Hey folks,
Just to add to the flurry of e-mails concerning the finches at
Steven's pass. Ryan Merrill and myself took a quick jaunt of the Pass on
Thursday 2/21. Sorry this is so late, I think Ryan and I got mixed up on
who was going to report what we found. Also I'm not so certain that it's
necessary because everyone has seen just about the same stuff.

On one of the pullouts just before the resort, we had a large
group of *Evening Grosbeaks*, *Red Crossbills*, *Pine Siskins*, and
one *Cassin's
Finch*. They were all on the pavement and in the surrounding trees. Just
seeing that many finches in one spot (probably over 200 birds in the general
area) was exciting.

We started hiking about 8 AM and just above the employee
housing we had our first group of *White-winged Crossbills*, only a couple
birds but very close. Ryan got some good shots of them which he posted on
his Flickr Site <http://www.flickr.com/photos/rjm284/>. On the way up the
steepest section we could hear both crossbills and siskins calling somewhere
overhead. Soon we were out of the steepest section and into more trees.
Stopping for more crossbills, we also noticed a lone *Purple Finch* calling
from the top of a fir.

Upwards we ran into more flocks of *White-winged
Crossbills*past the first tower. A couple
*Common Redpolls *were mixed in as well and we stood there for quite awhile
watching them. John Puschock (we were the people he ran into on his post)
came up the hill and joined up for a bit as we hiked to the next tower, but
it was too windy and we didn't see anything there - so we turned around.
John left down another trail and we headed back down to another trail that
led off a switchback, towards a rather prominent peak.

Here we found probably *150 Common Redpolls*, which was a
bit of a surprise. A large portion of our time on this trail, which
eventually led to the lake, the redpolls out numbered the siskins.
*Red-breasted
Nuthatches, *several male and female *Cassin's Finches*, and plenty
more *White-winged
Crossbills *(a few males were signing) were around as well. Satisfied after
a long stint just enjoying the masses - we headed back down.

Like most people have said: there seemed to be more
white-winged crossbills and redpolls between the first two towers. There
were far more siskins below, near the parking lot. We missed Pine Grosbeaks
and it sounds like they are a bit of an enigma in terms of easy location.
We both did the hike in boots, I just wore gaiters over my jeans - the
conditions (aside from the elevation gain) were pretty good. Sorry for the
repetitive post but I didn't see that a lot of people had seen so many
Redpolls and figured I would join in.

Cheers,

-Brendan McGarry
mcgbre04 at gmail.com
Seattle, WA