Birders, This AM we floated six miles of the Yakima River
starting in Prosser, Benton County, WA.
The water was too low. We often got stuck on rocks &
had to paddle through much slack water. Of course it was
hot, uncomfortably so by 10 am. It took us four hours.
No great birds, but some interesting numbers, especially
the fish eaters. With the low water, there were easy takings.
We also counted 8 cows & ten horses in the river!!

Was a little surprised to find two ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLERS
which I assume are early migrants.

Rough estimates of the bird numbers are:

3 Double-cr Cormorant
50 Great Blue Herons (with youngens)
10 Black-crowned Herons (2 immatures)
50 Wood Ducks
30 Mallard
2 Kestrel
20 Killdeer
40 Spotted Sandpiper
1 Snipe
100 Ring-billed Gulls
50 Caspian Terns
50 Rock Dove
20 Mourning Dove
1 BARN OWL (only our 3rd for the year+two road kills)
1 Nighthawk
2 Belted Kingfisher
1 Downy Woodpecker
1 Flicker
3 Western Wood-Pewee (low?)
2 Western Kingbird
125 Eastern Kingbird (lots)
100 Bank Swallow
100 Barn Swallow
? Cliff Swallow (don't remember any, but may have missed them)
50 Magpie
60 Crow
2 Black-capped Chickadee
10 Bewicks Wren
50 Robin
1 GRAY CATBIRD (heard mewing)
3 Cedar Waxwing
100 Starling
2 ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER
2 YELLOW WARBLER (low)
15 Black-headed Grosbeaks (only 1 was singing, lots of chip notes though)
3 Lazuli Buntings (low)
30 Song Sparrows
20 Red-wing Blackbirds
20 Brewer's Blackbirds
20 damn Cowbirds
4 Oriole
5 House Finch
20 American Goldfinch
10 House Sparrows

Good Birding
Craig

Craig Corder & Judy Stevens
Hermiston, Oregon, USA
Umatilla County in north/central/eastern Oregon
ccorder at eoni.com