Tweeters;
A group of us attended the SAS sage grouse trip on Sunday and unlike the
WOS group on Saturday we were nearly skunked. We did spy one lone male
strutting his stuff to a nearby Golden Eagle. We didn't stick around to
find out if the eagle scored a big breakfast. It was a lovely clear cold
morning though if you like that star/moon thing. The day did get better
bird-wise once the sun came up. Golden Eagles were plentiful.(we saw 2
Golden Eagles on Saturday; 1 at Frenchman's Coulee and 1 while driving down
the Yakima Canyon). The firing range on Sunday had 3 Golden Eagles,
billions of Horned Larks and Western Meadowlarks singing. The Say's
Phoebes are back. There was one on a telephone line on the firing range.
Russell Rogers gave us a list of spots to go for local birds and we did see
the Prairie Falcon at the recommended southbound I82 Selah rest stop. We
drove up Wenas Road to the Audubon Camp. Red-tails were nesting in a group
of Cottonwoods near Boyd Road. Once up to the campground area Mountain and
Western Bluebirds were everywhere. Red-tails were courting there as well.
One bird was carrying nesting material over the creek. The water levels are
still pretty high and a beaver is working the creek into the campground with
a bit of success at creating pond-like conditions over the road (we didn't
travel past where it crosses). We were scouting for woodpeckers but only
saw Northern Flickers. Unfortunately we did not have the 4 wheel drive that
was needed for the trip over to Ellensburg. We made it up about 2 miles and
had to turn around because of the condition of the road. It is a great time
of year to look for nests over there because the trees are still stick-like
(low pollen count as well-yippee). We checked out the cottonwoods on Hwy 97
north of Ellensburg and spotted a Great-Horned Owl on a nest at the
intersection of Howard and the highway. All in all a great weekend to be
birding and star-gazing.

Tracee Geernaert
tracee at iphc.washington.edu