Tweets ? yesterday was our 11th Cle Elum CBC, and it was really good. The weather was gorgeous, with temperatures above freezing for much of the count, sunshine, not too much problem with wind, and with very little snow on the ground, and a lot of open water. The thin snow coverage and open water skewed the distribution of birds somewhat, it appears.

We had our highest species total ever, at 78 species. This beats our previous best of 73 (both in 2010 and 2011), and beats our total+count week birds record of 77 from 2011.

Our count of birds was just a bit above average at 3797.

Highlights:
a.. High counts for AMERICAN WIGEON, RING-NECKED DUCK, and BUFFLEHEAD, as well as BALD EAGLE and AMERICAN KESTREL.

b.. One BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKER up the road from the former Spotted Owl site out of Liberty (Pine Gulch Rd. / FR-9726-121), as well as three GRAY JAYS there.

c.. One PEREGRINE FALCON on Swauk Ranch (private) off SR-10 near the east edge of the circle, and a PRAIRIE FALCON up the Teanaway.

d.. Our first-ever BEWICK?S WREN and LINCOLN?S SPARROW, both seen on the Cle Elum (town) sector.

e.. Our first-ever AMERICAN TREE SPARROW, with a flock of juncos and mixed sparrows at one of the first barns up Teanaway Rd.

f.. Two PINE GROSBEAK off a gravel track that leads ENE from 831 Ranch Rd, off Burke Rd., near the intersection of SR-970 and US-97. These were new for the count, though we had Pine Grosbeak as a count-week bird in 2008.

g.. COMMON REDPOLLS were seen on three different sectors, with a flock in the birches on Burke Rd., just past the stream crossing, being seen both Sunday and Monday. We?ve only had redpoll once before, in 2012.

h.. The GEMENID METEOR SHOWER was INCREDIBLY AWESOME for the two groups that went owling Monday morning. I?ve never before seen scores of meteors. There seemed to be an average of one every few seconds, with multiples simultaneously being pretty common. And many of these were blazing long trails. And Jupiter and Venus and a billion stars were pretty nice too.
Many thanks to the 23 people who came out for the count, and to Cricket Webb who set up breakfast and dinner for us.

== Michael Hobbs
== www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
== BirdMarymoor at frontier.com