Subject: [Tweeters] Wenas Campout and Homeward
Date: Jun 1 20:40:48 2010
From: Kathy Andrich - chukarbird at yahoo.com


Hi Tweeters,

My car and other even more low slung cars got through the stream on the way into the campground. This was my tenth year in a row in attendance and I finally actually got to see a Ruffed Grouse there yesterday morning. I have heard them every year-it was nice to actually see one finally.

As always the campout is a great chance for birder bonding. How nice it was to hear Val yell out it is her annual Kathy sighting as I was setting up camp. Then she invited me to join her and her sister Beth to drive up to the observatory on Saturday. At a pullout near the top Beth flushed a Sooty Grouse and we were able to refind it and got to watch it hoot to another grouse in the vicinity. Supercool! Then we walked to Umptanum Falls where the junk bird was Western Tanagers. Any day like that is a great day.

Sunday morning while gathering for the downstream walk with Neil Zimmerman leading, a Black Swift flew over. That evening the Common Nighthawks showed up and were out in force for those who went on the Wenas Lake trip.

I'm not sure what the final bird count total was for the weekend but it was the highest in quite some time.

Stayed in Yakima Monday and on the way home today had two unexpected sightings. A female Evening Grosbeak seemed very out of place at the northbound Redmond Bridge rest area on I97. In Ellensburg on Hungry Hollow Road near Tipton road the bird that flew off a telephone pole with blackbirds hot on its trail was not the expected Red-tailed Hawk but a Prairie Falcon. I wonder if it was a nonbreeder or just foraging away from "home".

Kathy
chukarbird at yahoo dot com
from phone with probable typo's included...