Natalie and I completed an interesting east and west side birding weekend
today with a drive around the River S Unit at the Ridgefield National
WIldlife Refuge, and the bonus sighting for the day was spotting and
photographing a funnel cloud that briefly reached toward the ground to
the north of the refuge near Woodland around 3:30 p.m. Despite the rain
and wind that whipped up enough to force us to help remove a tree top
that was blocking the road at one point in the loop, we saw 45 species at
Ridgefield. The biggest surprise was two AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS feeding
with while the thunderstorm raged in the distance in ponds along the
south end of the loop drive.

The trip to Ridgefield was our second bird watching jaunt of the weekend.
Saturday we drove to Yakima in a hurry for an Audubon meeting, and on our
way home we opted to meander up Canyon Road toward Ellensburg. It was
windy and overcast, but those turned out to be perfect conditions to get
close-up looks at COMMON NIGHTHAWKS in a camping area south of Umtanum
Creek, and then after crossing the Yakima River on the footbridge at
Umtanum Creek we had great looks at a YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT and a couple
of LAZULI BUNTING singing from the tops of bushes. Our other main
highlight was viewing a GOLDEN EAGLE soaring along the top of Umtanum Ridge.

It was a good weekend for birding and enjoying the wild outdoors!

--
Rob McNair-Huff ---------- Tacoma, WA
Author of Birding Washington (Falcon Publishing, 2004)
and Insider's Guide to the Olympic Peninsula (Globe Pequot, 2001)
White Rabbit Publishing ---- http://www.whiterabbits.com
Mac Net Journal ---------- http://www.macnetjournal.com
The Equinox Project ------ http://www.whiterabbits.com/weblog.html