On Sunday, June 1, I had an opportunity to spend seven hours on the Turnbull
NWR near Cheney with Spokane birder Joanne Powell. This is an 18,000-acre
refuge of Channeled Scablands that supports a pattern of wetlands, rock,
ponderosa pine and aspen forests, grassland and shrub steppe habitat. Over
200 birds have been recorded within the refuge. An interesting aside is
that it is our only National Wildlife Refuge in this area on which hunting
has never been allowed. There are no spent shotgun shells and virtually no
litter. This is not a well-known refuge but well worth a weekend trip for
Wetside birders. (It is a solid four-hour drive from Seattle.) It?s only
four miles from Cheney where motels are available. It is a quiet and
quietly-beautiful site. It hosts an auto route with four or five stops with
clean portable toilets or new wheelchair-accessible outhouses. There are
opportunities to walk at each stop. There are also walking trails south of
the headquarters. Mammals we saw were chipmunks, red squirrel, muskrat,
beaver, and one young bull elk. We did not see great numbers of any one
species of bird but we saw 42 different species. We did not see any
warblers, hummingbirds (in spite of blooming flowers), or Western
Meadowlarks. In taxonomic order we saw:

Pied-billed Grebe (several on each pond/lake)
Great Blue Heron
Tundra Swan (1)
Canada Goose (10)
Gadwall (several and more on each pond/lake)
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal (1 drake)
Cinnamon Teal (1 drake)
Northern Shoveler
Canvasback
Redhead
Ruddy Duck (drakes and hens on each pond/lake))
Osprey (1 adult near a nest in a snag)
Northern Harrier (male and female)
Red-tailed Hawk
California Quail
American Coot (lots of adults and downy chicks)
Killdeer
Baird?s Sandpiper (1)
Ring-billed Gull
Black Tern (quite a few over the lakes to the south of refuge headquarters)
Mourning Dove
Downy Woodpecker (1 male, 1 female)
Northern Flicker (several)
Western Wood-Pewee (several)
Eastern Kingbird (5-10)
Barn Swallow
House Wren
Marsh Wren (heard and seen)
Gray Catbird (2)
Western Bluebird (5+)
American Robin
Black-capped chickadee (several)
Pygmy Nuthatch (several)
Black-billed Magpie
Song Sparrow (several)
Red-winged Blackbird (multiple)
Yellow-headed Blackbird (multiple)
Brewer?s Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Bullock?s Oriole (1 male)
American Goldfinch (male and female)

Good birding,
Carol Riddell
Edmonds