I've been busy, so I hadn't posted it to Tweeters until Denny's account
appeared, but we saw Stilts on 26 March near Othello at Scootenay
Reservoir. Other highlights were 1200 Cranes and 5 Avocets at
Scootenay and a Burrowing Owl on Frenchman's Hill Rd. The complete list
(not in exact checklist order; sorry) is below.

Itinerary was a stop at Scootenay Reservoir and the "potato ponds" just
north of Othello on the 26th, then a meander through the Columbia National
Wildlife Refuge ("seep ponds" area) south of the Potholes Reservoir on the
27th, and back west to I-90 by way of Frenchman's Ridge Rd..

Numbers below are not exact counts. Perhaps best to treat them as order
of magnitude estimates.

SPECIES ROUGH NUMBERS COMMENTS
Grebe sp. 1 Horned or Eared; Potholes Res.
Great Blue Heron 1
Double-cr. Cormorant ~10
Am. Coot 35
N Harrier 15
Rough Legged Hawk 4
Red tailed Hawk 2
Cooper's Hawk 1
Am Kestrel 5
Canada Goose ~3,000 2500+ at Scootenay; more elsewhere
Mallard ~50
Green-w. Teal ~20
Am. Wigeon ~15
Gadwall ~10
N. Pintail ~20
N. Shoveler 5 Potato ponds
Common Merganser 3 Scootenay
Redhead 6
L. Scaup 50 Potato ponds
Ring-necked Duck 30
C. Goldeneye 20 Wildly displaying on seep ponds
Dufflebags 15 I mean "Buffleheads"
Ring-billed Gull 150
Kildeer 4
Gr. Yellowlegs?? 2 Backlit at 3./4 mile; Scootneay.
Black-necked Stilt 22 17 at Scootnay, 5 at Potato ponds
Am. Avocet 5 Scootenay
L.B. Curlew 8 Wonderful flight displays all over
CNWR - every time you got out of
the car, you heard them.
Sandpiper sp. 50 Distant flock of sm. pipers at Scoot
R.N. Pheasant 4
Mourning Dove 5
Rock Dove 20
Burrowing Owl 1 Frenchman Hills Rd. just E of
"E SW", by irrigation pipe
Say's Phoebe 1 CNWR
Horned Lark 6 CNWR
W. Meadowlark 100s Ubiquitous
Rough-winged Swallow 1 Scootenay
Swallow sp. 25 Tree/VG at 50 mph nr Othello
Sage Thrasher 1 I-90 rest stop west of the Columbia
Am. Crow 100
Black-billed Magpie 10
Common Raven 20
Am. Robin 5
Eur. Starling 20
Red-winged Blackbird 50
Brewers Blackbird 150
Yellow-headed Blackbirds 40 all at Potato ponds
Marsh Wren 3
Dark-eyed Junco 10 Dodson Rd.
Savannah Sp. 4 CNWR
House Sparrow 75

That's about it.

Chris Hill
Everett, WA
cehill at u.washington.edu
206-258-3680





On Sat, 5 Apr 1997, Denny Granstrand wrote:

> Hi Tweeters,
>
> I took a group of people through Lower Crab Creek and north to I-90 today
> and found between 4000 and 5000 Sandhill Cranes along Lower Crab Creek. They
> were just east of where the Lower Crab Creek Road turns north to go to
> Highway 26, spread out for over a mile along the creek. We witnessed a very
> impressive fly-in of cranes and got pretty good looks at them, though the
> heat waves made viewing a little less than desirable. There were also about
> 75 cranes beside the pond on the south side of Highway 26 just west of the
> Adams/Grant county line.
>
> Other sightings of note were six Black-necked Stilts and one Dunlin. Two
> stilts were on a small pond on the north side of Highway 26 about three
> miles east of Royal City and four were at the pond on the north side of
> Highway 26 just west of the Adams/Grant county line. The Dunlin was on a
> pond on the east side of Dodson Road about three and a half miles south of
> I-90. According to Appendix 4 in "Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest" by
> Dennis Paulson, the earliest date of Spring migration in the interior of the
> Northwest for Black-necked Stilt is April 5 and for Dunlin also April 5 but
> with isolated records before April 5. I was surprised that we didn't see
> any American Avocet inspite of migration records being much earlier than for
> the stilts.
>
> Also of interest were two Caspian Terns on the same pond as the Dunlin and
> twenty Western Sandpipers on the north pond at the Adams/Grant county line.
>
> I was surprised to see seven Turkey Vulture circling over 32nd Ave. and
> Chestnut in Yakima just up the street from my house as we were returning
> home. They were close enough to get them on my neighborhood list.
>
> Denny Granstrand
> Yakima, WA
>
>