Andrew & Audrey wrote:
>
> Th 6th Wahkiakum Christmas Bird Count, including the Columbia River
> towns of Knappa, Brownsmead and Westport in Oregon and Skamokawa and
> Cathlamet in Washington, was held on Dec 30. It was 30?F at dawn, and
> the temperature never broke 35? with a chilly SE wind for much of the
> day. Nevertheless, we had 26 participants, far exceeding our previous
> participant numbers of 11-13. The more thorough coverage helped us
> find 104 species, about average, on a relatively difficult day to find
> birds. We were able to put 12 people out on the Columbia, 10 in kayaks
> and two in the J.B. Hansen Refuge jet boat, allowing us to cover
> islands and waters that often had to be left uncounted in past years.
> New to the count was a Savannah Sparrow in Mike Patterson found in
> Brownsmead. Other highlights included the Black Phoebe that has been
> seen three winters running at the Julia Butler Hansen Refuge
> Headquarters, two Wrentits found up in the snow on Big Noise Creek, a
> Red-breasted Merganser near Rockland and three Swamp Sparrows. A
> Long-billed Dowitcher was in the tidal marsh across from the J.B.
> Hansen Refuge maintenance barn. I1m going to continue trying to verify
> a possible Sora in the same place. 13 Gray Jays were found, most in
> lowland areas where we had never found them before, such as in
> Taylorville and next to tidal Skamokawa Creek. Two of the Horned Larks
> wintering on White1s Island were found. None of the other count circle
> islands on which the Horned Larks breed appear to have a wintering
> population.
> We counted 8872 Greater Scaup, making it once again the most
> abundant bird in the circle. Wahkiakum has since its inception
> recorded more Greater Scaup than any other circle in the Northwest,
> but more thorough coverage of the river allowed us to break our
> previous count circle record of about 6900.
> Many thanks are due to all the people who helped count this year,
> especially Darrel Whipple, who stepped in to organize volunteers on
> the Oregon side.
> -Andrew Emlen, compiler
>

--
Mike Patterson
Astoria, OR
celata at pacifier.com

You've got to accentuate the positive
eliminate the negative
latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mr. In-Between.
- Johnny Mercer

http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html