbeak, Red Crossbill, Bohemian Waxwing,
Mountain Bluebird, Common Redpoll, or Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch). We did
manage to see some birds though.

The most surprizing was a single BAND-TAILED PIGEON seen well on Burke Rd
(first road southeast of the intersection of 970 and 97). It was in a tree
in the front yard of the first house. From the literature, this would
appear to be locally and seasonally a very unusual sighting.

Other highlights included:

About a dozen EVENING GROSBEAKS in South Cle Elum at the usual location (in
the trees around the house with all the feeders at 4th & Grant)

A dark-morph ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK at the west end of Bettas Rd. Several
light-morph RLHA were seen, especially just east of Ellensburg from I-90.

A TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE towards the east end of 3rd in Cle Elum

Both SHARP-SHINNED and COOPER'S HAWKS in Cle Elum, both just south of 3rd.

NORTHERN SHRIKE both at Hidden Valley and along Bettas Rd.

Approx. 100 HORNED LARK a bit east of 97 on Hungry Junction Rd. north of
Ellensburg.

In the same field were at least 10 GRAY PARTRIDGE.

About a dozen CHUKAR on Hunzinger Rd. south of the Wanapum dam.

2 AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN on the islands in Grant County visible below
Wanapum dam.

We also had good looks at AMERICAN GOLDFINCH, VARIED THRUSH and MOUNTAIN
CHICKADEE at several locations.

Only about 50 species seen for the day, though.

If anyone can give me pointers on hot sightings approximately along I-90 in
Kittitas county, I'd love to know before my Tuesday the 27th trip. Thanks

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