Subject: North Potholes Reserve/Wanapum/Para Ponds
Date: Feb 29 20:12:18 2004
From: Doug Schonewald - dschone8 at donobi.net


Hi Tweets,

Barb and I spent a beautiful day birding the North Potholes Reserve and the
Wanapum Dam area.
The North Potholes Reserve offered good numbers of roosting Bald Eagles and
over 100 Great Blue Herons at the heron rookery. A nice display on a bright
sunny day. Also located at the reserve were 5 singing Bewick's Wren. We
finally located 2 BUSHTITS of the interior race, our target bird, loosely
associating with a group of Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned Kinglets. We
were able to observe a pair of Downy Woodpeckers as they displayed their
mating behavior during most of our visit.
Wanapum Dam tailrace and pool produced all the usual suspects, with a few
highlights. Along Huntzinger Road were many Greater Scaup mingled with
Lesser Scaup offering a good educational opportunity. Also along Huntzinger
Road were two male Red-breasted Mergansers.
At the Para Ponds feedlot near Othello we were able to locate a few
Tricolored Blackbirds mixed in with the large numbers of Brewer's, Red-wing,
and Yellow-headed Blackbirds.
All in all a very nice day.

Cheers and good birding
Doug Schonewald
Moses Lake, WA
dschone8 at donobi.net