Conferences

Contact Us

Field Trips

Join

Meetings

Links

May 2, 2009

Cle Elum

Yesterday (5/2/09), I led a field trip for the Washington Ornithological Society to the Cle Elum Christmas Bird Count circle. The idea was to bird those same great areas in a month other than December, to see what else could be found.

The weather was kind of blah, with overcast and showers threatening much of the day, as well as cool temps. It didn't rain much, though, and the wind was moderate, so it could have been much, much worse.  I scouted on Friday, under gorgeous sunny skies, but beset by wind. The weather front that came in that night seemed to bring with it several spring arrivals.

Here are some of the highlights of our trip:

I started off the day with a LINCOLN'S SPARROW in the Safeway parking lot, which seemed a good omen.

The feeder house on SR-903 between Cle Elum and Roslyn is quite amazing. Dozens of feeders and dozens of birds.  We had all three Carpodacus finches for comparison,.  CASSIN'S FINCH were the most numerous of them.  There were PINE SISKIN, AMERICAN GOLDFINCH, and EVENING GROSBEAK as well as a.few non-finches.  It made a great start for the day.

The NP pond area (Charter Rd.) had our first warblers - Tons of YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS, which were abundant at just about every stop of the day, plus NASHVILLE WARBLERS, which also proved widespread though nowhere near as numerous.  We had an ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER or two, and I believe our first YELLOW WARBLER as well.

McDonald Pond had 3-5 CINNAMON TEAL, amongst 8 species of duck total.

On Willey Lane, off Upper Peoh Point Rd., we had a BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER, and heard calling WILSON'S SNIPE.

The Elk Heights burn is much diminished, as at least half of the trees blew down over the winter.  The only woodpecker we had was a HAIRY WOODPECKER or two, though we also had HOUSE WREN and WESTERN BLUEBIRD.  The wrens turned out to be widespread and singing all day.

The LT Murray access at Elk Heights brought us RED CROSSBILLS (though only distant views).  There was nothing distant about the DUSKY FLYCATCHER, which came right close to us for amazing looks.  We had singing Dusky Flycatchers at many stops during the day.

The Teanaway Marsh (where SR-10 crosses the Teanaway) had VARIED THRUSH, which seemed a strange lowland location for May, as well as our sixth warbler species for the day, COMMON YELLOWTHROAT.

Red Bridge Rd provided a first-of-spring BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK male, singing away, and a YELLOW WARBLER at the bridge.

The Teanaway was dead.  We were unfortunately unable to find the HARLEQUIN DUCK pair that I'd seen there on Friday.

Ballard Hill Rd. had our only SAY'S PHOEBE and a KILLDEER nest, with 4 eggs, right at the edge of the road.

From Ley Rd., above Swauk Prairie, we spotted a very distant, soaring,

well-marked juvenile GOLDEN EAGLE.

Swauk Prairie itself held a few WESTERN BLUEBIRDS, WESTERN MEADOWLARKS, and some VESPER SPARROWS.  The trees at the east end were more lively, with RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET, WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH (our 3rd nuthatch species of the day), CHIPPING SPARROWS, a SAVANNAH SPARROW, and MOUNTAIN CHICKADEES.

In Liberty, we found a TOWNSEND'S WARBLER, a calling HAMMOND'S FLYCATCHER, a couple of RED-NAPED SAPSUCKERS, heard a distant TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE, and Tayler Brooks was able to call and get two calls in response from a SPOTTED OWL!  This really made our day!

On Bettas Rd., we had the best views ever of MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRDS, as the sun had come out a bit.  We also found a male WILSON'S WARBLER, our 8th warbler species of the day.  As we dropped down Hayward Rd., we added a WESTERN KINGBIRD.

So, we managed a group total of 89 species Saturday, and I had 4 or 5 more scouting on Friday.

== Michael Hobbs

== Kirkland, WA

== http://www.marymoor.org/birding.htm

== http://www.marymoor.org/BirdBlog.htm

== birdmarymoor@verizon.net

Trip Species List