Counting Butterflies in Chelan County

Sunday, June 26^th starting at 9:00 a.m.

Looking for citizen scientists! Join biologist Phil Archibald as he leads a group for the Annual Butterfly Count from Swakane Canyon to Chumstick Mountain. Similar to the Great Backyard Bird Count, this day focuses on citizen scientists helping conservation and greater understanding of butterfly health, habitat, and migration patterns. Plus, it’s fun!  Phil will help us to identify and understand butterflies and their habitat. Along the way, the group will also be birding and traveling through different types of habitat, including a recent burn. At the end of the day, the group will meet other counters and compare results.

This trip is open to all levels of birders and butterfliers and will be done by car on rough roads with short, intermittent walks. The trip is free and limited to 12 people. Please RSVP to Bridget Egan at mtnegan@gmail.com or 509-433-7306.

Horan Natural Area Bird Walk

Why we bird: Reminders from a Spring Bird Walk,
by Mark Oswood, NCW Audubon Society President
 
A few weeks ago, we had one of our traditional bird walks at Confluence Park and Horan Natural Area, in Wenatchee. We’ve had these bird walks, with a shared meal fore or aft, in spring and fall, for some years. You can never take the same bird walk twice, of course; every trip is a once-only.


We had more folks completely new to birding than in previous trips (yahooie!) so we needed more loaner binoculars and field guides than we had at hand. Question to Chapter members: should we construct a goes-anywhere, traveling kit of loaner binoculars and field guides, ready to deploy on any birding trip likely to have always-welcome neo-birders? On this trip, we had no Really Good Birders (RGB  someone who can casually identify immature gulls or who knows a bird’s song from a faint “fweet” high in a tree). Having a RGB on a trip is inspirational (we all yearn to have these skills) and educational (one can learn bird lore and identification tips, just standing downwind from a RGB). Even so, there is much value in the communal learning of average birders helping each other.

We were, to our surprise, joined by a reporter (Dee Riggs) and photographer (Kathryn Stevens) from The Wenatchee World. Here’s a link to their newspaper article: http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2011/apr/12/taking-flight/ . Dee asked participants why they like birding. Perhaps not surprisingly, the answers didn’t include amassing lists of birds seen but rather the ways in which birding gets us outside, slowed down, with our senses turned on and minds wide open. Annie Dillard pointed out the necessity of just showing up: “… beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”

For us average (or especially beginner) birders, even a common bird seen closely is a gift. There were Violet-green Swallows zooming about like tiny jet fighters in a dogfight. One swallow lit on a fence wire and tolerated the intense look-rays of all of our binoculars. An Osprey, on our edge of the Columbia River, caught the downriver wind and hovered in a fish scan, nearly overhead. Our bird list for the trip had no rarities but we did get some rare good views.
 
Canada Goose
American Wigeon
Mallard
Lesser Scaup (could not distinguish from Greater Scaup but location/habitat make Lesser Scaup much more likely)
Bufflehead
Common Merganser
Common Loon
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Osprey
American Coot
Killdeer
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Belted Kingfisher
Northern Flicker
American Crow
Violet-green Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
American Robin
European Starling
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Song Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Red-winged Blackbird
American Goldfinch

NCWAS Spring Bird Walk and Picnic: Sat. 4/9/11

Please join fellow Auduboners, families, and friends in celebration of the arrival of spring!  Enjoy a morning of birding in the Horan Natural Area, followed by lunch and convivial conversation at Walla Walla Point Park, Wenatchee.

When:  Saturday April 9, 2011.   9 AM - 1:30 PM (or so)
Where:  Meet at picnic shelter #2 in Walla Walla Point Park (Wenatchee) at 9 AM.  We will take a leisurely, 2-hour easy bird walk along the park trail through the Horan Natural Area, followed by lunch starting about 11 AM back at the picnic shelter.

What to bring:  binoculars, weather-appropriate clothing, bird guides, whatever food you'd like for yourself.  We'll have birding checklists, paper plates/napkins/etc., and bottled water.

More information and directions:  see the NCWAS website, the April Wild Phlox, or contact Mark Oswood:  email or 509-662-9087.

Hope to see you there!

A Question About Evening Grosbeaks

One of our members, Patti (near Castle Rock, Wenatchee), just sent us this question:
"How long do the Evening Grosbeaks stay here?   They are eating me out of house and home.   So far they have eaten well over 15 lbs of sunflower hearts in less than 6 days."  She reports having as many as 25 in her yard at once!
We thought this would be a great question to pose to all our viewers, to compare experiences from folks across our region. 
I'll start:  I live in the Methow Valley, in shrub-steppe habitat.  We had evening grosbeaks at our feeder a good deal of the winter; then they disappeared in early spring, and now they have returned again (about a week ago).  Lately we've been averaging 4-6 pairs at a time.  Yes, they do love black oil sunflower seeds, and would eat us out of house and home as well, if we didn't ration the food!  They are beautiful birds, and fun to watch, though I think they can be a bit intimidating to the smaller birds.  How long will they stay?  Who knows!  I'll report back when (if) they leave.


Please post comments to share your experiences with all of us!  Please include where you live, type of habitat, and number of birds.  Thanks!
(and thanks to Ed Stockard for the photo!)