Hi Tweeters,

I ventured out to Capitol Forest yesterday morning in search of my lifer Hermit Warbler.

Before the report, a word of warning: I read some old Tweeters posts and used the Opperman Birder's Guide to WA to plan my route. I decided to attempt to follow the guide book's recommended route and enter at the Rock Candy Mountain Rd entrance, then follow C-4000 up to the Hermit Warbler spots. However, I did not discover in any of the old posts I researched that the Rock Candy Mtn entrance has been CLOSED for a couple of years (I confirmed this with Tim O'Brien, a regular Capitol Forest birder, who I wish I had consulted prior to the trip).

However, I did manage to find my target at this entrance. Due to the lack of signage on these logging roads, I didn't actually know for a while that I was not taking the proper route, I just ended up finding myself in a good spot by driving around. I entered by taking a left on Rock Candy Mtn Rd off WA-8, took the Left fork at .4 miles (taking the Right fork here is the proper route, but you then shortly encounter a washed out bridge, the reason for the closure), followed this main road (avoiding the spurs) for another 2.2, at which point I took a Left onto an unnamed spur that was still fine for my small sedan. I followed this spur 1.2 up to a shotgun shell-strewn parking clearing.

Stopping at pullouts and driving with the window down produced many singing warblers, including 1 Black-throated Gray, a few Orange-crowned (areas with second-growth trees), MacGillivray's (clearing edges), and many Wilson's throughout the entire trip. I also encountered 2 singing Olive-sided Flycatcher (open areas), many singing Western Tanager, a few singing Varied Thrush, and several flyover flocks of calling Red Crossbill.

At my final parking spot, I heard several singing showy male Hermit Warbler in the tall conifers, and eventually got great looks at them (they acted very territorial amongst themselves, and also were very responsive to limited tape playing of their songs). I walked about .5 miles further down the hilly road (it did not look wise to take my small sedan past this parking area) to a large hillside clearing, encountered more singing Hermit Warblers, 2 hooting Sooty Grouse, one of which I found 50+ feet up in a tree, a couple flyover Evening Grosbeaks, calling Gray Jay, and I was somewhat surprised to find a pair of House Wren singing away and tending a nest in a broken off snag.

A quick stop at Nisqually NWR on the way home did not produce many more birds, but I did find a vocal flock of Red Crossbill near the Twin Barns. I was surprised to find them here as they were at the top of tall cottonwoods (I think) in an almost exclusively deciduous forest. There are conifer forests in the surrounding area, but I don't know what was attracting them to the deciduous trees.

In summary, the trip turned out nicely although I was not able to take the planned route. Tim advises, and it looks like other recent Tweeters reports have had success by using the Waddell Creek entrance to Capitol Forest, where you can get up to the relatively high areas such as Fuzzy Top that contain the Hermit Warbler, so that looks like the best way to go. It was only when I was leaving the forest around 9:30am that I saw much in the way of ATV activity.

Good birding,
Evan Houston
Seattle, WA