Subject: Ermine & White-fronted Goose: Yes; Great Gray Owl: No
Date: Feb 13 12:03:38 2004
From: gina sheridan - gsherida8502 at yahoo.com


On a cold but sunny Wednesday morning, we visited Ron
Dexter's with the hope of seeing an ermine that has
been visiting his meadow. After standing in the early
morning cold for half an hour, my companions retired
to the house and I was left to study the snowy
landscape. After another ten minutes or so, I saw a
furry white head stick out of a large patch of
snowberries and grab a piece of sausage that Ron had
set out. The weasel saw me and then retreated into
it's burrow. However, I could hear some rustling in
the bushes and the weasel popped in and out of cover
to see who was out there in it's territory. Almost
comically, it popped out of another burrow that was
out in the open and I could see the whole animal. This
was a Long-tailed Weasel in full winter white (ermine)
pelage.

The weasel had black eyes, overall white colored fur,
and the tail was long, buffy tinged, and black. It was
extremely agile and quick. After a couple of minutes,
it headed down into the riparian shrubbery that lined
the creek. This was truly a beautiful little critter!

On our way out, we saw a pair of Ruffed Grouse along
the road. Since we were half way out to Coeur D'Alene,
we decided to try for the Mew and Thayer's Gulls again
at Independence Point. On this occasion, we easily
found the first year MEW GULL right at the shoreline.
Per usual, we saw lots of the regular gull customers,
but no Thayer's.

Wolf Lodge Bay still hosted a couple of Bald Eagles,
plenty of Common Mergansers, a pair of Hooded
Mergansers, a pair of Red-necked Grebes, and a Common
Loon, but no Red-Breasted Merganser.

On Thursday (2/12/04), the Cottets and I did the big
drive down to Walla Walla for the Great Gray Owl.
After two hours (8-10 AM)of traversing both the lower
and upper trails as well as the upland shelterbelt, we
only turned up No. Harrier, a distant unidentified
accipitor, a Krieder's Red-tail Hawk, Great Horned
Owl, and a few robins and magpies. The Great Gray Owl
was no where to be seen.

In the delta, we saw a few other interesting birds.
We watched a hungry Cooper's Hawk stalking a pheasant
along the southern fenceline of the Iowa Beef dump
complex. A first year GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL was in the
dump. Although we scanned through a sizable flock of
Brewer's Blackbirds but could not turn up a Rusty
Blackbird. We saw flock of fifteen DUNLIN in the
delta.

In the Burbank Slough of NcNary NWR, we spied a lone
WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE from the blind. Several
YELLOW-HEADED BACKBIRDs were amongst a large flock of
Red-wings. There were plenty of juncos, Song Sparrows,
a few White-crowns, but no unusual passerines.

Gina Sheridan
Spokane, WA

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