Greetings all,

I had the pleasure of meeting Khanh Tran at Sitzmark about 12:30 today and birding with him until about 7 pm.

We started with a quick tour of some of his favorite spots around Havillah where Great Gray Owls could be found and some likely Northern Pygmy Owl habitat. Although we saw fair numbers of Red-tail Hawks, Rough-legged Hawks, Red-winged Blackbirds, Dark-eyed Juncos and Horned Lark, we failed to see those two target birds at that time.

The next stop was at Judy and Dave's house on Nealy Rd. There we initially saw many Pine Siskins, Black-Capped and Mountain Chickadees as well as some California Quail, Robins and Red-Winged Blackbirds in the Crab Apple trees. After we had been there about 10 minutes, Khan spotted a single Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch in the Crab Apple tree. It then flew to the feeder and from there into a tree above the feeder and then disappeared. Judy informed us that we had missed the usual flock of 100 or so by 30 minutes. We had seen American Goldfinches at another feeder briefly, but did not see any there.

>From there we headed to Chesaw and north on Bolster Rd. about 3 miles north of town, Khan spotted a flock of about 100 Common Redpolls. We were able to watch them for about 20 minutes. Non appeared light enough to suspect a Hoary in the bunch. Further along, past where the road takes a hard right, another flock of about 50 Common Redpolls was seen and observed for a short period of time.

We gave Mary Ann Creek road a good chance to yield up some goodies, but it was quite quiet. From there, we covered much the same territory again seeing nothing but the usual common suspects.

Back at Judy and Dave's later in the day, we saw the same species minus the Rosy-finch, but did have a flock of 20 or so Bohemian Waxwings fly into the Crab Apple.

Back to Bolton Rd. just before sundown we found 2 Ruffed Grouse in a tree. Then a mile or so west of Chesaw Khanh finally spotted one of our big target birds - a Northern Pygmy Owl. It cooperated by flying to a lower perch and we were able to approach within 30 feet or so. Hopefully some of our photos turned out. We will let you know when any are posted. This was a lifer for me - naturally a big thrill.

Our next stop was at the Snow Park. There, Khan tried broadcasting various Owl calls. Immediately after a Barred Owl call, we heard the unmisteakable answer from a Great Gray Owl. We were not able to see the bird, but this was a lifer by sound for me. :')

By broadcasting more calls there and on the way back to the highway, two more calls were heard, but were not identifiable.

We made a quick tour of other possible Great Gray spots with no luck.

All in all, it was a great pleasure to meet Khanh after emailing back and forth for several months and we saw some great birds.

Khanh is planning to spend tomorrow birding the area while I have to work. I'm sure we will get a good report from him.

Best wishes,
Ron McCluskey
Cheney, WA
rmcclsky at mindspring dot com

Photos will be at http://canondigitalslrs.com later.