Dear Tweeters,

Although my son and I were not able to find any of the cool birds that Khanh Tran found at Easy Pass, we had a great day up there today.

On our way up there, we saw a hen Blue Grouse with three chicks along SR 20, at milepost 110.05. It was good that we got such close looks at this hen, because we saw Spruce Grouse later on!

Just a few moments after we starting hiking on the Easy Pass trail, Henry spotted what he figured was another Blue Grouse. It turned out to be a hen Spruce Grouse with one chick! This was perhaps 20 to 25 meters before we had reached the log bridge over the creek, at the very start of the hike. The birds were on the left (east) side of the trail.

The only other location where I have ever seen this species in Skagit County is the Hardy Burn, where Spruce Grouse hens with chicks were fairly easy to find in 1996 and 1997. The Hardy Burn is just a short ways east of the Easy Pass trailhead.

A few minutes later, we found a female Three-toed Woodpecker in the heavily forested part of the trail. She was in a tree right beside the trail, but was not there on our way back down.

We saw Mountain Chickadees at a couple of locations on the trail, and a Chipping Sparrow family right at the pass.

On both the way up and the way down, we heard what had to be some baby birds calling for food, on a rocky outcropping topped with small trees, and with a small snowfield at its base. I am wondering if this could have been a Grey-crowned Rosy Finch nestling or fledgling. I could not place the call, but seemed familiar; it was vaguely siskin-like. We thought the calls were coming from a cliff band here, but even with a good fifteen minutes search on both uphill and downhill legs of the hike, we never saw any movement.

We were too tired to search higher up for ptarmigan, and in any case, I was not exactly sure where I'd even go to look for them.

Thanks to Khanh Tran for giving us the idea to come up here!

Oh, on a non-birding note, we also witnessed a huge paramilitary operation just east of the Ross Lake overlook (the one that looks toward Hozomeen Mountain). There were sheriffs, unmarked federal rigs, camo-clad soldiers or commandoes of some sort, and ambulances. A helicopter was flying around the valley to the north, towing a long line. In the morning, on our drive east, I stopped and asked a sheriff's deputy what was up, and she said it was "a law-enforcement operation." She said we'd read about it "some time next week."

Hmmm.

On our way back west, we saw two dumptrucks full of bright green vegetation parked among all the other rigs and soldiers. Hmmm, again. Our best surmise was that there had been a cannabis-growing operation along the shores of Ross Lake, and the authorities were using a chopper to carry the pot down to the dumptrucks. Or, maybe someone had an illegal turnip farm on federal land.

In any case, it was quite an exciting day, and probably not just for hikers and birders.

Yours truly,


Gary Bletsch ? Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA ? garybletsch at yahoo.com ? ?



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