Subject: [Tweeters] trip report, Hunn & Gerdts, June 27-30, nc WA
Date: Jul 1 14:17:08 2007
From: Eugene and Nancy Hunn - enhunn323 at comcast.net


Tweets,

George Gerdts and I just returned from our annual eastern Washington get-reacquainted-with-the-birds trip. We camped at Wenas Tuesday night (nearly deserted), Rock Creek CG in the Little Loup Creek canyon Wednesday night (loud dogs and a generator until nearly midnight), at the Highlands Snopark lot near Havilah Thursday night (rain), and at Windy Point CG on the Tieton River Friday night (blessed clear and quiet). We returned to Seattle via the Little Naches on forest service roads up and over the Cascades between Green Pass and Windy Gap to look for some King County specialities.

Many of the usual suspects. Highlights included a LEAST FLYCATCHER at Hardy Canyon that responded to the I-pod but was not calling on its own; WHITE-HEADED WOODPECKER at Wenas along with GRAY FLYCATCHERS and the trifecta of nuthatches. The ASH-THROATED FLYCATCHER flew in to check us out near mp 24 on the old Vantage Highway and a BLACK-THROATED SPARROW was singing at the traditional site aoubt a mile s of the Wanapam State Park entrance (but no sign of them at the site 0.7 mi n of the entrance). PRAIRIE FALCONS were at the nest site in Frenchman Coulee with a CANYON WREN nearby (plus more Prairie Falcons south of Creston at the Wilson Creek overlook and another Canyon Wren along the San Poil River in Ferry County). No sign of the FERRUGINOUS HAWKS at the Wilson Creek nest site but we photographed a large juvenile on a nest on a windmill just w of mp 84 along SR 28 in Lincoln Co. east of Wilson Creek. We drove up Toats Coulee Road to Long Swamp and hiked a bit above to view the effects of last summer's conflagration. Truly devastating on the ridges above, the fire seeming to have burned right into the soil. Still there were some birds about, including an AMERICAN THREE-TOED WOODPECKER at a nest hole. We heard the female GREAT GRAY OWL just above the lower meadow along the road into the Highlands Snopark but she wouldn't show herself, and then we got rained on in the early AM and had to beat a retreat to lower elevations. [Other owls seen include a Great Horned below Wenas Lake, dusk flyovers by Long-eareds near Mattawa, a Short-eared out and about at midday south of Creston, four pairs of Burrowing Owls n of Othello, and a cooperative Western Screech at Yakima Sportman's State Park.] We managed to locate a group of three singing male NORTHERN WATERTHRUSHES along the Aeneas-West Fork San Poil River road in eastern Okanogan County but no redstarts. A flock of 100 WHITE PELICANS flew in to the ponds just below the Wilson Creek overlook Friday afternoon, several still in high alternate plumage. There were also a half dozen GREAT EGRETS (and many more at the heronries on the nw portion of Potholes Reservoir) and as many BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERONS here as well, though very few blackbirds in the big cattail marsh and none that looked like Tricoloreds.

Along the Cascade Crest south of Green Pass we found a number of MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRDS, CHIPPING SPARROWS, TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRES, plus two wandering CLARK'S NUTCRACKERS and three CASSIN'S FINCHES, one in full song. All these are nice birds for the King County list.

Of perhaps some distributional interest were the family of BUSHTITS at the junction of US 12 and SR 410 west of Naches, singing COMMON LOON on Fish Lake n of Conconully and a RED-NECKED GREBE on a nest nearby on Forde Lake.

Gene Hunn
18476 47th Pl NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
enhunn323 at comcast.net