Greetings all,

Mike Donahue and I birded portions of southern Washington Friday and
Saturday morning, with plans of heading down to Newport for a Pelagic
saturday off Oregon. Unfortnately weather and wind canceled the trip, but
we decided to still do some birding anyways.

Our first stop friday morning was along the Dike Access Road in Woodland,
Cowlitz County. This began our dreary rain filled morning and afternoon.
Our main highlight was the CLAY-COLORED SPARROW that Steve Mlodinow found
the weekend prior on the left side of a ditch along Caples Road which is
directly off Dike Access Road going along the river dike. It immediately
popped up once we arrived and I began "pishing" Also there were several
Song Sparrows and a lone Lincoln Sparrow.

We then birded Sauvie Island in Oregon hoping to come upon a goose with a
white head, but prolonged driving on the roads throughout the island only
provided us with the typical wintering races of Canada Goose. One
White-throated Sparrow was seen on Rentenaar Road on the north side of the
island. The pellet plant on the island was unfortunately devoid of any gull
life, save a few Glaucous-wings.

Lower River Road along Vancouver Lake-to Post Office Lake wasn't much
better, with us observing the usual Geese suspects, none with white heads or
being all solid white themselves. A Great Horned Owl was sitting in a tree
along Lower River Road, and a few Peregrines were seen in flight east of
Vancouver Lake.

We checked the large blackbird flock that contained the Rusty the previous
weekend, but much of the flock remained out of view, as we couldn't really
get a good vantage point to see into the pasture. So unfortunately, no
blackbird for us.

We then drove along Hwy 14 along the Columbia River Gorge, and stayed in the
Dalles for the night, to bird the Maryhill-Lyle-Bingen area in the morning.
The Maryhill Museum was actually quite birdy, though no unusual sparrows
were found in the mixed Zono and Junco flocks. We had 3 Lesser Goldfinch in
with about 50 American Goldfinch, but no red-capped siskin relatives on any
of our morning stops. We drove throughout the side roads of Lyle looking
for bird feeders, and we found one active one, with the highlight there
being a surprise, a CHIPPING SPARROW.
North of Lyle, along Balch Lake, we had a pair of Wood Ducks, and several
Lewis's Woodpeckers working the area.

Then we headed back to rainland, where we attempted the Clay-colored Sparrow
on the return trip, but it was quite rainy and windy, and if it was there,
it stayed hunkered down.
Tis all

Note the new E-mail address ( at home.com unfortnately went bankrupt, thefore
no more rtshaw80 at home.com)
Cheers and Good Birding

Ryan Shaw - Lacey
rtshaw80 at hotmail.com

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