Hi Tweets

Yesterday, I lead a field trip for the East Lake Washington Audubon Society out to Vantage and then back to the Ellensburg vicinity. We started out from Issaquah and made out first stop at the Tinkham exit. Wading thru the snow from the night before we scanned the Snoqualmie River for AMERICAN DIPPER and found two on the upstream side of the bridge. A WINTER WREN and VARIED THRUSH sang in the forest nearby.

We continued on to Snoqualmie Pass and Traveler's Rest. While there we saw COMMON RAVEN, AMERICAN CROW, and STELLER'S JAY. Continuing on down east of the pass we saw WESTERN BLUEBIRD and ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK. We took a brief detour south of Thorp to look for curlews (no luck). But we did see HOUSE SPARROW, CALIFORNIA QUAIL, HOUSE FINCH and WESTERN MEADOWLARK.

We continued thru Ellensburg and took the Kittitas turnoff and worked east of town. Along Caribou Road we saw a RED-TAILED HAWK and more CALIFORNIA QUAIL. We then turned onto Vantage Hiway. A couple of miles down the road (just before Parke Creek Rd) we stopped to scan a house and group of trees that contained a large stick nest. A GREAT HORNED OWL was hunkered down on the nest, and in a nearby tree was another GREAT HORNED OWL that was completely unconcerned to see us looking at it.

Our next stop was at the Puget Sound Energy Wild Horse Wind Energy project (on the slopes of Whiskey Dick Mountain). We had arranged before to be able to work over the sage habitat on the lower slopes of the mountain. The staff was most accomodating, and gave us much interesting information about the project and accompanied us out into the sage. We saw HORNED LARKs, got a couple of nice views of SAGE SPARROW and SAGE THRASHER. Further down the road toward Vantage we saw a pair of MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRDS exploring a nest box - great looks under sunlight (boy do these birds rate a WOW!). Then across the road we heard a bird singing - turned out to be a somewhat early VESPER SPARROW that came and perched nicely for us. A male NORTHERN HARRIER coursed over the ridge line.

Down at the "boat launch" area of Gingko Petrified interpretive center we dug out SAY'S PHOEBE and ROCK WREN. Up at the interpretive center we had many VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOWS, two more SAY'S PHOEBE, and at least one WHITE-THROATED SWIFT. Out of the river there were COMMON LOON, HORNED GREBE, GREATER SCAUP, and over on the Grant County side of the river a couple of WESTERN GREBE.

Things were really quiet down at the State Park on Huntzinger Road - the only bird present was a NORTHERN FLICKER. Further down the road more GREATER SCAUP and a few LESSER SCAUP as well as BUFFLEHEAD and COMMON GOLDENEYE were seen from the overlooks. At Getty's Cove there were CANADA GEESE, AMERICAN COOT, MALLARD, BUFFLEHEAD and COMMON MERGANSER. Beyond Wanapum Dam at the large canyon we had more SAY'S PHOEBE and ROCK WREN. Hundreds of VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOWs were overhead. The river was very quiet with virtually no birds on it down here. Going back north we had an AMERICAN KESTREL on the lines by the entrance to Getty's Cove.

On the way back west we stopped at the Elk Heights burn (exit 93). We got excellent views of both male and female BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKERs, HAIRY and DOWNY WOODPECKERS (in one place we had all three species in view at the same time - but not in a single binocular view). The area also had BROWN CREEPER, CASSIN'S FINCH, WESTERN BLUEBIRD, WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH, RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET and DARK-EYED JUNCO.

Other birds we saw during the day included: RING-NECKED DUCK, RUDDY DUCK, PIED-BILLED GREBE, GREAT BLUE HERON, BALD EAGLE, KILLDEER, WILSON'S SNIPE, RING-BILLED GULL, ROCK PIGEON, BLACK-BILLED MAGPIE, BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE, AMERICAN ROBIN, EUROPEAN STARLING, SPOTTED TOWHEE, SONG SPARROW, RED-WINGED and BREWER'S BLACKBIRDs, TRUMPETER SWAN and DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT.

A great day with no rain, sun east of the mountains and comfortable temperatures. We didn't run into any rain until on the way home, a very brief amount of snow coming over the pass. Great day, great birds and great people.

Brian H. Bell
Birding & Natural History Guide
Woodinville WA
bell asoc at isomedia dot com