Our Internet server is down, so I don't know when this message will go out.
Bob Flores and I risked our lives driving through dense fog at dark-thirty
this morning (Friday), headed for Chelan to look for the hawk owl. We
joined many
others who may be posting also. As of 11 a.m. there was no sign of the owl.
(A goshawk did show itself, a northern shrike, and various other more common
species.) We headed for the Wells Wildlife Area, where raptors were out in
spite of heavy overcast. The Foster Creek unit had one sharp-tailed grouse
and a flock of about 20 small finches that probably were redpolls. ( We
could
not figure out where they landed, if they did.) The drive to Mansfield,
Chester Butte, St. Andrews, and US 2 produced many hundred (thousand?)
horned larks but no snow buntings or longspurs, half a dozen N. shrikes, and
several rough-legged hawks. Along SR 17 the north end of Alkali Lake had 51
tundra swans, and Lake Lenore had 4 trumpeters. (Additional waterfowl
surveys this week from northern Franklin County to the Columbia River as far
north as Bridgeport turned up more than 300 tundras, plus one trumpeter at
Columbia NWR.)

Also this afternoon, a gyrfalcon was reported from the Adams County
Fairgrounds just south of Othello (there was one reported there on Christmas
day.) We'll probably try to track it down tomorrow.

Randy Hill
Othello
hill at cbnn.net