Tweets - I headed over the pass today, hoping to bring my Kittitas County
total over the 200 species threshold. My list was at 199 since June, and it
was beginning to bug me.

The 10 TRUMPETER SWANS, previously reported by Guy McWethy, were in the
ponds along I-90 on the south side of the highway between Thorp and
Ellensburg.

In Ellensburg, I tried to find the Snow Goose that was reported earlier in
the week. No luck there. I did find a PRAIRIE FALCON on No. 6 Rd., just
east of I-82 and about a mile south of I-90, and a white domestic goose
where Phil Mattocks had seen the Snow Goose most recently.

In Kittitas I had 2 ROUGH-LEGGED HAWKS.

At the Recreation Rd. reservoir access at Vantage I had both CANYON and ROCK
WRENS.

But the best birds were south of I-90 from Huntzinger Rd. From the Wanapum
State Park boat launch area, I saw 4 LONG-TAILED DUCKS. There were also 2
female SURF SCOTERS that I had myself convinced were White-winged for a
while. I went back to look again, though, and decided they were Surf. On
the gravel bars out from the boat launch were some CACKLING GEESE - so
distant I had a very hard time confirming the ID.

Then, about a mile north of Wanapum Dam was a single male BLACK SCOTER. I
got some photos. I believe this is a county first!

There were two WHITE PELICANS south of the dam, as well as two small flocks
of BARROW'S GOLDENEYE and a half dozen COMMON LOON. There were also a few
HERRING GULLS.

I checked again for the Black Scoter a bit north of Getty Cove and couldn't
find it, but there was a single LONG-TAILED DUCK there - don't know if it
was one of the four from Wanapum SP or another individual.

So, the Long-tailed Ducks, the Cacking Geese, the Black Scoter, and the
Herring Gull were all county life birds for me. A very successful morning.

The rain began in earnest at noon, and I made my way home, not stumbling
upon anything else of note. I ended up with about 65 species in 6 hours of
birding.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
== birdmarymoor at verizon.net