----- Original Message -----
From: georn1
To: tweeters at u.washington.com
Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 7:48 AM
Subject: Yesterday east of the cascades


Yesterday my brother Tim and I birded a few areas from the Old Vantage Highway, down along the Columbia River, and over Umtanum Ridge past Wenas to Naches. Beautiful weather (sun with little if any wind) and a nice wildflower showing in the scrub steppe zone made it worth the trip alone. Oh yeh, there were some good birds also. Along the Old Vantage Highway we had good numbers of Sage Sparrows (12), Vesper and Brewers Sparrows, Say's Phoebe, many Sage Thrashers and Mountain Bluebirds, and Horned Lark among others. There was also an immature Rough-legged Hawk and a fine, crisp looking adult Northern Shrike. The better sage areas were alive with singing sparrows and thrashers. Down along Huntzinger (sp?) Rd we checked for Black throated Sparrow with no luck (This was expected as it is way early). The Columbia was like glass and it was a great place to be. Many Rock Wrens were singing, lot's of Cliff swallows checking out the cliffs, several Say's Phoebes were scattered about, and 2 Loggerhead Shrikes were down by the railroad trestle. We found only 1 loon, a common, below the dam but we did not look very hard.
Mostly usual and expected stuff through the rest of the day. However, Tim did kick up an immature Harris's Sparrow and a couple of Golden Crowns in a large flock of White Crowns near the RV park/ grocery across the road from Wenas Lake. The weather stopped cooperating about this time and we headed back w/ not much else to report.
Cheers and Good Birding,
Bill Shelmerdine, Olympia