Since last night (6/28/06) was such a beautiful
summer evening, Matthew Moskwik and I decided to try
our luck with owling in Pend Oreille County.
Considering that the Woodruffs, Ron Dexter, and I had
such stupendous views of Flammulated Owls last week in
southern Stevens County, Matthew and I felt that the
time was ripe to try to add them to our P.O. County
list.

Our first position was along an logging road in Deer
Valley. The forest appeared too fragmented from
logging too hold much promise for owls, but we gave it
try. While Nighthawks were engaged in their booming
displays, Swainson's Thrushes serenaded us in the
waning light. On the drive in, we saw several Lazuli
Buntings. Strangely enough, a CASSIN'S FINCH went into
full chorus through the darkness.

Later, we backtracked east of Sunrise Road, and took
another unmarked logging road southward off Deer
Valley Road. As we began the tape recording of
Flammulated Owl, we had very small owl swoop over us.
On the second and third pass that the owl made, I
caught the bird in the light and could see that it was
a FLAMMULATED OWL that pretty much looked identical to
the ones that I had seen in flight in Stevens County.
However, the Flam never perched for us nor called much
more than a faint couple of hoots.

Suddenly, a couple of Saw-whet Owls began their
accelerating tooting from the densely forested slope
below us. As I began my whistled imitation, I knew
that I captured the interest of one of the saw-whets.
When we saw the Saw-whet fly back and forth across the
road a couple of times, I could see the chunkier
profile of this bird when contrasted with our earlier
view of the Flam.

After spending some time working with the Saw-whet, it
finally landed in a dense fir tree. Although it took
quite a bit of time, I finally spotted it with my
torchlight as it perched near the tree trunk. We
enjoyed great views of this NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL for
about five minutes.

As we prowled around, we observed about half a dozen
shooting stars, some very bright satellites, crescent
moon with earthshine, the Milky Way, bats, and
possibly a second Flammulated Owl. During this period,
deer and other unidentified mammals moved through the
underbrush.

Here are few other miscellaneous sightings that I made
over the last week:

6/27/06: Silver Hill (Spokane County)
BREWER'S SPARROW - several
CLAY-COLORED SPARROW - 1

Steptoe Butte (Whitman Co.):
PACIFIC-SLOPE FLYCATCHER
LAZULI BUNTING
CLAY-COLORED SPARROW (heard and glimpsed)

Gina Sheridan
Spokane, WA

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