Hi Tweeters,

After finding out the road was passable into Wenas for
the annual Audubon Hazel Wolf Memorial Weekend
Campout, I arrived Friday afternoon and set up my tent
in the rain. Friday night two Great Horned Owls
called back and forth and one flew all over the place
hooting. Saturday early am I heard the Common
Poorwill calling. I led the early morning walk for
Saturday and this produced many of the typical Wenas
highlights including the White-headed Woodpecker, Gray
Flycatcher, and Dusky Flycatcher. I went on the Black
Canyon trip led by Brett Wolf and we had distant but
nice views of 2 Golden Eagles soaring, a few Lazuli
Buntings that were somewhat elusive, a singing
Townsend's Warler that did not show itself, and Lark
Sparrow among other birds of the area. Saturday was a
nice day during the day.

Saturday campfire program had an entertaining and
informative Bluebird nestbox monitoring presentation
by Richard Repp from the Yakima Audubon Society. Then
the rain showed up. I gave a reprisal of the memorial
for Patrick Sullivan from December. The candles as
well as my lighter were very uncooperative due to
rain. Wilson Cady spoke for Patrick and about his
many contributions to the Wenas campout over the years
most notably discovering the Flammulated Owls in the
Dry Creek area. It was really raining by the time
Gene Hunn spoke about the Native People of the area
and how they learned to live with the resources
available. The skills they had were most likely
learned by trial and error just like scientists do in
research and this is why Gene felt they were
scientists in their own right by their discoveries.
It was very interesting and worth sitting through the
rain. Ruth Sullivan sat next to me and commented that
Gene was in his element, I think she meant the subject
matter not the rain.

On Sunday I went on the Wenas Lake trip which I
usually try to attend. The biggest highlight was a
brief glimpse of a Yellow-breasted Chat. That is the
first time I have seen one there but admittedly the
amount of time I have spent at that location amounts
to 2-3 hours per year on the field trip. Neal
Zimmerman led and did not forget the ice cream run
post field trip.

On the way to Toppenish for the night I drove Maloy
Road and heard another YB Chat near the creek and then
I stopped at Hardy Canyon just in time to see the last
bird banded of the day, a Warbling Vireo. I heard
more than one Chat here and Don Norman said there were
a lot of them. His banding station banded 2 of them
over the weekend.

I had great camping neighbors and good company for the
campout.

Tuesday I went to Ft Simcoe before heading home and
heard another YB Chat! I saw quite a few Lewis's
Woodpeckers, along with about an equal number of
Lazuli Buntings, 6-8 of each. The caretaker greeted
me and gave me a handout created by Yakima Audubon
about the Lewis's Woodpeckers along with a bird list.
She said a Black-chinned Hummer had recently been
using the feeder but I missed it. She was pleased to
find it because it isn't on the bird list. I did see
her Say's Phoebe nest over her front porch and to top
off the visit I saw a pair of Ash-throated Flycatchers
at the entrance gate on the way out. I have not
visited here before and it will be nice to be able to
visualize what it is like when people post about it.

I took Canyon Road from Yakima up to Ellensburg at one
stop got great looks at a soaring Golden Eagle, I was
hoping it would land so I could scope it but it
dropped behing a ridge and a Raven started harassing
it and it rose up and did a talon baring barrel roll
and the Raven backed off.

On the way and on the way home I visited Chris
Caviezel hummingbird extravaganza off of I-90 in the
Alpental area. An amazing sight with no less than 20
hummers on the feeders at any one time and many more
in the area. An evergreen tree in his yard sparkled
with resting jewels of Rufous Hummers. I would say it
was about 2/3 plus males, with the remaining being
females. One of the females could have been an Anna's
with quite a bit more white around the eye. Some of
the green backed Rufous females don't have much Rufous
making it a tough call. There is still a ton of snow
in the area and a neighbor down the street had lovely
just opened fresh Daffodils in their yard!

Cheers and good birding!






Kathy
Roosting in Kent, near Lake Meridian
(chukarbird at yahoo dot com)