Hi Valerie and all:
Here is some more info about birding at 3-Forks Park in Snoqualmie, WA.
Park in the parking lot and walk past the first gate, over the bridge across
Meadowbrook Slough (it is an oxbow lake per my Thomas Guide), and thru the dog gate.
At the kiosk, turn right and follow that trail over til it crosses the Snoqualmie
Trail. Cross over the Snoq. trail, and follow the path completely across the second
field all the way to the back left corner of the field. You will see the very-large
Snoqualmie River to the left, but you want to continue to the corner, looking for the
path down through the tall grass which is laid over.
The path is covered at times w/ very tall wet grass. Wear rain pants or cargo pants
w/ gaiters. Wear insect repellent. I have a mosquito net hood. It worked great. I
had never had to use it before. I pulled it on right over my baseball hat, and
looked thru it and thru my bins. Very-good vision thru it. When the camo mosquito
hood is on, the birds don't seem to see you. It is great camoflage. Even though I
had on repellent inside my hat headband, and a little bit more on my clothes, I still
received a few mosquito bites.
When you get down to the corner, you might hear the Indigo Bunting singing. I sure
did. The song starts w/ 2 hard notes, kind of like a Song Sparrow. Then there are 2
more higher notes at a higher pitch. Then there were 5 rapid notes. They all
sounded like swee, swee, etc. They are quite loud. When I heard them at a distance
I was looking too close. The sound carries. The Indigo was first seen perched up on
the blackberries at the end of the field, about 100 yds. down to the right of the
corner. It would perch on the blackberries, fly behind them to trees and perch, and
sometimes disappear. Eventually it flew up to the corner, when I remained in the
area, and walked down into the swale and around.
>From the corner of that second field (the Indigo field), you can walk down into a
swale on the trail, and cross over a almost-dry creek. About 50 feet beyond the
creek, there is an almost-bare alder on the right. The Least Flycatcher was perched
on that for a couple of minutes calling chebek. Then it flew to the left cottonwoods
and was silent.
It was when I came back from the swale and walked in that corner when the Indigo flew
in and perched on the blackberries right by me. I was not playing a tape.
Warning: I was there extremely early, sorta crazy-early as I was already exploring
and birding at 5am. Birding this time of year can be pretty good very early if you
are willing to get up and get going. I had dreaded it, but later was glad I did it.
The total distance to the Indigo corner, and then down into the swale and a little
bit farther out into a 3rd field was about 1 mile out from the parking area.
Yours, Carol Schulz
Des Moines, WA
linusq at att.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lynn & Carol Schulz" <linusq at worldnet.att.net>
To: "Tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>; "Valerie Elliott" <VElliott at msn.com>
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 11:04 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Directions to 3-Forks


Hi Valerie & Tweeters:
I went to 3-Forks very early Sat morning, June 20. I finally found the place from
the highway. I couldn't find it the weekend before.
It's just great there. I want to go back. I saw and heard the Indigo Bunting, and
the Least Flycatcher. The Least Fly called for just a short time, then flew to the
cottonwoods and was silent. There were 4 elk in the Indigo Bunting field giving me
the fish eye and snorting quite a bit. They were close. I counted at least 6 or
more Lazuli's perched up and singing as I walked in. At the parking lot there were
many Bullock's Orioles, and several Swainson's Thrushes that you could see. (That
was different.) I dipped on the Catbird. As I was walking back to the car about
8:30am, 6 Turkey Vultures kettled up. Above them was a soaring Peregrine Falcon.
I'll give some directions from the freeway, and paste the original directions to the
Indigo Bunting from Ken Grant below that.
-----------------------------
Directions from hwy: Take I-90 to exit 27. From the exit, drive on past the
Snoqualmie Casino roundabout, and continue on a short distance to the light at
Meadowbrook Way. Turn left on Meadowbrook and drive down thru the light at the
bottom which is hwy 202, Railroad Ave. You are in the town of Snoqualmie. Stay on
Meadowbrook and drive about 1 mile? to the next light which is SE Park St. Turn
right on Park, drive on Park past Snoqualmie Elementary, and you will see Centennial
Park ball fields on the right. 3-Forks parking lot is to the left.
Yours, Carol Schulz

Here are the good directions to the bunting from Ken Grant.
>From Ken and Tina, Wed, June 10, 2009

Indigo Bunting? in Snoqualmie
Tweets,

This morning around 9am, I saw what I think was an Indigo Bunting. The bird is all
dark blue with a gray bill( not light blue like Mountain Bluebird). I have never
seen this bird and don't know what else it could be. It was at 3 Forks Park across
from Centennial Park.

Directions:

Park in small parking area on SE Park St across from Centennial Field, take trail
through off leash dog area and across the Snoqualmie trail. Follow tire track trail
through tall grass to the far side of this field.

You will follow trail(parallel to river) and take it till it dips down to small
creek. The trail is still parallel to creek( don't take trails that lead to river).

The trail before the creek with have blackberries on both sides and cottonwoods
behind. Turn with your back to creek and the bird was flying back and forth between
cottonwoods.

I hope someone else will see this bird to confirm ID. I have to go to work(outside)
and will not be back on e-mail till later, if someone wants to call me for help
finding bird. My # is 425-802-5586

Ken Grant

North Bend WA

kenandtina at comcast.net

Yours, Carol Schulz
Des Moines, WA
linusq at att.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Valerie Elliott" <VElliott at msn.com>
To: "tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 9:56 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] directions


I misplaced the directions to Three Forks. Could someone resend them to me? If
John's directions were so good, I'd appreciate them. Thanks.

Updated sightings are greatly appreciated.

Valerie Elliott
Olympia, W