On Saturday, I first went north of Liberty looking for WILLIAMSON?S
SAPSUCKER along forest road 9712, having received directions from Scott
Ramos. It took some searching, but eventually I found a male (at "Stop 18"
as per eBird). Also present were 1 RUFFED GROUSE, 1 booming SOOTY GROUSE, 2
RED-NAPED SAPSUCKERS, 1 DUSKY AND 5+ HAMMOND'S FLY, 1 TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE,
5+ HERMIT THRUSH, 2 MACGILLIVRAY'S WARBLERS, 1 LINCOLN'S SPARROW, 10+ RED
CROSSBILLS, 10+ WESTERN TANAGER, and several species of butterflies. The
nearby Mineral Springs Resort Restaurant feeders had at least 2 CALLIOPE
and 3 RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRDS.

Late afternoon and evening were spent at Bethel Ridge Road (driving past
Oak Creek where a LEWIS'S WOODPECKER flew over the road). Before reaching
the actual ridge I had a further 2 WILLIAMSON'S SAPSUCKERS, 1 GRAY
FLYCATCHER, 1 CALLIOPE HUMMINGBIRD, and 1 MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD. I walked along
the road to the Microwave Tower, namely the lower part where there is lots
of burnt forest on both sides of the road. Here, I found a male AM.
THREE-TOED WOODPECKER (above the road) and a pair of BLACK-BACKED
WOODPECKERS (below the road). Absolutely great with woodpeckers in
Washington, with these I got 11 species over the past two weeks. A large
falcon that flew by while I was watching the Three-toed probably was a
Prairie Falcon, but I didn't get proper looks.

On Sunday morning I went to Mt Rainier - Sunrise. On the drive up, a SOOTY
GROUSE sat on the railing next to the road, and a few VARIED THRUSHES were
singing below Point Sunrise. Unfortunately, soon after having walked up to
the Mt Fremont lookout tower, thick clouds moved in, reducing visibility
and making birding near-impossible. Already before that, most observations
were by vocalizations only or mostly. A GRAY-CROWNED ROSY-FINCH flew by
near the lookout, and then started calling from an invisible position. Two
other birders also saw PRAIRIE FALCON, and alerted me to likely calls of
Pine Grosbeaks and White-tailed Ptarmigans, which I recorded and would be
grateful to receive feedback on (email me for the recordings!). Other birds
noted while hiking included AM. PIPIT, HORNED LARK, OLIVE-SIDED FLY, GRAY
JAY, CLARK'S NUTCRACKER, RED CROSSBILL, FOX SPARROW, etc.

That was basically all my birding in the state, and I'll head back to
Sweden on Thursday. Thanks again to many of you for advice. I am content
ending up with about 203 species, 74 of which were lifers.

Good birding, Jelmer Poelstra
jelmerpoelstra at gmail dot com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20120724/2d337a2e/attachment.htm