Subject: North Plains Drive
Date: Dec 24 14:47:25 1999
From: MarkJHoust at aol.com - MarkJHoust at aol.com


Wednesday and Thursday I drove from Spokane to Wenatchee and back, generally
taking the Hwy. 2 route both ways. In the Mondovi area between Reardan and
Davenport there was a noticeable lack of passerines, as there has been for
several weeks now. The only birds of note were a few Rough-legged Hawks. In
Davenport I checked out some of the mountain ash trees that have been heavily
laden with berries for a long time, and finally got some action with a bunch
of Robins and waxwings working away. The last couple of days I had told
different people that I had never seen Cedar Waxwings in winter in the
northern Lincoln County towns where the Bohemians normally come in waves, so
there was little doubt in my mind as to what they were, but dang if every one
of the thirty or so wasn't a CEDAR WAXWING.

Going on west there was an immature SNOWY OWL one mile east of Hartline along
the highway. It sat on a Primitive Road sign watching traffic, then flew
northeast to a center pivot irrigation system, where it sat on the pipe.
This is about 45 miles north of the Moses Lake Snowy Owl spot. I'm certainly
not assuming this is one of the birds seen there. On the west side of the
coulee I drove north through the St. Andrews area, which was the birdiest of
the trip, with a variety of raptors. I studied a SHORT-EARED OWL and saw two
TRUMPETER SWANS on Stallard Lake. There were no other swans. From there
through Mansfield there were a good number of ROUGH-LEGGED HAWKS, including a
dark phase individual on each side of that town. One of those was being
harassed by a Short-eared Owl.

On the return trip I again drove through Mansfield, and was struck by the
sighting of a large flock of HORNED LARKS! It feels like there is very
little chance of seeing a Snow Bunting when the sight of a Horned Lake on the
Waterville Plateau is worthy of mention. Going on east through Grand Coulee
and the ridge southeast of there negative data continued to be the news. At
least GYRFALCONS have been seen occasionally in different spots in Lincoln
County this winter, including one at my shed as I waved goodbye to the farm
near Creston about a month ago. The latest sighting I've heard about is one
east of Reardan near the county line last week.

Mark Houston
Spokane