A trip to Seattle allowed us to try our luck at adding a few new birds to our list. We ended up with 12 new birds. I couldn't get a picture of the Pacific-slope Flycatcher, but I did get shots of a Least Flycatcher (kind of rare for the area), a Red Breasted Sap Sucker, a Winter Wren and an Anna's Hummingbird. We haven't had so many new birds since our trip to Belize a year ago, although we did see a Green Heron which previously we'd only seen in Belize. I had forgotten how fun it is to see something I'd never seen before.

Seattle's Discovery Park turned out to be a great place for birds and wildlife encounters from a raccoon drinking from a pond to a seal sunning it's face in the sound. A Great Blue Heron and a song sparrow posed long enough for me to actually get some nice pics. We also saw a Bushtit and some Chestnut-backed Chickadees  (both new birds for us) at Discovery Park, but I couldn't get pics before they flew off into the impossibly tall trees of the forest.  Washington forests are incredibly lush and beautiful, but so frustrating for a birder. 

A morning hike to Big Four Ice Caves in the Cascades turned out to be the highlight of the trip for me. You hike through old growth pacific northwest forest (where we saw the Pacific Slope Flycatcher and the Winter Wren) and emerge to a sight of multiple waterfalls plunging thousands of feet from the tops of the mountain peaks. Some fall into a snow fields and carve huge caverns through the ice. I've never seem so many waterfalls in one place. The meadow was full of flowers and birds of all kinds (sap suckers, wood peckers, white crowned sparrows, song sparrows, a mystery flycatcher, Yellow Warblers). I think it's now in my top 10 favorite places in the world.

Our trip ended with a hike up to Rattlesnake Ridge and a view through Stevens Pass and out to the Snoqualmie Valley. We had hoped to see a Pileated Woodpecker and possibly heard one high up in one of those frustratingly massive Washington trees. It would not show itself. I guess we'll have to keep going back.

Anna's Hummingbird

Harlequin Duck

Wood Duck

Glaucous-winged Gull

Least Flycatcher

Pacific-slope Flycatcher

Red Breasted Sap Sucker

Bushtit

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Winter Wren

Vaux Swift

Spotted Sandpiper