Columbia Estuary Report - 1/10/99

The ARCTIC LOON was seen again today. Apparently, quite a few people
have gone twitching this bird with mixed success. It was first seen today
near the railroad crossing and was floating upstream. A word of caution:
much of this area is on private property. Please be sensitive and stay
out of posted areas. The people of Brownsmead are generally nice and
tolerant, but their patience should not be tested. Thank you.

There are plenty of interesting sparrows at the mitigation bank sparrow
patch near Astoria Airport. On Saturday, a VIRGINIA RAIL was seen by the
Lower Columbia Birders group, apparently taking advantage of seed that
had been spread for the sparrows.

The WHITE-TAILED KITE at the airport has taken up a very watchable position
across from the old bunker of Airport Rd and was well observed.

1680 SANDERLINGS and 420 DUNLIN were on Clatsops Beach on Sunday.

In herptological news: The Astoria High School 9th grade science classes
had good luck on their inventory of selected watershed sites near Astoria.
Cool finds included a NORTHWESTERN SALAMANDER (_Ambystoma gracile_) that
measured 87mm from nose to vent, good numbers of ENSATINA (_Ensatina
eschscholtzii_), including many very small first winter individuals, at least
a dozen COLUMBIA TORRENT SALAMANDERS (_Rhyacotriton kezeri_), WESTERN RED-
BACKED SALAMANDER (_Plethodon vehiculum_) and at least one DUNN'S SALAMANDER
(_Plethodon dunni_). Also found were several melanistic Plethodons which
could not be sorted to species.

--
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