Sage-grouse field trip

Sage-Grouse field trip

March 5th

Leave the Easy Street Park and Ride at 5:00 AM in Wenatchee

It may be possible to meet the group somewhere along the way

Yes, 5:00 AM.

Visit a lek.

Return to Wenatchee by noon.

Led by Dr. Dan Stephens, Biology Professor, Wenatchee Valley College

Contact Dan for more info at (509) 682-6752 or dstephens@wvc.edu

The Great Backyard Bird Count has started!

This weekend, Feb. 18-21, is the 14th annual Great Backyard Bird Count.  This is an event where Citizen Scientists all across the US and Canada count birds and upload their observations to a central website.  You can participate for as short as 15 minutes or for all 4 days; it's free, it's fun, and it helps scientists and the birds.  You can watch the counts grow in real time as the weekend progresses, which gives us all a snapshot of where birds are and how many of each species.

To find out more, and to participate, you can go to the NCWAS website or to the Great Backyard Bird Count website:  http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/.

There are also field trips taking place this weekend in North Central Washington, as part of the GBBC.  For details, see the Birding page of the NCWAS website.

 

We look forward to seeing your observations online!

Soup and Sharp-shins: Feb. 3, 2011

Come to the North Cascades Basecamp in Mazama for another in their winter soup-and-lecture series.  Kent Woodruff, USFS Wildlife Biologist, will give a presentation Feb.3, titled "Lessons of a Little Accipiter".  He will tell you about the long-term studies of raptor migration at Chelan Ridge, conducted with HawkWatch International, and will share some surprising things he's learned about the small, sharp-shinned hawk during his studies there.
Soup (seasonal vegetarian) is at 5:30 PM ($5); the talk begins at 6 PM (free).  For more information or directions, please see the North Cascades Basecamp website.  See you there!

Clarks Nutcracker at the feeder

The Clarks Nutcracker was first observed by William Clark (Lewis and Clark) and bears his name. I suppose it could be called Williams Nutcracker.....

Generally it eats pine seeds which it carries in a pouch unders its tongue and then caches for a rainy, or snowy, or sunny day.

This week a nutcracker decided our suet feeders looked pretty good. I wonder if it has finished its caches of seeds? Or lost them in the snow. They are supposed to have great memories for their caches. 

Other members of the corvid family visit the suet feeders at our house including Stellers Jays and Black-billed Magpies.

All of the feeder birds seem to dread the arrival of a Northern Flicker and this Clarks Nutcracker was no exception. I don't know why none of the other birds care for the flickers. It's even worse when a magpie arrives.