After two out of place woodpeckers on the WOS trip I departed Scott's group
at noon Sunday for Ahtanum Creek west of Yakima. I'll call it scouting for
next year's WOS Conference. More Pileated Woodpeckers up there and a
Williamson's Sapsuckers. More interesting were the pairings of species in
near vicinity:



After veering off the trail to chase pecking and drumming, I found
Black-backed and Am Three-toed Woodpeckers in adjacent trees, with two pair
of each seen Monday morning.



Yellow and gray races of Orange-crowned warbler in the same small tree among
scores of warblers on a feeding frenzy near the woodpeckers. Lutescens and
celata but at least one orestera. Majority were OCWA and TOWA, but also
WIWA, NAWA, and YRWA



After an hour of chasing through very young forest I got back to the trail
and immediately found two each Spruce and Sooty Grouse 10' apart, separated
by a small bush. Mom SPGR sat at 4' for a cell phone photo (still a very
tiny photo!), soon joined by grown but short-tailed daughter on the branch
posing together. One of the SOGR continued clucking on the other side of
the road until I got too close. As with lots of shooting at doves heard in
the Lind Coulee area Sunday morning, it was also opening weekend of grouse
hunting in the forest, but no hunters heard shooting in the woods.



Also a N Goshawk chasing a vocal Red-tailed Hawk before the sun was above
the horizon.



Randy Hill

Ridgefield

From: inland-nw-birders-bounces at uidaho.edu
[mailto:inland-nw-birders-bounces at uidaho.edu] On Behalf Of Scott Downes
Sent: Sunday, September 01, 2013 7:13 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu; inland-nw-birders at uidaho.edu
Subject: [inland-NW-birders] WOS Columbia Basin Field Trip



Spent the last two days with nine enjoyable WOS members. We visited on
Saturday: Soap Lake, Sun Lakes SP, Coulee City STP, Steamboat Rock SP,
Brooks Lake and Davenport Cemetery. On Sunday (today) visited area around
Potholes including Lind Coulee, Perch Point, Potholes SP, Columbia NWR, Para
Ponds, North Potholes and the Freeway Ponds near the Winchester Wasteway
Rest Area (aka I-90 frontage road ponds). Best bird was a rare Red-crested
Fruitpecker. This was found at Davenport yesterday afternoon. For those not
familiar with this species, plumage is identical to Pileated Woodpecker and
can only be told from different behavior. Behavior of the Red-crested
Fruitpecker is to visit migrant traps and feed on Mt. Ash berries hanging
upside down (similar to waxwings). Levity aside, this was a very unexpected
sighting and very odd behavior for this species!

In general shorebird and passerine activity was moderate to slow. The
biggest miss was Baird's Sandpiper! Other main shorebird miss was Solitary
Sandpiper. The other noteworthy miss was a lack of any small terns on
Potholes Lake. We had only two Caspian Tern here and no Common or Forester's
despite looking hard for both.



Despite misses we did have some other nice birds they were:



Sanderling-1 at south end of Soap Lake

Semipalmated Plovers- several spots including Soap Lake, Brooks Lake and
Potholes Lake.

Stilt Sandpipers-6 at Coulee City STP and 1 at Brooks Lake.

Pectoral Sandpiper-3 at I-90 frontage road ponds

Hairy Woodpecker-1 at Potholes SP



For the weekend, 112 species.



Scott Downes

downess at charter.net

Yakima WA