With the sun overhead, I beamed up and down roads Wed. afternoon, my ultimate goal to look for the 3 known Prairie Falcon nest sites (eyries) and their fast-growing falconettes. But I was also ready (or so I thought) for surprises of other sorts along the way, be they other birds, stellar scenery, or who knew what. I encountered all of this except the actual Prairie Falcons (again !), but no matter - I did find one of the eyries and thoroughly enjoyed the process of combining all the clues I had and had been given, to ferret out 'the spot'.

First leg stretch (of my legs), was in Cle Elum, where I sought out the Pioneer Coffee Brewing Co., at the recommendation of some friends - had a pretty tasty hummus sandwich, something you'd never find at the Cle Elum Bakery!

En route from there to Ellensburg, saw the first and almost only, Red-tailed Hawk of the day - in fact, along with the 2 golden Eagles soaring near Umtanum Rec, Area, the Bald Eagle family of 5 at MP 15.5 and one Osprey head sticking out of a nest, I saw no other birds of prey all day. Birds I did see included a Western Tanager, a Common Nighthawk, Brewer's Blackbird, Black-billed Magpie, a tiny sparrow flitting about in the sagebrush near MP4 on Canyon Rd., a red finch of some species (at Umtanum Rec. Area) and an unidentified flycatcher there as well. A few Common Ravens sagely croaked in the sagebrush, American Robins bounced around at Ump Rec. area and there were lots of calls and songs which went unheeded by me, as I was there to heed another kind of call...

Once on Canyon Rd., I started pulling over, and getting out with binoculars to scan the cliffs near Mileposts 14,10 and 4. Other cliffs, too - saw a lot of possible Raven, Prairie Falcon, Red-tailed Hawk, Great Horned Owl and 'other' nest sites. Near MP14, I had an out-of-this-world (not out-of-body) experience - a small white car pulled in behind me and a young, smiling woman with a sympathetically tilted head, got out and proceeded to reassure me that I was in heaven and that all would be OK and she would be with me for awhile... What the...??? She was not threatening, but definitely way out there. I told her that if this was heaven, I was sorry it was missing something...Prairie Falcons :-) She smiled, but obviously was not a birder (just a strange bird). I was able to get in my car and move on down the road, after she gave me a hug... When I next pulled off and parked to scan for birds, she drove on by and waved. A bit later, keeping an eye out for her around every curve, I passed what could have been her car, parked at a large pull off, perpendicular to a car that looked a lot like my green car - a gal and a guy were talking... I sped up and didn't try to check out that scene anymore. The "JAWS" theme song played in my head for awhile, until I managed to focus on the real 'heaven' that lay before me, at MPs 10 and 4 and finally, Umptanum Rd. for the moonrise.

It was great fun to look for and find the MP4 PRFA nest cave, and it was really quite bright enough, at 8 p.m., to get a few photos - too bad any nestling inside it was way back in and not in view. Oh well, another reason for ONE MORE CHECK next week?

Apparently I was driving along the river when there was a mass hatching of some kind of flies and, if any of you are fly experts and want to ID them, there are still thousands plastered to my car grill and hood and light covers. 9 a.m. was when the critical mass of sacrificial flies pelted my moving vehicle, sounding just like large raindrops. I felt bad, knowing that this was a big waste of food for a lot of birds and fish. Only things I could think of that would still be interested in the dry fly carcasses, were the garden slugs that would have their chance once I pulled into my driveway in Seattle.

Slept well last night, with no nightmares of angels clouding my head and the calls of Canyon Wrens, Poorwills and Nighthawks easily crowding out that shark music. I made it to 'the other side' (of the pass) and seem to have no residual negative after-effects of having run into a female version of Jimmy Stewart's 'Clarence'.

It's still a wonderful life :-)

Here (again for some of you), is the link to my Flickr photo album from my 'trip': "A Peace of Heaven - Canyon Rd. Plus - 6/11/14"

https://flic.kr/ps/21o68C

You never know what's around the next bend....

Barb

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