Hello Dennis and Tweeters,
I know exactly how you felt to see this many birds.It is realy overwhelming
to experience such event.Iheard birders trying to find a good migration
trap.I always was wondering when birders talking or writing about
fallouts,that most of this was exaggerete.But it took18 years of birding to
experince this myself.We was on a Big Day for the Yakima county on May the
11th of this year.As we approached our last stop on Hyw12 and 410 exact
place the irrigation canal.This is also our stop on the birdathon in many
years to get the Yellow breasted Chat.Never we had such amount happen
there.We had Nahsville Warblers Orange-crowned Warbler,Yellow rumped
Warblers and Ruby-croned Kinglet in the hundreds.We did not counted this
birds at the time as we was thinking this is a count for the species,but it
would be impossible to count all this Warblers.We are real good to count
Shorebirds counting 50 at one time and than multiplying.But this was to much
to realy count ,so in the final we this guessed how many,what proable was
exaggereted.You have any idea how many you had?We went the followring
week,and stopped there,but it was no birds there only the birds what we
always expected.I heard of fallouts from birders in texas where the birds
this falling down,but in Wahington this is rare.I am pleased you was writing
this up,and ask other birders maybe to write there experince with fallouts
up from Washington
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis K Rockwell" <dennis.rockwell at gte.net>
To: "Tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>; "Inlanders"
<inland-nw-birders at uidaho.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 5:40 PM
Subject: [inland-NW-birders] migrant fallout


> 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)
>
>
> ____
> To leave the list, send UNSUBSCRIBE INLAND-NW-BIRDERS to
> majordomo at uidaho.edu. To join use SUBSCRIBE INLAND-NW-BIRDERS.