Hi Tweeters -
Having spent Saturday standing in place at the birder social at Ocean
Shores, I needed a more active Sunday. So, following in Gary
Bletsch's footsteps from a week earlier, I headed up to Rainy Pass on
SR20 and hiked from there to Cutthroat Pass & back. Highlights:

Am. Three-toed Woodpecker -had them in 3 places -- first, just down
the trail from the parking lot -- could still see the cars from the
spot where I watched this one. Then, near the log crossing of
Porcupine Ck. And once on the way down, between those 2 spots.

Prairie Falcon - one sharp looking one was working the Cutthroat Pass area.

Sooty Grouse - a mother w/ ~4 young stepped out in front of me on the
trail and ignored me for a long while.

Clark's Nutcracker - heard everywhere from parking lot to the pass.

Gray Jay - greatly outnumbered by the Clark's -- still had 2-3
sightings and several heard.

Northern Pygmy-Owl - one, about a mile from the parking lot.

Mountain Chickadee - saw a couple, up not far from the campsites -
heard a few more.

Olive-sided Flycatchers - 2,' pip pip pipping ' away from a snag -
getting late for them.

Chipping Sparrow - just a couple up near the pass.

Finch numbers seemed low -- I heard a couple flocks of Evening
Grosbeaks down low, had seveal flyovers of Pine Siskin, and had a
group of ~4 almost-certainly Pine Grosbeak fly silently by at the
pass. But nothing else

On the way home I made a brief stop at the Skagit Game Range where
Gary & I enjoyed the Black Phoebe, as reported by Gary. The phoebe
did not seem particularly interested in my ipod playback, so just
waiting & listening seems most promising for this stakeout.

A good day,

Matt Bartels
Seattle, WA