Subject: The Swan Chase
Date: Nov 20 14:05:36 1999
From: Larry & Jacque Goodhew - lgoodhew at clearwater.net


Hi All,
Seeing as how the Whooper Swans have left Mamit Lake and seeing
the post that Randy Hill had seen some swans from the air at Moses
Lake and Colombia NWR., we decided to hunt a bit for them. We looked
in most of the bodies of water between Walla Walla and Moses Lake.
We saw some big white birds at the mouth of the Walla Walla river
at Wallula, put the scope on them, 5 White Pelicans.
About 9:30am. we found 31 swan near McNary Wildlife headquarters
at Burbank. They were a bit far away, but believe they were all
Tundra Swans, no Whoopers in them. We found no swans at Colombia NWR.
That place has many bodies of water, we may have missed one or so. We
did see a male Northern Shrike, went on to Moses Lake, drove all
around that lake, except the far north tip. Didn't see any swan there
either.

Stopped at McNary on the return home about 3:30pm. and
could not relocate the swans there. We hope some of the rest of you
had better luck than we had.
For those of you who like other things that fly: at Moses Lake,
we spent a few minutes watching the big "gas hawks", Japan Airlines
747s do touch and goes. How those big things stay in the air is a
marvel. On the ramp were 5 PBYs and 1 B-23 Dragon. I believe this is
the only Dragon still flying, it was built in 1939. Those birds are
really old, all over 50 years old, worth a look even if you don't
understand planes much.
Sorry for the non-bird note, but these things fly too!

Larry and Jacque Goodhew from Walla Walla