Hello Tweets,
House Wren has been a pretty uncommon bird in Snohomish county,
traditionally. WABirder checklists list it as a 3 (harder to find,
usually seen annually) which is its status in most western Washington
counties. Typically it is found on the margins of the county in places
like Darrington, Stanwood, and in clearcuts around foothills of the
cascades. Last year Dave Slager found a singing male on his breeding
bird survey route near Fobes road in northeast Snohomish, which at the
time seemed like a fairly random, but appreciated, deviation from the
norm.

In mid-May of this year after a successful trip to Fobes Rd looking
for the first Eastern Kingbirds of the season, I happened upon a
singing House Wren a few miles from Dave's sighting last year. Last
week I drove the area again and found at least two more singing males.
Dave found another on his BBS route last Saturday, and this morning I
found yet another. So as of today there are five singing males on
territory in this area. Given that my survey method of driving around
slowly with my windows open will only find males that happen to be
singing close enough to the road to be heard within a fairly small
window, I suspect this may only be a small sample of the birds
present. Presumably there are females present as well.

It'll be curious to see if this species maintains or increases its
foothold in the next few years,

I also found a couple Lazuli's singing, which seem to be another
uncommon species with a fairly good foothold in this area.

Josh Adams
Cathcart, WA