Subject: [Tweeters] Grant county birds today - Gray Catbird
Date: Jun 4 20:31:57 2010
From: Michael Hobbs - birdmarymoor at verizon.net


Hi Tweets - I spent the day birding Grant County, trying to fill in some
gaping holes in my county list (I needed American Goldfinch and Yellow
Warbler, for crying out loud).

The rarest bird was one of my first. In the trees at Sentinel Bluffs, in a
steady rain, a GRAY CATBIRD popped up silently when I was playing my iPod
for Yellow Warbler.

Maybe the most unusual experience was hearing COMMON POORWILL call during
broad daylight. I was at Northrup Canyon, hiking the old wagon trail up to
the rim of the canyon. Between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m., with the sun shining
more brightly than ever for the day, multiple poorwills were calling,
starting about half-way up the trail.

I had a 3 owl day, with GREAT HORNED OWLS (adult and 3 or 4 babies) at
Sentinel Bluffs, a BURROWING OWL on Dodson road NORTH of I-90, and a
LONG-EARED OWL at Steamboat Rock State Park.

At Wilson Creek, I had a EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVE in town. On the cliffs, I
found a nest with what appeared to be one baby FERRUGINOUS HAWK. A bit
further on, I saw an adult high in the sky. And further on still, I had
quite a few TRICOLORED BLACKBIRDS on farm fields.

Other birds of note:

Turkey Vultures near Steamboat Rock
House Wrens at Sun Lakes SP and Northrup Canyon
Cassin's Finch at Northrup Canyon

For the day, 92 species. Not bad, considering that there was quite a bit of
rain early, and lots of wind late.

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