Tweets - this week, my wife and I snuck off for 4 days at the Stehekin Lodge
to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Wow - what a great place! For those who
don't know about it, Stehekin is just at the edge of North Cascades National
Park at the north end of Lake Chelan. The only ways to get there are boat
(2 hours for the 55 miles from Chelan), or plane. There are lots of trails
to explore, and a really great bakery to indulge at.

There were also some interesting birds, as well as a host of other wildlife
sightings.

On Monday we took a horseback trail ride to Coon Lake, where we found a lone
juvenile BARROW'S GOLDENEYE. Back at the ranch, we saw some SAY'S PHOEBES
and EVENING GROSBEAKS.

On Tuesday we bicycled to the end of the road (which, following the 2003
flooding, is just below the Dolly Varden Camp, about 13 miles from
Stehekin), then hiked the Bridge Creek trail (part of the Pacific Crest
Trail) north for a few miles towards Bridge Creek. Probably just a bit
north of Buzzard Creek there is a small burn from 2004. We, of course,
investigated. LOTS of woodpeckers: many (12+) HAIRY WOODPECKERS, including
family groups. There was at least 1 DOWNY as well, and I heard a NORTHERN
FLICKER. But most exciting were two AMERICAN THREE-TOED WOODPECKERS *and*
2+ BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKERS.

We also got to see a mother bear with two small bear cubs on that trail, as
well as witnessing a Western Terrestrial Garter Snake eat a nestling
Dark-eyed Junco!

Mornings and afternoons at the north end of the lake were birdy too, with
highlights being:
Common Loon Pair with a half-grown young
Black Swift Near Rainbow Falls
Red-eyed Vireo 3 heard immediately north of the lake
Canyon Wren Heard in cliffs just east of Harlequin Bridge
Veery Heard east of marsh at north end of the lake
Gray Catbird In the marsh at the north end of the lake
C. Yellowthroat Ditto

Wednesday we bicycled over the Harlequin Bridge to the west side of the
Stehekin River and walked south from the airport on the Stehekin River Trail
to Weaver Point. This was a very birdy trail, and we would have enjoyed it
more except that it was a very buggy trail with lots of flies and
mosquitos...

But among the birds seen there were:
Ruffed Grouse
Pileated Woodpecker
Red-eyed Vireo Many - maybe 8 or more!
AMERICAN REDSTART Male at the 2nd stream crossing
MacGillivray's Warbler
Pine Siskin

There were also 2 species of lizard; Northern Aligator Lizard and some kind
of brownish skink. At Weaver Point, a Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel played
masterfully in his role as "snafflehound", going so far in his begging as to
climb (uninvited) onto Janka's head in search of a crumb. He also jumped
onto my back, and climbed into my backpack.

On our way back we stopped at the orchard along the west shore of the river
near Rainbow Falls. At a house at the end of the road there were a couple
of hummingbird feeders with a feeding frenzy of hummingbirds. The vast
majority (perhaps a dozen) were RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRDS, but there were a couple
of CALIOPE HUMMINGBIRDS too. None were adult males. The same two species
were also seen in the gardens of the Stehekin Pastry Company

Finally, this morning while waiting for the return boat back, we hiked about
a mile of the Lakeshore Trail on the east shore of Lake Chelan south from
Stehekin. There were some incredible orchids on the trail. Not too many
birds, but I did get my best looks of the trip at PURPLE FINCH, saw another
PINE SISKIN, and found a young male WILLIAMSON'S SAPSUCKER (our 7th
woodpecker for the week).

At all locations, there were very large numbers of SWAINSON'S THRUSH (most
common bird, hands down, except maybe for...), DARK-EYED JUNCO, and WESTERN
TANAGER.

For the trip, I had about 60 species of bird, 20 of which were new for my
Chelan County list.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.scn.org/fomp/birding.htm
== birdmarymoor at verizon.net