The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1911-09-06
SAWNUMEROUS
FOREST BIRDS
Camper at Keechelus Surprised at
Many Varities Noted on
Vacation
HARD TO GLIMPSE THEM
IN THICK FIR BRANCHES
Winter Snow Bird Of Yakima Is
Found Summering in Heights
-Merganser Ducks Outwit the
Fisherman

A good many people, probably, who
have spent a week or a month at
some of the mountain lakes this sum-
mer, have come home in the belief
that there are no song birds there.
North Yakiman who thought he
knew a little something about birds,
in an amateurish way, felt the same
on his return from stay at Lake
Keechelus. He had gazed earnestly
at the tall conifers for bird visitors
or bird tenants and been rewarded
by only a few fittings of dusky
shapes which travelled so fast and so
high up that identification was diff
fcult. Once alighted on a fir. pine
or hemlock branch, with it's thick
clusters of needles, the bird was lost.
Bird sounds, bird songs could be
heard where no birds could seen,
and from an pathological view, he
considered the trip failure.
Makes n Test
Once home, however, he made a
list of the birds he had recognized
or had since his return identified by
consulting the bird book, and was as
tonished to find that he had seen at
least twenty-one different kinds.
The song birds of the high forests,
while shadowy and mysterious in
their comings and going. comprise
some of the sweetest singers of the
woods. AS he holes of the great
trees, living and dead, which cover
the steep slopes, provide an abund-
ance of insect food, it is the creepers,
the fly catchers and the nuthatches
and the wood peckers which make UP
the greater part of the forest dwell
ers.
Were City-BrOke
81 found out where these little
back-hooded juncos which are all
about North Yakima in the winter.
spend their summer vacation" said
the bird lover, reporting experiences
to a friend. There were quantities
of them about our camp. They were
the only ones of the birds, too, which
showed themselves 'icity broke"
They knew all about crumbs and par
ticles of food to be collected where
there were people about and they
helped themselves quite fearlessly.
THE mountain chicadee is there
with his constant reiteration of his
own name. l saw what l took ito be
an olive-sided fy-catcher, a red
breasted nuthatch working up a tree
trunk, and a dozen or more tree swal-
lows chasing flies just above the sur
face of the lake. There was pecu-
liar reedy whistle which we heard
nearly everywhere we went, coming
from the tops of frs and hemlocks
1t seemed to be a vesper song. and I
couldn't be sure whether it was bird
or beast. After consulting the Birds
of Washington by Dawson and
Bowles. l concluded that the battling
note belonged to a tawny creeper
There is a bib black bird up there
which is almost a crow. I was told
that it was a raven. | didn't know
We had any ravens in this country,
but l find we have
Lover OF Solitude
Several times We saw that most
charming of solitude-lovng birds, the
water ouzel. 1t was always near a
water fall on some swift running
mountain stream. One stood motion
less for fully FIVE minutes while we
looked at it. and then it was we. not
the bird, which moved on. There
were various wood-peckers, some blue
jays, lots of king fishers, hawks and
several doves. We saw gulls on the
lake, loon "a grebe and on a lake
way up at the foot of some snow COW
cred mountains a couple of the duck
known as the Golden Eye. This duck
breeds in the Cascades We saw sew
eral grouse with chickens. On
stream called Gold creek which
was fishing with poor success ! found
a flock of half dozen mergansers.
The presence of these fish-eating
ducks, apparently soiourning indefi-
nitely, explained to my satisfaction
the scarcity of fish There were also
night hawks and some sort of a wren
which l have not yet identified to my
Satisfaction