Mele eee OD Ue Br OeN® 8 alia wo kr re loN ya 
We investigated a nature trail at Crescent Lake and found Steller’s jays 
visiting the picnic tables; here, too, were our first wren-tits. We followed 
the trail through huge Douglas firs, sugar and ponderosa pines to emerge 
at a noisy mountain stream. Three water ouzels were feeding, diving into 
the water and walking along the rocks, their tails bobbing as they shook 
the water off their plumage. I had heard the exultant song of the ouzels in 
the Siskiyou mountains near Ashland, Oregon, many years ago. As they 
migrate from Ashland to Crater Lake in January, they sing jubilantly. 
Mr. Hine, then a curator of the Field Museum, told me of seeing an ouzel 
suddenly emerge from the waters of the Bow River near Lake Louise in 
Canada, singing a song and plunging again into the icy waters with no 
regard for the below-zero temperature. 
We took pleasure in driving along Puget Sound, often pausing to watch 
kingfishers, sandhill cranes, great blue herons, gulls, terns, and an occasional 
pied-billed grebe. From a beautiful garden bordering the water I saw gulls 
rising high with clams or oysters and dropping them onto the rocks. They 
often succeeded in breaking the shells open. One white-winged scoter swam 
offshore. In another garden I saw a chestnut-backed chickadee at close 
range. 
We returned to the hillside garden in Bremerton to find the Western 
wood pewee. A Western flycatcher nested on a low beam in a neighbor’s 
garage. Another flycatcher was identified as Say’s phoebe. It was perched 
at the top of a shrub near a water hole, head thrown back, emitting oc- 
casional mournful protests, accompanied by vigorous jerks of the tail. In 
early August large flocks of pine siskins appeared near this same spot. 
They alighted at my feet and one almost perched on my head. Many Oregon 
juncoes resided here, as well as several families of red-breasted nuthatches. 
One day I visited a friend living near Kitsap Lake, which contained 
fresh water, unlike the sea water of the far-reaching Sound. She had 
trained a flock of wild mallards to respond to her call, ‘Come, quack! Come, 
quack!” They ate bread from her hand, and mine also. 
One day we drove out to Olympia, Washington. We found two water 
holes frequented by all members of the swallow family; here red-winged 
blackbirds had been nesting. The heat was oppressive. We saw Brewer’s 
blackbirds bathing in a pasture beside metal irrigation pipes. Crows called 
shrilly from a distance. These were our only records for these two species 
on the entire peninsula. We saw only one ring-necked pheasant, although 
we spent many hours driving through what seemed to be favorable 
territory. 
Peterson’s Western Bird Guide was constantly consulted as I tried to 
identify some of the Western birds that were at first so strange to me. 
Another good source of information about birds of the Olympic Peninsula 
was a local guidebook by Mr. E. A. Kitchen. On August 15th we regretfully 
left our hillside garden and motored along Upper Klamath Lake on our 
way to new bird adventures at Crater Lake, Oregon. 
315 N. LaGrange Rd., LaGrange, Illinois 
N.B.: Part II of Miss Craigmile’s observations in the Pacific Northwest 
will appear in an early issue of the Bulletin. — Ed. 
