Subject: [Tweeters] recent trips to a Yakima Canyon site,
Date: Jun 14 14:10:37 2016
From: Barbara Deihl - barbdeihl at comcast.net


My first few trips to Central WA this spring, though pleasant, didn't find me surrounded by quantities or goodly varieties of birds. The scenery and the air sufficed - it always does... But I have had a mission this year - to find an active Prairie Falcon nest again. With help from someone who this year, made it his mission to document a nest from start to finish, through video, I was kept informed and was able to visit the viewing site several times, the most recent of which was last Thur. (6/9), when the remaining 3 chicks of the 4 that had been in the nest (3 femaIes, 1 male), were very actively prepping for launch( and probably for lunch, too...). But we never saw any take a first flight - we believe it happened with the first chick on the previous day. The day I and friends, Dory & Ray Hamlyn were there together, no fledging activity was seen. However, the youngsters were wild and crazy. AND, 2 or 3 of the flying members of the family (likely an adult or 2 plus the first fledgling from the day before) soared and flew around the cliffs and in front of the nest, showing off and perhaps trying to entice the other 3 nestlings to "come on out". A nice sideshow :-)
The next day, in very early morning, 2 more of the remaining young, made their first flights - the fellow doing the video documenting was there and caught it. That left one remaining youngster to lift off. D&R saw it that day (Friday) when they went to the site once again, but it remained a ledger, not a fledger. No word yet as to whether or when #4 took off.

Besides the PRFA scene, last Thur. brought many other birds and 'other' our way - Friday brought yet more to Ray & Dory. You can get a visual tour through much of our Thursday their Fri, by viewing and reading the captions with, 2 sets of photos (Flickr). The third set is from May 31st, when I came over to scout again. Besides seeing the little PRFA nestlings, I had a great evening encounter with about a dozen Common Nighthawk, right there in the parking lot of the PRFA viewing site ! "Peents" and "booms" alerted me to their presence, which I should have expected, once clouds of mosquitoes made life quite unpleasant for me. As for many of you, I miss the summer visitors. (not the mosquitoes !) I've only heard one NIHA calling here near Matthews Beach so far this spring. Another time I will relate my most memorable nighthawk experience from over 3 decades ago in north-central California. For now, this May 31st vignette is it. Plus a documenting photo of a few of them way up there. The drive home that night resulted in a gummy layer of mayflies and other hatched insects getting affixed to about 3/4 of my car - still have to get some de-bugger to clear off the rest of that now-solidified glue on the car's finish and the light covers. What a bonus !

But last Thursday was absolutely great - I've created 3 Flickr albums that include my pics for Thur., Dory's (plus 1 or 2 of Ray's), and My photos from May 31. Here are the links:

May 31 2016 - https://flic.kr/s/aHskAUZNQk - pics by Barb

June 9 2016 - https://flic.kr/s/aHskydEAwD - pics by Barb

June 9,10 2016 - https://flic.kr/s/aHskycHzaw - pics by Dory & Ray

Enjoy !


Barb Deihl
Matthews Beach Neighborhood - NE Seattle
barbdeihl at comccast.net
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