I arrived at 4:45 to the barn area at Fort Walla Walla Natural Area this afternoon (4:45) and quickly heard the BROWN THRASHER singing to the NE of the barn area in some Mulberry bushes. Over the next hour (4:45-5:45) the bird behaved in typical Brown Thrasher fashion of sitting in the middle of the shrubs and singing loudly, but very hard to see in the shrub and then disappearing for a second. I have always found the species to be one of the more secretive singing birds. By this I mean for a loudly singing species, it often takes serious effort to actually see the bird sometimes. Over the course of the hour I did manage a couple of decent views of the bird,both perched and when it would fly to another clump of mulberry shrubs, but song was the majority of the observation period. There is alot of great habitat there and its possible/likely this guy may just stick around for a while. Great find MerryLynn!

Scott Downes
downess at charter.net
Yakima WA