Hi all. I've been away from computer for a while, so I apologize if some of
this is late. A few notings of spring arrivals in and around the Coulee
lakes area of north central Washington.
Grasshopper Sparrows arrived on territory in the Jameson Lake area on April
7, quite early. They seem to be in fairly well as of today with 2-3 birds
per 20 ha in the grasslands and males being territorial.
Went out to the Wilson Creek marsh yesterday evening to check on the
Tri-colored colony, many blackbirds, could only verify about 8-10 male
Tri-colored and a couple of females, but they are back at this location.
Up until Thursday of this week there had been an impressive staging of
Common Loons at Blue Lake (just south of Dry Falls in the lower coulee
chain). The high count I had on Monday eve of this week (4/12) was 36 Common
Loons, all in alternate plumage, a rather nice sight!
Good numbers of Sage Grouse males still at leks around the Jameson Lake
area. Crane and Geese migration is well underway, I'm seeing flyover of
60-70 Cranes each morning and 5-6 flights of geese a morning, just east of
Jameson Lake, with each flight averaging 80-100 birds. Nothing really
unusual in any of the flights, though one on Thursday morning (4/16) did
have 2 Greater white-fronted geese mixed in.

Hope everyone else is enjoying the great spring weather and early arrival of
migrants.

Scott Downes
downess at charter.net
Yakima/Coulee City WA