Hello Tweeters,
We went for the arrival of spring migrants to Wenas Creek and Umptanum Ridge area- Thursday through Saturday,May 12-14, doing a loop from Ellensburg south through Umptanum Rd and Wenas Creek, Old Wenas Rd to Selah and north on 821, the old Yakima River Rd back to Ellensburg. Besides camping in a thunderstorm at Wenas Camp on Friday night, the birding was good, but only some of the migrants had yet arrived, with by far the largest group being the Nashville warbler, which we saw everywhere, from Menastash Creek to Wenas Creek and at the Roza recreation site as well as Umptanum Creek Recreation site (821). Numerous yellow-rumped warblers, both Myrtle and Audubon's, a few yellow warblers, orange-crowned and Wilson's warblers also seen, with only one Townsend's. Wenas camp had not fully leafed out and the weather was cloudy and cool Saturday am after the nights rain, with not very productive birding at the base of the ridge and Dry Creek Rd. Did find the rufous hummingbird and Nashville warblers on the lower slopes, but the creek was high, and we had to take our boots off to get across. Other highlights of the trip were lazuli bunting and warbling vireo at Umptanum Creek canyon recreation site, and a few pairs of kestrel there. We debated on whether the mating pair we saw using a crevice on the north canyon wall were kestrels, or red tail hawks. I thought they were too large for kestrels, but had reddish tails. There were several kestrels that seemed to be fighting or competing for this one area. One pair was staying right there and were not observed flying, but we did see the red tails when they got involved in a tussel, but then returned to their posts at the top of the cliff. Would appreciate a confirmation on what others saw there. Got my first sighting of Swainson's hawk- a pair on Old Wenas Rd. Western tanagers were in moderate numbers and widespread. The burrowing owls were not at the site north of the Old Wenas Rd to Selah, with gophers taking back over the mounds there. Mountain bluebird and western bluebird were using the nest boxes everywhere in force. One disapointment was the Wenas Creek bridge to Hardin canyon was removed by WDFW. We could not locate another access. But found a footbridge crossing from the trail at Wenas Lake. There we found a beautiful camas meadow below the sagebrush fields, and were delighted to find a porcupine up in a small chokecherry staring back at us as we were looking for the Nashville warblers singing there. Found both Brewer's and Vesper sparrows, dusky and Hammond's flycatchers and fairly convinced we saw a gray flycatcher in the riparian aspen a half mile east of the Wenas camp on the access Rd. 51 species for the trip, with four species of swallow: barn, violet-green, rough-winged and cliff swallow. Sorry we won't be able to make the Audubon's May 31 weekend trip here- should be more birds by then and the lupines in full bloom!
Allison Warner
allisivy at gmail.com