Subject: [Tweeters] Kittitas County Birding
Date: May 25 15:52:38 2011
From: Paul Webster - paul.webster at comcast.net


Hi Tweets,

Barbara and I birded in Kittitas County yesterday, May 24. We started at
Snoqualmie Pass; it was drizzling, foggy, and 39 degrees. We stopped at
Stampede Pass Rd, the Northern Pacific ponds in Cle Elum, assorted places in
the Teanaway, Liberty, the fields north of Ellensburg, Schnebley Coulee,
Wanapum State Park, Huntzinger Road, and finished at the Bar-14 pond in
Ellensburg. Our total species list for the day was an even 100, and we spent
11 plus hours in the field.

The 2 hours we spent in Cle Elum were a highlight of the day. It was sunny,
temps in the upper 50's to low 60s, and the ponds were birdy. Our best find
was a pair of WHITE-HEADED WOODPECKERS searching for an unoccupied nesting
spot under the watchful eye of an AMERICAN KESTREL. We also found a pair of
GRAY CATBIRDS, plus lots of warblers: ORANGE-CROWNED, NASHVILLE, YELLOW,
YELLOW-RUMPED, TOWNSEND'S, and WILSON'S. (We still haven't found
MacGillivray's yet this season!)

We had a late lunch at the Liberty Campground, with entertainment: a woman
in a huge pickup was getting a driving lesson from her husband, and a family
-- dad with holstered pistol, mom with a large-ish dog on a leash, and two
teenaged daughters -- passed unharmed in single file through the perils of
our picnic site. We had an FOY pair of VEERYs here.

In Schnebly Coulee we found most of the sageland sparrows: BREWER'S, SAGE,
and LARK, plus MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD, SAGE THRASHER, SAY'S PHOEBE and LOGGERHEAD
SHRIKE. A ROCK WREN forsook his usual habitat and sang from atop a power
pole. The GREAT HORNED OWLets are still at their spot near the top of the
coulee, but won't be there much longer. At the old ferry landing below the
Gingko State Park Visitor Center we found our only WESTERN TANAGER of the
day, and watched a BARN OWL fly away after being seriously pestered by two
magpies.

At Wanapum State Park we couldn't locate the LONG-EARED OWL, and saw that
idiots had scratched graffiti into the lakeside cliff around the CLIFF
SWALLOW colony just north of the picnic area. But the swallows had survived
that disturbance. And am I the only one who finds the wind farms ugly?

Good birding!

Paul Webster
Seattle
paul.webster AT comcast.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20110525/859b8fa1/attachment.htm