Greetings All,

This past weekend I was joined by Annie Meyer and Ryan Merrill in helping out Charlie Wright on the Omak Creek Breeding Bird Survey which is out of Nespelem in Okanogan County. The route travels along Hwy 155 towards Omak and cuts Northeast on Lyman Lake Road ending the count at Moses Meadow.? This is the 3rd year I have participated and it sure is a fun route.? BBS protocol requires that only one person count for 3 minutes along the 24.5 mile route, stopping every half mile.? I was the designated driver and GPS coordinate note taker, Annie tallied what Charlie was counting and Ryan Merrill and myself were chief criticizers of what Charlie did not hear during the 3 minute point count, which really wasn't much, maybe a Mourning Dove here and there!?

During the count, the ending tally was 92 species, one more than the high count of 91 from last year, and possibly the highest Washington State Breeding Bird Survey on record.?

Our main highlight from the count was a flyover Northern Goshawk.?

Lots of Veery, Swainson's Thrush, Gray Catbird,Townsend's and Audubon's Warblers, Dusky, Hammond's and Gray Flycatchers, typical Riparian/Ponderosa Pine zone birds.?

The Northern Pygmy Owl and Great Horned Owl stopped calling about 30 seconds before our official count started, or else the total would have been even higher!

We owled the night before along side roads of Hwy 155 and had several Flammulated Owls, which were nice to hear.

After the BBS, we spent the rest of the day birding several locations along Aeneas Valley and Sanpoil Road into Ferry County.?

Highlights along the Sanpoil Rd included a female Black-backed Woodpecker, a few Northern Waterthrush, and a cooperative pair of American Redstarts.

We stopped along the intersection of Aeneas Valley Rd and Hwy 20 and found a few Bobolinks, and we encountered a couple more Bobolinks along Havillah Road heading out of Tonasket, a new location for me.

We camped at Beth Lake Saturday night, enjoying the Black Tern show along the lakes.? The haunting calls of Common Loons which were on several of the lakes along Taroda Creek Road were very cool.? In the evening, we heard more Flammulated Owls and a Common Poorwill from our campsite.

We birded the lakes again Sunday morning with similar results to the previous evening.? We left for Molson to bird the lakes and the Nine Mile Road back towards Oroville.? We took Nealy Rd toward's Havillah to bird a few spots their first.? It was fortunate that we did.? As we were driving I noticed a bird take flight off the fenceline with white wing patches, that was not a Shrike!

We stop to find a Northern Mockingbird at a small homestead along the road.? As we were looking at it, we heard the distinctive song of a Clay-colored Sparrow, then another one, then another.? 3 Clay-colored Sparrows in one location!? this site is 1.8 miles down Nealy Rd. from the intersection with Havillah Rd.? The Mockingbird took off, but we continued to photograph one of the Clay-colored Sparrows for a while.

Along the Molson Lakes, we had a Canvasback among the Redhead, Ring-necked Ducks, and Lesser Scaup.? Wilson's Phalaropes were also present as were several Bufflehead.?

Along 9 mile Rd heading out of Molson back to Oroville, we encountered 3 more Clay-colored Sparrows.? The locations, from the intersection of Oroville-Toroda Creek Rd are:? 1.5miles, 3.5 miles and 4 miles up 9 mile Rd.

Our last bird highlights were just south of Tonasket, along Hwy 97 on the Okanogan River, we encountered a Forster's Tern and 2 Franklin's Gulls on a sandbar.?

I've put a photo, and a video of one of the Clay-colored Sparrows on my fickr site.?

www.flickr.com/photos/shyalbatross

That's about it,

Cheers and Good Birding

Ryan Shaw
Tacoma
rtshaw80 at hotmail.com?