I'll preface this missive with the admission that all my birding, up till
this point in time, has been done in Washington, Oregon, the Idaho
panhandle, western Montana & southern British Columbia. (If I win the
lottery before too long then I'll go for Phoebe Snetsinger's record, but
until then, time, money & the obligations of family are a reality that must
be accepted.) Therefore, having never been to Point Pelee or Cape May, I
had never experienced a real migrant fallout, until today.

However, today in Two Rivers County Park located in Benton County on the
bank of the Columbia River directly across stream from the mouth of the
Snake River I had a truly memorable birding experience when I discovered the
following list of birds out on the peninsula in the developed (landscaped)
area of the park.

1 juvenile CHIPPING SPARROW - It took me a long time to come up with the ID
on this bird as the possiblity
of
encountering a migrant still in juvenile plumage didn't occur to me right
away.

The warblers and vireos were impossible to count and I haven't even been
able to come up with any estimates that I would feel good suggesting, so
I'll just say that that there were numerous examples of each species I saw
and some more than others and that for a morning in August in eastern
Washington it was staggering.

WARBLING VIREO

ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER
NASHVILLE WARBLER
YELLOW WARBLER (all females !)
TOWNSEND'S WARBLER
MacGILLIVRAY'S WARBLER
WILSON'S WARBLER

And just to sweeten the morning, the river level was down and thus some mud
and sand flats were exposed and so I also saw:

1 GREATER YELLOWLEGS
1 LESSER YELLOWLEGS
1 WESTERN SANDPIPER
3 SPOTTED SANDPIPER

Other birds noted:

OSPREY
AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN
BELTED KINGFISHER
a pie full of HOUSE FINCHES

All in all, not a bad morning for carrying the binos around while working.


Dennis Rockwell Kennewick, WA dennis.rockwell at gte.net

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices.

William James (1842-1910)