Subject: [Tweeters] colockum birds
Date: Jun 24 09:35:01 2009
From: isadora - totzin at earthlink.net


Hi Tweets!

We spent a few hours yesterday birding Colockum Rd. (Kittitas County), coming away with some good sightings.

Early on, we noticed that many of the sage species are still singing: Brewer's Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow, and Sage Thrasher. Got some good views of the Vesper and the thrasher.

Further down the road, I found a Calliope Hummingbird flying to its tiny nest. This was indeed a lucky find; impossible to see were it not for the bird flying into the nest amidst a lot of tree moss.

The vocalizations of two Gray Flycatchers caught our attention. One chased another one off, and we were left with great views of one perched a few feet away from us.

The woodpeckers were abundant, with many of them feeding young. Among the aspens, we saw Williamson's Sapsucker, Red-naped Sapsucker, and Northern Flicker. In the ponderosa, we saw Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers.

All three nuthatch species were found, also. While eating our lunch, we were able to watch a Pygmy Nuthatch make several feeding trips into its nest of hungry kids.

Got excellent views of 8 or so Common Nighthawks putting on a good aerial show.

Of all the many times we've birded this area, we'd never before seen Clark's Nutcrackers until yesterday. There were at least 4 of them, flying in and out of trees and vocalizing.

There were numerous other birds in the area, including Lark Sparrow, Western Tanager, Black-throated Gray Warbler, and MacGillivray's Warbler.

Most common were Mountain Bluebird, Am. Robin, House Wren, Western Wood-Pewee and Chipping Sparrow.

And in the town of Kittitas, two Eurasian Collared-Doves were seen.

It was a great day in all respects. The bonus for us was that it was QUIET - only 2 ORV's!

happy birding,
isadora arevalo wong
seattle
totzin at earthlink.net