Wednesday, January 21, 1997 (Day 2) --

A most pleasant day exploring and birding around Asotin County once I promptly
rose above the Snake River Valley morning fog up along Cloverland Road (early
to mid morning). Sunny and increasingly colder heading south on the plateau
which was snowless until reaching the low-end treeline near the start of the
Umatilla NF (~3600 ft) where the snow cover was generally around 6 inches.
That meadowy Ponderosa Pine dappled edge looks like potential habitat for a
Great Gray Owl sometime, but not this day or before my eyes. The forested
areas were dead dead dead and I found nothing but *one* little flock of
Mountain Chickadees, Red-breasted Nuthatches, with one Brown Creeper. The
forest interior of course is closed with roads groomed for snow mobiling.
Otherwise, the treeless plateau with it's areas of grassland maintained for
upland gamebird hunting were loaded with a foraging Northern Harriers (23). A
return visit at dusk noted the Harriers plunging into the deep grass to roost,
while the 'night shift' of Short-eared Owls (4) took over the hunt.

Otherwise, I spent the rest of the day working slowly westward through that
fabulous beautiful 14-mile segment of Asotin Creek (Asotin Road, west of
Asotin) riparian habitat up to the point just a half-mile west of the Asotin
Creek WMA check station at the start to the Winter Game Range where the road
is gated and closed to all but foot traffic. This is a great area with great
potential at any season.

Highlights along there were a pair of BEWICK'S WRENS singing and scolding and
being quite conspicuous. These birds along with Winter Wren and Ruby-crowned
Kinglets were seen along Asotin Road, 0.3 miles west of the Cloverland /
Asotin Rd intersection [DeLorme p43, T10N, R45E, Sect 26sw]. There is a metal
gate and a small spot to park along the south side of the road. All through
the Asotin Creek valley were numerous Rock Wrens (17+) along the rocky cliff
face and five Townsend's Solitares. Western Screech Owls were quite vocal at
several spots including the Bewick's Wren site in late afternoon and shortly
after dark.

No one can really appreciate how *tiny* a PIGMY OWL is until you've seen one
perched on an overhead power line. Such was the case of a bird encountered
near the gate closure at the start of the winter game range [DeLorme p43, T9N,
R44E, Sect 9se]. Initially the bird was seen perched out in the open along
the road. An hour later, coming back from a walk beyond the gate, the owl was
perched on the power line. In the tree and 20 feet away, it looked fine and
normal and like a typical Pigmy Owl, but by the time it was seen on the power
line, it looked like the bird had shrunk and compacted by about 10 times! At
first glance I had no idea what it was -- looked like a ball of wind blown
weed fluff wrapped around the power line or something. Very weird!

A little light rain overnight, but this early am intellicast radar on the
computer looks like today will be mostly dry for explorations south along the
Snake and Grand Ronde River. The outlook for rest of the week looks like it
may be wet or white in the NE and Pend Oreille. Oh well... just have to deal
with that when I get there. Gotta run; I want to be at my southern starting
point on the Oregon border and Chief Joseph Wildlife Area at first light.
Don't count on these daily updates. Some days and times may just be
impractical or impossible.

Richard Rowlett (Pagodroma at aol.com)
(on the road; Clarkston, Asotin Co., WA)