Hi Tweets - Wednesday, Kathleen and I headed over Washington Pass (no 3-toes evident around the parking lot) and up to Hart's Pass with the intent of hiking a bit of the PCT to look for ptarmigan and maybe, the Spruce Grouse seen by David Poortinga a few days earlier. The weather and hiking were superb but no 'chickens' to be seen either on the PCT from Hart's Pass to the sadly burned up Meadows Campground or up on Slate Peak. Flowers and views were great though! (Side note, if you want to go look for the Spruce Grouse: the PCT southbound from the Pass is not marked (!) but is the trail to the left, right where FS road 700 (obscurely marked on a post where it heads downhill north from the pass). On the way up to Sun Mtn Lodge for dinner, we did see a pretty stationary Dusky Grouse on the road shoulder by the east end of Patterson Lake. She stayed pretty immobile while I turned around to go back for pictures. Next morning, we headed up Route 20 toward Loup Loup and took the unmarked right onto the Pole Pick Mtn. road that leads under power lines and up into an area the burned badly a few years ago. Uphill from the road is badly charred but downhill is mostly intact forest, contributing to a high bird diversity and activity (at least Thursday morning!). Highlights for me were Williamson's Sapsucker that we had previously seen in this area (a male and two juv/females responded to playback). Feeling good about that, I decided to go for broke and played Black-backed. Very soon, I was in a drumming contest with a bird out of sight up in the burned trees. After about 10 minutes, he finally moved around a trunk providing good, if a bit distant views; my second BB ever, and a lifer for Kathleen! From there, we drove down through Okanogan to lunch at the PUD picnic area at the Bridgeport SP turnoff (Eastern Kingbird here) and then wandered for an hour or so through sage country around the Leahey lek, looking in vain for Sage Grouse. From there, we headed south down Heritage (or L) Road toward the 'Heritage Rd. flooded fields' hotspot, the '6th and N ponds' hotspot, and Atkins Lake. All of these were surprisingly full of water and birds, with hundreds of ducks, geese, and shorebirds including many yellowlegs and peeps, a Baird's, a Solitary, and a family of one adult and 3 half-sized Black-necked Stilts. Wish we'd had more time to sort through the rest of the shorebirds, but a good trip for sure! Happy Birding - Jon Houghton, Edmonds
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20190817/def7e026/attachment.html>