C WA was wonderful, but mostly for sun and scenery and not a plethora
of birds - but there were enough to satisfy me and the weather was
perfectly delightful. I left here at 1 p.m and left Ellensburg for
Seattle at 8. Went to Cle Elum Ponds, stopped at Prairie Falcon
cliffs on Hwy 10, explored out Reecer Crk Rd. to where it heads up
into a canyon, and hung out on Umptanum Rd. for an hour and a half.

Bird and 'other' list:


Common Raven
Amer. Crow
Amer. Robin (oodles at Cle Elum Ponds)
Red-tailed Hawk (Western variety juvenile)
Red-tailed Hawk - dark morph (2) out on Reecer Crk. Rd.
a group of yellowish things with stripey business on their backs and
sides - I think they may have been young warblers of some kind - they
were calling "chew" (I think)
A group of Evening (or some other kind of) Grosbeak - saw them in
flight and silhouette - size and flight style of grosbeaks
Douglas tree squirrel - cute as a button, in a bit of a notch on the
trunk of a Ponderosa pine
dead gopher snake on road near the PRFA cliffs (got a photo of it in
all its squished glory)
Belted Kingfisher
Common Merganser
Mourning Dove
Calif. Quail
Some kind of lark
Black-capped Chickadee
pair of Dark-eyed Juncos
Black-tailed Magpie (1)
Great Horned Owl
6 mule deer
a lot of cattle
some horses
Brewer's Backbird
European Starling
a lot of guys in trucks and young folks out for a drive or a motor
cycle ride
no big trucks at Cle Elum Ponds or on other side roads - yay!
no road work on I-90 or anywhere else
colorful vine maple - everything else just beginning to yellow up
nice dried grasses
red-twig dogwood and elderberry berries almost ripe
fisher people

Photos of the GRHO (pretty much silhouettes), Red-tailed Hawk at Cle
Elum Ponds (at a distance), distant mule deer, dead snake in the road
and lots of scenics may be viewed at : http://flic.kr/s/aHsjwm1HrD

Good therapy, that Central Washington area... I highly recommend it!

Hope you have better birding than I did!


Barb Deihl

North Matthews Beach - NE Seattle

barbdeihl at comcast.net


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