Columbia Estuary Report - 12/06/98

A WHITE-TAILED KITE has been playing hide and seek around the Astoria
Airport all week.

The Lower Columbia Birders braved dark skies, steady rain mixed with snow
and just enough wind to make things uncomfortable.

We nixed the official plan to go across to the Lewis Unit of Willapa NWR
and opted for sparrows and wetland species around Youngs Bay. We found two
ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLERS one a very bright lutescens type.

SWAMP SPARROWS are still in the area. A noisey SORA was at the mitigation
bank on Sunday. Raptor watching is generally good around the airport as well.
AMERICAN KESTREL, both COOPER'S and SHARP-SHINNED HAWKS, NORTHERN HARRIERS
and RED-TAILS are all working the area west of the Airport.

A very pretty, white-headed ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK is at SJCR and I got a rare,
but satisfying look at a roadside RUFFED GROUSE on the road out to SJRC.

--
Mike Patterson "Change comes one funeral at a time"
Astoria, OR Doc Hatfield-in response to the question: Why
mpatters at orednet.org don't more cattlemen choose to use a proven
method of range management that is more
economically AND environmentally sound.

http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html