Birds, botanizing and mushrooms

I went with my friend Juliet to the Oden burn on the Okanogan side of the Loup today. We were hoping to find some morels and maybe see some interesting birds. We did both and saw some cool plants and many fruiting lichens. Also observed some strange logging going on turning tiny streams and seeps into muddy holes and trenches. It was hard to tell what was the purpose of all the heavy equipment activity on the wet ground.

A pair of Black-backed Woodpeckers foraged for their nestlings while we ate lunch. This is a photo of the female. The image was made with a point and shoot camera.

This is a tiny fruiting lichen.

Here is a list of the birds we observed:
Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)
Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)
Common Nighthawk (Chordeiles minor)
Lewis' Woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis)
Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens)
Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus)
Black-backed Woodpecker (Picoides arcticus)
Western Wood-Pewee (Contopus sordidulus)
Unidentified Empidonax (Empidonax sp.)
Clark's Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana)
Common Raven (Corvus corax)
Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus)
Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis)
Rock Wren (Salpinctes obsoletus)
House Wren (Troglodytes aedon)
Western Bluebird (Sialia mexicana)
Mountain Bluebird (Sialia currucoides)
Townsend's Solitaire (Myadestes townsendi)
American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
Western Tanager (Piranga ludoviciana)
Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus)
Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina)
Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis)
We also saw a thrush and finches that we did not identify.

It was a good day with fine weather!