Following in the tyre-tracks of other posters here, the forest roads north
of Elma remain the place to go for mountain quail. I dragged myself out of
bed at appalling-o-clock this morning to reach the A2300 at 6am, and had two
sightings a little way past the junction with the A2302 where the A2300
starts to go downhill. One was just a quick look as it crossed the road and
hit the undergrowth, but the second pecked around at the roadside ahead of
me for a little while before I crept the car too close. Sadly I didn't find
any grouse to go with them, but I'll take the quail with thanks.



The only other sighting of note was a MacGillivray's warbler between the
A2308 junction and the big valley overlook. I'd stopped to watch a small
flock of goldfinch, white-crowned and song sparrows pecking around in the
road when I turned my binoculars onto a flash of movement just ahead in the
bushes, and there was a beautiful male. Cedar waxwings were ubiquitous and
every clearing had several willow flycatchers gargling their wolf-whistles
from the re-sprouting trees. I heard a great horned owl calling a way off.



On the return trip, I stopped briefly at Nisqually since I was passing, in
the still-vain hope of a photographable blue-winged teal. I got the usual
distant specks and a shape in the reeds. The warbling vireo remains warbling
on the nest near the hummingbird sign - interestingly, I got to watch vireo
change-over, and the replacement bird hunkered down in invisible silence. It
appears only one of the pair likes to advertise. The hooded merganser brood
on the ponds near McAllister Creek are now almost half mum's size, and I
flushed a bittern along that section of path too. Something seems to have
got into the Nisqually bitterns, I've sighted at least one and up to five in
my last four trips there. Definitely not normal! But in a much-appreciated
way.



Louise Rutter

Kirkland