Subject: Waterville Plateau...YES!!
Date: Feb 11 16:03:42 2002
From: David Beaudette - drtbrdr at earthlink.net


Spent the weekend of 9,10 February 2002 observing birds on the Waterville
Plateau in Douglas County.

The recent snow has brought more Horned Larks back to the roads.
I tried to count them along this route, starting at the west end of the
plateau: east on US 2, then south and east on SR 172 with a side trip down
Slusser Road [6NW]near Withrow, then south on SR 17, then east on SR
174 to Smith Lake Road [several miles before the Grant County line].
On Saturday I came up with about 1500. On Sunday I came up with about 900.
There was some sun on Saturday which melted a little of the snow, opening up
habitat away from the road. Makes me wonder how they can be censused
when there is little snow, as many, perhaps most, of the birds would be away
from roadside viewing.

I noticed a lark that got struck by a car and was immediatedly snatched up
by a Common Raven...very fast. Ay first I though the timing was pure luck
for the raven.
Then I noticed that most sizeable flocks of larks on a busy road had one or
two
Common Ravens very near, looking over the situation. You could go down the
road, see a large flock of larks and most of the time a raven or two would
be right there. This would explain the almost total lack of dead birds on
the road.

Makes me wonder what percentage of these larks die that way in a big snow
year...when the birds would spend a lot of time on the roads. Could be a
high
percentage in a place with busy traffic like the plateau. I kept my speed
down to about 40 or so to avoid hitting any of the Horned Larks. Why are the
larks on the roads? Does anyone know?

Snow Buntings...10+ mixed in with Horned Larks along Slusser Road on 9 Feb.
A pure flock of 200+ at MP 5.5 on SR 174 on 10 Feb.

The Buteo ratio on Sunday was 1 Red-tailed Hawk for every 5 Rough-legged
Hawks.

An adult gray morph Gyrfalcon was sitting atop a glacial erratic along SR
174 at MP 14.

A Prairie Falcon along the Smith Lake Road.

Good Birding,
Dave Beaudette
Wenatchee
drtbrdr at earthlink.net