Columbia Estuary Report -- 1/27/97

The BURROWING OWL reported Friday at parking lot C (SJCR) of Ft Stevens
St Pk was still hanging out in the driftwood Saturday morning. An all
white (with just a few black specks) SNOWY OWL was also there. It was
clearly hunting along the shoreline of the river beach in a low methodical
fashion. It finally landed in a spruce in the dunes. I have now seen 3
distinctly different birds and a fourth that does match the descriptions
of any of these has also been reported. The record for one day sightings
ant Ft Stevens still stands at 3.

BALD EAGLES appear to be moving into the Columbia Estuary as expected in
January. The density of sub-adult birds has noticeably increased.

There are now 2 OLDSQUAWS at the end of 6th street in Astoria among the
scaup, scoters and goldeneye.

Three neck banded CANADA GEESE were at the west end of Chinook Valley Rd.
The collars were green with white letters (T.73, T.78 & X.31). They were
in a flock of 270 birds about 10% of which had metal legs bands. 2 TRUMPETER
SWANS were on the Chinook River just north of the Chinook R bridge on Hwy 101.
A small flock of Trumpeters has been wintering on Black Lake in Ilwaco.

--
*********************************** I got the blues so bad one time
* Mike Patterson, Astoria, OR * it put my face in a permenant frown
* mpatters at orednet.org * but I am feelin' so much better
*http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters* I could cake-walk into town