Yesterday (4/5/03) Netta and I woke up and decided we needed a day out of
the city, and a worthwhile goal seemed to be to go find some cranes, so we
left Seattle at 7:30 am and headed across I-90. We drove down to Beverly,
then up Lower Crab Creek to hwy 26, east to the ponds near the Adams-Grant
County line, back up to Frenchman Hills Road, then Dodson Road to I-90,
stopping at a few places along I-90 as far west as the Roslyn exit, back
home by 6:30 pm.

We started keeping track of bird species, and I was impressed at the end of
the day that we had recorded 77 species with little effort on a day of
mediocre weather at best (high winds in the Columbia Basin had all the small
birds lying low, cold and snowing at higher elevations). With serious
effort, I think you could find 100 species on the first weekend in April on
this route. We found nothing at all out of the ordinary, but it was great
to be out, and the farther east we drove, the more it felt like spring. The
balsamroot and phlox were in full bloom at the lower elevations, and we
found quite a few other early wildflowers in our peripheral perambulations.

Fortunately, we did indeed find cranes, along the road from Corfu to highway
26, west of Othello. The sky was full of them, in fact, hundreds of them
lifting from the fields just as we arrived there, circling up on a strong
west wind, and heading off to unknown destinations farther west. I don't
think I've ever heard so many cranes calling at once, and it was truly
magical as flock after flock soared above us to sufficient altitude, then
set their wings for a long westward glide. It was neat to see so many crane
flight paths at once, as individual birds or pairs were scattered all over
the sky, along with discrete flocks of up to 30 or more birds.

Other birds of interest included 5 avocets and 12 stilts at the "county
line" ponds, along with 45 or so Dunlins and hundreds of (Lesser) Canada
Geese. Also a half-dozen stilts, two Dunlins, and 3 Greater Yellowlegs at
the ponds at Frenchman Hills and Dodson roads, along with a plethora of
pochards (all but Greater Scaup were there, crisply attired in blacks,
grays, reds, and whites). A half-dozen Long-billed Curlews displayed and
bickered in an alfalfa field on highway 262 near Royal City.

You can never see enough owls, so we made a point to seek out the Burrowing
and Great Horned known to be nesting near that junction. The usual
open-country hawks were much in evidence, with kestrels all over the wires,
male harriers feeding their mates, and Rough-legs hanging around while their
Arctic breeding habitat is still locked in ice and snow.

The common bird species just add up one after another on a trip like this.
It's funny how many times one of us said "we haven't seen species X yet, and
this looks like a good place for it," and - bingo - species X would appear.
Quite a few expected species didn't appear, however, and a little extra
searching would have produced some of them. Our last species to be added
were circling Turkey Vultures and a calling Blue Grouse at the Roslyn exit,
but we couldn't ferret out any passerines from the dark forest. We had
returned to winter.

Anyone driving eastbound between Ellensburg and Vantage on I-90 at this time
of year should stop at the rest area, where someone is putting out bird seed
and the Least Chipmunks come from all around to harvest it. This little
rodent has a rather restricted range in Washington, and this is surely the
best place to see it well. It's a bit smaller and duller than the familiar
Yellow Pine Chipmunk that is widespread in all wooded areas (and often
extending into sagebrush) east of the Cascade crest. Seed-eating birds also
come to the seed, mostly White-crowned Sparrows and House Finches, and I
guess you never know what might appear in migration.

Dennis
--
Netta Smith and Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115