Subject: Vantage area
Date: Mar 17 22:19:55 1999
From: Ray / Gilbert - janray at oz.net


Thanks to the person (Karen (?)) for posting about her birding in the
Wanapum Dam and Old Vantage highway area. We went out that way for the
first time on Sunday and had a great birding day - not a great quantity
of birds but 42 species between Wanapum and Ellensburg. And the cross
street refernece to Vantage Hwy and Caribou helped find the nesting
GREAT HORNED OWL we'd probably have missed.

Highlights included seeing and hearing many COMMON LOONS on the
Columbia, our first VIOLET GREEN SWALLOWS of the season, a northern
shrike, many RED TAILS (several on nests), a ROUGH LEGGED HAWK, great
views of several COMMON GOLDENEYES on the river, a ring-necked pheasant,
and a total of 5 bald eagles.

The most excitement was the sighting of a single female OLDSQUAW near
the Wanapum State Park boat launch swimming with a bunch of scaups. I
think of Oldsquaws as sea ducks and didn't anticipate one on the river.
Those of you who bird this area with regularity, is this a common
occurence, or did this poor girl just get blown in with recent storms?

We failed to spot any early bluebirds and couldn't find the gray crowned
rosy finches that were mentionned. Are there particular places to look
for the finches? How long do they hang around?

Again thanks for the suggestion. We had a grat day out of the rain.

Janet Ray
Preston WA
janray at oz.net