Hello all,
Today September 23 about 5:15 pm Mike located an adult Gray-cheeked Thrush in Fishook Park along the Snake River in Walla Walla County. The bird was in Russian Olive trees just south of the boat ramp. This bird was first detected by its call notes which are so different from Swainson's or Hermit. We did not get any decent photos. This was a large thrush with gray face, no buffy at all on the face and no discernible eye ring. No warm browns, tans or rust anywhere on this bird. Very gray tail. Upper breast was white with many very black spots. American Robin, Hermit and Varied Thrush were also present. This is the second record for Walla Walla County - the first record was located by Oregon birders Joe Evanich and Donna Lustoff on 6 Oct.1990 at Casey pond in western WW County.
We were birding McNary HQ "Birding Spur" earlier and observed a thrush very similiar to the Fishook bird but spent another hour looking without spotting the bird again - and we did not hear that bird.
Fishook Park is closed but you can enter on foot. Other migrants were Yellow-rumped, Wilson's and Orange-crowned Warblers and lots of White-crowned Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos and Ruby-crowned Kinglets.
Later, M&M
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Mike & MerryLynn Denny
Birding the beautiful Walla Walla Valley

"If you haven't birded, you haven't lived"