Subject: [Tweeters] Naches Pass area on Friday (mostly King County) -
Date: Aug 9 09:34:14 2015
From: Evan Houston - evanghouston at gmail.com


Hi Tweeters,

I visited the Naches Pass area for the 3rd time this year on Friday, and it
paid off again with some fun birding. It was dramatically different from
my trip up there about a month ago - this time, migration of passerines was
heavy, especially for warblers and finches. A large proportion of the
birds seemed to be juveniles.

I spent most of my time driving up FSR (forest service road) 7036 to Windy
Gap as well as at Windy Gap itself (where there was an amazing bounty of
huckleberries), then did a short stop at Government Meadows/Naches Pass.
Bird activity was much heavier in the early morning hours. I'll do
highlights in taxonomic order:

- Common Nighthawk - at Windy Gap - always a treat to see this species,
especially an unexpected flyover in late morning on a sunny day.

- CALLIOPE HUMMINGBIRD - great looks at this bird feeding on fireweed about
2 miles before Windy Gap on FSR 7036.

- LEWIS'S WOODPECKER - a flock of at least 3 passed by heading south - nice
to catch them in migration along the Cascade crest.

- Rock Wren - continues near main parking lot for Windy Gap.

- American Dipper - at the FSR 7030 bridge over the Greenwater River where
I have "dipped" earlier this year except to note the extensive "dipper
doo", finally today an actual dipper deigned to show itself.

- Mountain Bluebird - several flocks migrating through the Windy Gap area

- less-common warblers: 3 Nashville and 1 surprise Black-throated Gray
Warbler.

- more common warblers showing that warbler migration is in full swing:
Combined totals from my eBird checklists today, on the conservative side:
135 Yellow-rumped, 23 Townsend's, 19 Orange-crowned, 17 MacGillivray's.

- Bullock's Oriole - along with the Black-throated Gray Warbler, probably
my most unexpected bird of the day - this bird was at about 5500 feet at
Windy Gap.

- Purple and Cassin's Finch - heavy migration of both of these finches at
and near Windy Gap - I was surprised to notice the Purples because I've
previously only noted Cassin's up here. It was nice to see both in the
same area to compare, and the most definitive way for me to distinguish
them was listening for Purple's "bik" flight call vs. Cassin's "churrdilee"
flight call.

A couple of documenting photographs are at my eBird checklist for Windy Gap:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S24531709

Good birding,
Evan Houston
Seattle, WA
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