Hi Tweeters,

I was driving along the Ellensburg Pass Road (Wenas Road or Umptanum Road depending on the map you are looking at) heading towards E-burg when I spotted a flock of finches fly across the road and land in the alders along Umptanum Creek about .2 miles before the parking area for the Umptanum Falls trail. I stopped and counted 44 Common Redpolls (maybe more as it was hard to keep track of the foraging birds to count them) foraging on the alder cones. No goldfinches or siskins in the flock. I watched them feeding and flitting about for 10 minutes or so before a Northern Shrike came in and scattered the flock.

Jeff Kozma

Yakima

j c r underscore 5105 at charter dot net