west Moscow Mountain (Foothill Rd., Headwaters Trail), 6/15-16/09

photo Sam Hunter (more here http://picasaweb.google.com/shunter/0616BirdingTrip2#)

Last evening and this morning I took groups attending the Evolution Meetings here in Moscow up to the west end of Moscow Mountain (north of Moscow) for some birding. Foothill Rd. dead ends at a gated logging road (known locally as the Headwaters Trail area) which provides some great foot/bike access to the west side of Moscow Mountain. A parking area is provided about .25 miles before the gate as this area is heavily used on weekends by locals. The road and lower part of trail pass through typical mixed conifer forest w/ good shrub understory and some riparian deciduous vegetation along a creek. This provides for a nice variety of the typical nesting songbirds in our area. A sampling of species of interest include Calliope Hummingbird (common), Dusky, Hammond's, and Cordilleran Flycatchers, Western Wood-Pewee (common), Cassin's and Red-eyed Vireos (local but regular here), Swainson's Thrush (common), Gray Catbird, Orange-crowned, Yellow, Yellow-rumped, Townsend's, and MacGillivray's Warbler (I've had Nashville Warbler here in previous years which is an uncommon breeder in Latah Co.), Western Tanager, Spotted Towhee, and Black-headed Grosbeaks. I've never made it up very high on this side of the mountain in breeding season but I'm sure it would be well worth the trip. In fact a traverse of Moscow Mountain on foot ot bike to survey breeding bird would probably be very interesting.

This location is on my Latah Co. birding sites Google Map here - http://tinyurl.com/8q54ys. An eBird lits of this morning's trip is below:

Location: Pond 9 Area
Observation date: 6/16/09
Notes: Evolution meeting field trip w/ ~30 participants. Walked from parking lot up just above Pond 9 and back. Good variety of species.
Number of species: 28

California Quail 2
Mourning Dove 2
Calliope Hummingbird 5
Western Wood-Pewee 6
Hammond's Flycatcher 4
Dusky Flycatcher 1
Cordilleran Flycatcher 3
Cassin's Vireo 2
Red-eyed Vireo 2
Common Raven 1
Violet-green Swallow X
Black-capped Chickadee 1
Chestnut-backed Chickadee 1
Red-breasted Nuthatch 3
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
House Wren 2
Swainson's Thrush 8
American Robin 4
Orange-crowned Warbler 2
Yellow Warbler 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler 2
Townsend's Warbler 2
MacGillivray's Warbler 2
Western Tanager 6
Spotted Towhee 4
Chipping Sparrow 6
Black-headed Grosbeak 4
Brown-headed Cowbird 4

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)


--
Charles Swift
Moscow, ID
chaetura@gmail.com