Hey Tweets!

I hit the gravelly goodness of the forest roads west of Hood Canal this morning, hoping to catch some Ruffed Grouse skulking around the side of the road. I had no luck with them, but had a good birdy morning, finding the fifth (and there's no way it could be the last) spot holding a House Wren this year. It's coded as a 4 for now, but it's worth knowing that a search of the clear cuts above Hood Canal has been turning up a lot of them. Oh! And I found a grouse in the road, but the wrong kind - a sooty on FR 2401.

So I wasn't too upset about the Ruffed Grouse. They won't disappear, although when they are drumming or walking around with the little grouslets (??) they are easier to find.

I ascended and descended Mount Rose near Lake Cushman in search of Townsend's Solitaires which two people have found up there this breeding season. I got a gorgeous view from the top, but no TOSO's. :(

I may have stumbled on a pretty big consolation, unless we can all work together to talk me out of my Black Swift observation. I heard a doubled low flat note that I was trying unsuccessfully to turn into a type 3 Red Crossbill, but the call was too liquid for a type 3, and a little variable in quality. That's when that doubled note became a rapid series of those notes, then repeated the double... Double... Rapid series.

This was all over the canopy, and I got only a single glimpse of one bird (the calls had me thinking at times that there were two of them). It moved pretty directly, and I detected no wing flapping, although the glimpse was embarrassingly brief.

It was a cloudy day in July, and they aren't unheard of in the Olympics, but it would be a pretty exciting sighting.

My ebird report could be delayed by a week, so y'all get to play ebird reviewer on me if you wish. ("How, precisely, did you rule out Common Raven?"). Ask me if I saw the tertials or something. Knock yourselves out! Haha. I'd love to figure out that there were other possibilities; good learnin.

Thanks in advance!

-Tim Brennan
Renton.... But stealing a bed in Mason again.