Yesterday, I took advantage of the sunshine and only a light breeze to
head east, my first birding trip out that way.

My first stop was Swauk Prairie Cemetery at 8.45am - it seemed a bit
quiet at first, and it took some looking around outside the grounds
themselves to pick up the birds. I eventually found a number of western
meadowlarks, a pair of western bluebirds, a white-breasted nuthatch and
an American kestrel among the ubiquitous juncos, robins and
white-crowned sparrows. The conifers within and around the cemetery
contained plenty of chickadees right up in their tops, but it was 50
minutes before I got a good enough look at one to see its face and say
for sure it was a mountain.

Next up, Elk Heights Burn. Being a Brit, I was expecting to find a
stream, not a patch of blackened woodland, but fortunately the
directions given were good enough that it was obvious anyway! The first
bird I saw at the top at the top of the bank was a Cassin's finch. The
finch was sharing its tree with a woodpecker, but it turned out to be a
hairy. Another five minutes and two more Cassin's finches brought me to
a black-backed, a male with his beautiful yellow crown, and I watched
him work a tree for ten minutes before he moved on. I second the advice
given previously to listen for them - on a still morning, the sound
carried very nicely even over the traffic on I-90, a rather slow and
deep tapping.

On to the Vantage highway, and the first desired sighting of the day was
a yellow-headed blackbird on the wires at MP 8 just after I joined. I
found three more in the two minutes I spent checking a pond alongside
Parke Creek Rd, plus another pair of kestrels, and a great horned owl
was sitting in the nest at the house to the west of Parke Creek Road on
the south side.

The pump house at MP 14.5 produced several singing Brewer's sparrows and
a mountain bluebird periodically dive-bombing the sagebrush from the
wires. I watched the bluebird for ten minutes before it departed in a
huff when a loggerhead shrike laid claim to the same stretch of wire, so
I watched the shrike using the same party trick instead.

A stop at the entrance to the wind farm brought the first of various
sage sparrows of the day, a Say's phoebe, and another bluebird too
briefly seen and backlit to call a species on.

After that, things quietened down dramatically. I reached the Quilomene
wildlife area at 1.30pm, when the sun had retreated behind a bank of
cloud, and after walking half a mile in and seeing only one savannah
sparrow, I went back to the car - the return added another pair of sage
sparrows. Gingko State Park was equally bird-sparse, both the hiking
trails in the coulee (though the top was a lovely spot to eat a late
lunch and take in the view) and the interpretive centre by the lake.

My final call was at the violet-green swallow nesting site on Huntzinger
Road below the dam - very active with the swallows, of course, but there
was also another Say's phoebe and a number of house finches, one a
beautiful bright yellow male. A rock wren was thoughtful enough to come
and alternately sing and preen on one of the roadside fenceposts - I do
like a guy who'll pose for photos!

I made a detour on the trip home via roads south of Thorp, but failed to
turn up any long-billed curlews.

Misses for the day included Vesper sparrows, sage thrashers, pygmy
nuthatches, white-throated swifts, horned lark and chukar. I also missed
the prairie falcons and Swainson's hawks people have reported recently,
in fact it was a very sparse day for raptors all round - besides the
kestrels, I only saw one red-tailed hawk. Looks like I'll have to go
back another day, and cover Umptanum Road and Wenas Campground to pick
up a few more - drat, what a chore!

Absolutely nothing to complain about, since I found ten species for the
year list, nine of them life birds. The tenth was the black-billed
magpie, so ubiquitous out east. It always seems odd to me, seeing them
out there gliding around in the desert canyons - it leaves me wondering
why one of Britain's most common birds haven't spread west when the
climate on this side obviously suits the species. Is it simply the
barrier of the Cascades that they can't cross?

Many thanks to all those people whose reports and helpful emails let me
know where to go and what to look for as I planned this trip. Enjoy the
birds!

Louise Rutter
Kirkland

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