Strike the Red-necked Phalaropes from my earlier post. I short
circuited. They were all Wilson's.

Carol Riddell
Edmonds

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Carol Riddell <cariddell at earthlink.net>
> Date: May 23, 2006 8:07:14 PM PDT
> To: Tweeters <Tweeters at u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Birding Okanogan and Ferry Counties
>
> Hi Tweets,
>
> Even though the Kettle Valley Songbird Festival took a pause this
> year, this past weekend several of us from Pilchuck Audubon headed
> over to Curlew (Ferry County) and toured some of the properties
> that are part of the regular festival. Susie Schaefer has her
> Highlands contacts so we had wonderful visits and good birding,
> sometimes in the clouds and sometimes in the rain. Glare along
> with the cloud cover made some identifications difficult but we did
> rack up 95 species for the weekend. High water on lakes and
> flooding on rivers and creeks was the norm.
>
> The Bobolinks had not yet arrived at their nesting hay field along
> Aeneas Valley Road in Okanogan County. We saw no gulls or vireos.
> Chipping Sparrows were out in force everywhere, but not others. We
> saw lots of Red Heads at lots of sites but only one Canvas-backed
> Duck, which was on Molson Lakes. The only Cinnamon Teal of the
> trip was at Muskrat Lake on Havillah Road. We found two colonies
> of Bank Swallows. One is on Highway 21 between Curlew and
> Danville, closer to Danville and on the only high bank along that
> stretch of road. The other smaller colony is at the north end of
> Havillah Road, probably a half mile south of its intersection with
> Chesaw Road and on the east side of the road. Ruffed Grouse were
> revving their motors just about everywhere. Spotted Sandpiper was
> seen in good numbers. We could not find a Solitary. We heard a
> lot of Wilson's Snipe and saw several on the wing.
>
> We drove to Winthrop Friday night so that we could bird the Sun
> Mountain Beaver Ponds Saturday morning. A steady rain prevented us
> from starting as early as we had planned but by the time we reached
> the beaver ponds it had let up. Some of the highlights of Sun
> Mountain were Violet-green, Barn, and Tree Swallows; Bullock's
> Oriole; Western Kingbird; Say's Phoebe; House, Bewick's, and Marsh
> Wren; Common and Hooded Merganser; woodpeckers were Northern
> Flicker, Red-naped Sapsucker, Hairy, and Downy. Driving up to the
> Sun Mountain Lodge we encountered a male Blue Grouse perched on the
> post of the guard rail. He stayed and stayed and stayed and was
> still there on our way back down. We found zero bird activity at
> Loup Loup Campground. We tried to drive the back road to
> Conconully but hit snow that was impassable for our two vehicles
> about three miles north of the campground. We spent some time
> looking for Boreal Chickadee but struck out. However, we did enjoy
> observations of Mountain Chickadee. We had regular sitings of
> Western Tanager throughout the weekend.
>
> The pond on Toroda Creek Road, about a mile and a half from
> Wauconda, produced good numbers of Black Tern and Yellow-headed
> Blackbird. We found several Wilson's Phalarope at this site. We
> stayed on a private property in Curlew that yielded our only Lazuli
> Bunting and Lewis's Woodpecker of the trip. From a property
> adjacent to the Republic sewer treatment ponds, we had a prolonged
> observation of a Sora and good views of a pair of Golden Eagles
> that are nesting on the mountain to the southeast. Gray Catbird
> and Veery had not yet arrived. Red-necked Phalarope were on one of
> the ponds. They were also seen at a number of other lakes
> throughout the Highlands. At another site near Wauconda we
> delighted in great and prolonged views of a male Williamson's
> Sapsucker. We finally got to see both the male and female on the
> same snag that is most likely their nest site. We also watched a
> Northern Saw Whet Owl on her nest on this property. From the Lake
> Beth USFS Campground on Chesaw Road we found our only nesting pair
> of Common Loon. Our other highlight at Lake Beth was our only
> Townsend's Solitaire.
>
>
> Carol Riddell
> Edmonds
>
>
>

Carol Riddell
cariddell at earthlink.net



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