Hi Tweets,

Barbara and I joined Liz Cormier and Sharon Aagaard for an overnighter in Kittitas County last Monday and Tuesday, July 21 and 22. We were inspired by Louise Rutter's recent report on finding Common Poorwills on Reecer Creek Road northwest of Ellensburg, and resolved to try our luck there, too. We had clear to partly cloudy weather, with high temperatures in the mid- to upper-seventies.

We started Monday at the west (King County) end of the Snoqualmie Pass Ski Area and in an hour's walk up toward the water tank found 31 species including a cooperative Sooty Grouse that even posed for a few photos. Then we made brief stops at the Hyak treatment ponds, Gold Creek, Easton (a few Bank Swallows have burrowed into the DOT sand pile there again this year), Golf Course Road, Roslyn and spent the afternoon in the Taneum Creek valley. Monday's total was 62 species in Kittitas County.

After dinner in Ellensburg we started our odyssey for the Common Poorwills, prospects for success seemed especially good, because the moonrise at 10:30 p.m. would extend the poorwills' feeding time. Our experience bore a startling resemblance to Louise's report, except that the wind came up. Just as in Louise's report we spotted a Common Nighthawk a half-mile short of the first cattle guard, and marvelled that it could stay aloft in the wind. And like Louise we also spotted a Great Horned Owl on the east side of the road that perched and flew about among the wind-tossed shrubs. We drove past Matt's turnaround and went to Connie's a mile further uphill, hoping to find less wind there. And as we listened we could hear two or three poorwills calling and waited to give them time to settle down on the road. Louise reported minimal traffic, but we had a vehicle pass every few minutes, which moved the poorwills off the road: we coasted downhill twice, but didn't find any. Finally the poorwills stopped calling, and the scheduled moonrise was a bust, because the wind whipped up so much dust, mixed perhaps smoke from forest fires, that the moon showed only a pale reddish light, so we called it a day.

Undaunted, Tuesday morning we followed up on a tip from Mary Frances Mathis and found 6 Eurasian Collared-Doves in downtown Kittitas. Next, we checked the farm ponds on Parke Creek Road, then drove over to a birdy Colockum Road and spent several hours working our way up to the pass at somewhat over 5,000 ft. Most of the 61 species we found were from Colockum Road. We finished the day near Liberty, a mile or so east of US 97.

All considered, it turned out to be a nice late summer trip. Flycatchers seemed to be almost everywhere we went, and we had multiple opportunities to work on the empids. We had a clean sweep with the usual doves, and found all three nuthatches. The disappointment -- aside from missing the poorwills -- was our lack of success finding woodpeckers, we saw only Downies and Flickers. Our trip total was 94 species.

King County (31 Species):
Sooty Grouse
Band-tailed Pigeon
Vaux's Swift
Rufous Hummingbird
Northern Flicker
Willow Flycatcher
Violet-green Swallow
Barn Swallow
Cedar Waxwing
Swainson's Thrush
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Steller's Jay
American Crow
Common Raven
WarblingVireo
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
Orange-crowned Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Townsend's Warbler
MacGillivray's Warbler
Wilson's Warbler
Western Tanager
Song Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Black-headed Grosbeak
Brown-headed Cowbird
Bullock's Oriole

Kittitas County (86 species):
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Canada Goose
Mallard
Common Goldeneye
Ruddy Duck
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
California Quail
Ring-necked Pheasant
American Coot
Killdeer
Wilson's Snipe
Spotted Sandpiper
Rock Pigeon
Band-tailed Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Mourning Dove
Great Horned Owl
Common Nighthawk
Vaux's Swift
Rufous Hummingbird
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Willow Flycatcher
Hammond's Flycatcher
Dusky Flycatcher
Pacific-slope Flycatcher
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Western Wood-Pewee
Eastern Kingbird
Horned Lark
Bank Swallow
Tree Swallow
Violet-green Swallow
North. Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Cedar Waxwing
American dipper
Bewick's Wren
House Wren
Sage Thrasher
Mountain Bluebird
Townsend's Solitaire
American Robin
Black-capped Chickadee
Mountain Chickadee
Pygmy Nuthatch
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Steller's Jay
Black-billed Magpie
American Crow
Common Raven
European Starling
House Sparrow
Cassin's Vireo
House Finch
Red Crossbill
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
Nashville Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Townsend's Warbler
Western Tanager
Spotted Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Brewer's Sparrow
Vesper Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Black-headed Grosbeak
Lazuli Bunting
Red-winged blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Yellow-headed blackbird
Brewer's Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Bullock's Oriole

Good birding!

Paul and Barbara Webster
Seattle
paul.websterATcomcast.net