Subject: [Tweeters] Pend Oreille County WW Crossbills and Big Days
Date: Aug 5 16:41:27 2008
From: Michael Woodruff - crazybirder98 at hotmail.com



Yesterday (8/5/08), Garrett MacDonald and I decided to pull a Big Day
in Pend Oreille County. The weather was fantastic throughout the day,
and we hit target after target for the most part. We wound up with a
respectful total of 126 species, just 7 species shy of the record I set
with Gina Sheridan back in June 07 in prime season. Bird song was
almost nonexistent for much of the day, but we had the bonus of
shorebirds starting to come through to make up for a few species we
just couldn't get to sing. Still managed to miss a few birds like
Western Meadowlark, and couldn't get all our highland species. We also
did minimal owling, only seeing a couple of Great Horned Owls along
Allen Rd as we entered the county just after 4:30am.



As daylight began to break, we birded a little along Spring Valley Rd,
finding a nice flock of 3 chickadees and several GRAY JAYS at fairly
low elevation. At Lake of the Woods there were singing Willow
Flycatchers, all the swallows except Bank, Spotted Sandpiper,
Black-chinned Hummingbird, Hooded Merganser, and Common Yellowthroat.
A Northern Waterthrush responded at the east end of the marsh near the
road. We poked on to the east and found Red-eyed Vireo, Orange-crowned
Warbler, California Quail, and Warbling Vireo. Back to Allen Rd, where
we had a whole lot of activity and added House Wren, Bullock's Oriole,
Red-naped Sapsucker, Hairy & Downy Woodpeckers, Lazuli Bunting,
Western Tanager, a juvie Townsend's Solitaire, Dusky Flyccatcher, and
Pygmy Nuthatch. We also had a Western Bluebird along Kirkpatrick Road.



Just north of Davis Lake in the marsh we had both Sora and Virginia
Rail calling, though only the Sora popped into view. Also had a
SOLITARY SANDPIPER and a Cinnamon Teal in a small pond, and our first
of many Bald Eagles. Starting around Calispell Lake there was a
hummingbird feeder with all 3 species and a flock of turkeys. At the
creek crossing, we couldn't coax in a redstart although Red-eyed Vireos
were very vocal.



Scanning between the trees and into the sun along the northwest shore
of the lake, we saw over a hundred AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS, Gadwall,
Green-winged Teal, Ring-necked Duck, Canvasback, Redhead, Ruddy Duck,
Wood Duck, and Northern Pintail. There were actually a fairly good
number of shorebirds, including about 12 each of Greater and Lesser
Yellowlegs, 3 Wilson's Phalaropes, 60 Western Sandpipers, 12
Long-billed Dowitchers, another Solitary Sandpiper, and some Killdeer.
There were also Northern Harriers and Black Terns over the marsh, and
Pygmy, Red-breasted, and White-breasted Nuthatches in the shoreline
trees.



The LEWIS'S WOODPECKER nest just north of Usk at the edge of the pines
is still active, and we easily found the adult flycatching from the
nest tree. Cool bird! Water levels at Flying Goose Ranch were a bit
high, but we did get a female Common Goldeneye and 19 more pelicans,
and had an extremely scruffy male American Redstart come in from the
cottonwoods. Marsh Wren was skulking along the road out. We checked
out the river road between Usk and Cusick. Finally got our House
Sparrows and a juvie cowbird, and a CASPIAN TERN was loafing with some
Ring-billed Gulls. At Cusick we picked up a few more species that we
were beginning to worry about -- Rock Pigeon, Brewer's Blackbird, and
Black-billed Magpie.



Then it was time for the highlands. This time of year it's just
amazing to be up there with the fantastic scenery and great birds.
They didn't disappoint us either. We hit FR1935 to Bunchgrass Meadows,
and after a Ruffed Grouse on the road, and our first of about 10
Olive-sided Flycatchers, we hit our highlight for the day. Right at
1,500 meters, just near the meadows, there were 12-15 WHITE-WINGED
CROSSBILLS from a range of plumages in the trees along the road,
constantly making quiet chattering songs and putting on a real show.
They exclusively foraged from the cones of the Engelmann Spruces.



We encountered flocks of WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILLS twice more, first just
a small number and then one flock of upwards of 50 birds that landed
right by the first trail to the meadow (the one that's all cut up).
Fantastic birds. We worked that trail and the road all the way up and
a couple miles past the summit. We managed to find a couple PINE
GROSBEAKS, as well as regular species like Winter Wren, Varied Thrush,
Lincoln's Sparrow, Hermit Thrush, Townend's Warbler, and Ruby-crowned
Kinglet. We missed Boreal Chickadee in spite of a hard search, and
also couldn't trip over any grouse, aside from ANOTHER Ruffed Grouse on
the way down. Ah well, can't win them all. We thoroughly enjoyed
being up in the mountains, and headed back towards Spokane before it
got too late.



I'd encourage other people to try some Big Days out of prime season.
There's a really cool-looking chart that you can download from
Washington Birder here:

http://www.wabirder.com/online.html

Click on the link for 2007 Big Days and the chart will show up on the
last page of the download. It shows the records for each county by
month. I think it would be WAY COOL if we could fill that chart in.
You don't have to do an all-out 24-hour day to be able to report it as
a Big Day. Just a bit of effort for even half a day will do it. I
think it would create some fun competition to put some records in there
for others to try and beat, and you gotta admit it would look really
cool to to have a full chart of numbers! Anybody want to give it a go?



Cheers,

Michael Woodruff

Spokane, WA

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