Tweeters and Kittens

Yesterday, 5/2/09, I led a field trip for the Washington Ornithological
Society to the Cle Elum Christmas Bird Count circle. The idea was to bird
those same great areas in a month other than December, to see what else
could be found.

The weather was kind of blah, with overcast and showers threatening much of
the day, as well as cool temps. It didn't rain much, though, and the wind
was moderate, so it could have been much, much worse. I scouted on Friday,
under gorgeous sunny skies, but beset by wind. The weather front that came
in that night seemed to bring with it several spring arrivals.

Here are some of the highlights of our trip:

I started off the day with a LINCOLN'S SPARROW in the Safeway parking lot,
which seemed a good omen.

The feeder house on SR-903 between Cle Elum and Roslyn is quite amazing.
Dozens of feeders and dozens of birds. We had all three Carpodacus finches
for comparison,. CASSIN'S FINCH were the most numerous of them. There were
PINE SISKIN, AMERICAN GOLDFINCH, and EVENING GROSBEAK as well as a.few
non-finches. It made a great start for the day.

The NP pond area (Charter Rd.) had our first warblers - Tons of
YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS, which were abundant at just about every stop of the
day, plus NASHVILLE WARBLERS, which also proved widespread though nowhere
near as numerous. We had an ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER or two, and I believe
our first YELLOW WARBLER as well.

McDonald Pond had 3-5 CINNAMON TEAL, amongst 8 species of duck total.

On Willey Lane, off Upper Peoh Point Rd., we had a BLACK-THROATED GRAY
WARBLER, and heard calling WILSON'S SNIPE.

The Elk Heights burn is much diminished, as at least half of the trees blew
down over the winter. The only woodpecker we had was a HAIRY WOODPECKER or
two, though we also had HOUSE WREN and WESTERN BLUEBIRD. The wrens turned
out to be widespread and singing all day.

The LT Murray access at Elk Heights brought us RED CROSSBILLS (though only
distant views). There was nothing distant about the DUSKY FLYCATCHER, which
came right close to us for amazing looks. We had singing Dusky Flycatchers
at many stops during the day.

The Teanaway Marsh (where SR-10 crosses the Teanaway) had VARIED THRUSH,
which seemed a strange lowland location for May, as well as our sixth
warbler species for the day, COMMON YELLOWTHROAT.

Red Bridge Rd provided a first-of-spring BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK male, singing
away, and a YELLOW WARBLER at the bridge.

The Teanaway was dead. We were unfortunately unable to find the HARLEQUIN
DUCK pair that I'd seen there on Friday.

Ballard Hill Rd. had our only SAY'S PHOEBE and a KILLDEER nest, with 4 eggs,
right at the edge of the road.

>From Ley Rd., above Swauk Prairie, we spotted a very distant, soaring,
well-marked juvenile GOLDEN EAGLE.

Swauk Prairie itself held a few WESTERN BLUEBIRDS, WESTERN MEADOWLARKS, and
some VESPER SPARROWS. The trees at the east end were more lively, with
RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET, WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH (our 3rd nuthatch species of
the day), CHIPPING SPARROWS, a SAVANNAH SPARROW, and MOUNTAIN CHICKADEES.

In Liberty, we found a TOWNSEND'S WARBLER, a calling HAMMOND'S FLYCATCHER, a
couple of RED-NAPED SAPSUCKERS, heard a distant TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE, and
Tayler Brooks was able to call and get two calls in response from a SPOTTED
OWL! This really made our day!

On Bettas Rd., we had the best views ever of MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRDS, as the sun
had come out a bit. We also found a male WILSON'S WARBLER, our 8th warbler
species of the day. As we dropped down Hayward Rd., we added a WESTERN
KINGBIRD.

So, we managed a group total of 89 species Saturday, and I had 4 or 5 more
scouting on Friday.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
== http://www.marymoor.org/BirdBlog.htm
== birdmarymoor at verizon.net