Hi Tweeters,

The past week has been a wide ranging one for me. Last Friday afternoon,
my wife and I hiked up White's Ridge along the North Fork of the Ahtanum
west of Yakima in search of Spruce Grouse. On a tip from Randy Hill, and
following the success of Richard Repp and John Hebert, Chris and I found a
female Spruce Grouse after a couple of hours of searching. It was
essentially a lifer for me, since the only other Spruce Grouse I had seen
was a radio-tagged one (I was with the guy holding the radio).

On October 16 Warren Terrell and I tried for the Lesser Black-backed Gull
and Sharp-tailed Sandpiper at Sun Lakes State Park and Soap Lake. We
dipped on the gull but did find the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, which Marv
Breece was looking at when we got there.

Chris and I spent this week in Victoria, B.C. Our second stop after
getting off the ferry in Sidney was at the north end of Canora Road on the
east side of the Victoria airport. Within five minutes of arriving I had a
Skylark in my scope as it picked through the mowed grass at the edge of an
asphalt runway. Another lifer! On Thursday we stopped there again and I
saw at least three Skylarks, and possibly as many as six, as they displayed
overhead and pecked through the grass of the airport.

A drive along the beach at the south end of Victoria Tuesday added Black
Oystercatchers -- 95 in all, more than the entire total I have ever seen --
roosting on rocks at high tide and many Harlequin Ducks to the trip list.

On Wednesday we drove up the west coast of Vancouver Island, where I got a
photo of a Hermit Thrush as it paused from picking through the kelp on the
beach.

Photos of the Spruce Grouse, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Black Oystercatchers,
Harlequin Duck and Hermit Thrush are in the "new photos" folder of my
website (the link is in the signature line).

I hope you enjoy seeing them.

Denny Granstrand
Yakima, WA

* Denny Granstrand *
* Yakima, WA *
* dgranstrand at charter.net *
* Denny's bird photos can be seen online at: *
http://granstrand.net/gallery/