Hi Tweeters,

This afternoon at about 3:15 I found a male Tufted Duck just south of
Wanapum State Park along Huntzinger Road south of Vantage, Kittitas County,
in a large flock of scaup, most Greaters but there were a few Lessers,
also. There was also one male Harlequin Duck in the flock, my first winter
Harlequin in Eastern Washington. The flock was about 200 yards south of
the park when I first saw the Tufted Duck. All of the ducks were moving
upstream fairly quickly and when they got about even with the park, they
all flew north toward Vantage. I searched for them briefly, and also for
the Glaucous Gull the Sullivans found yesterday, then worked my way south.

I intended to clock the mileage from the dam to the cliff the
rosy-finches. When I got to the cliff, there were three birders standing
against the guard rail on the side of the north-bound lane and their car
parked in the middle of the south bound lane. There were areas to pull off
the road within 75 yards in each direction of the cliff but these birders
decided to park right in the middle of the lane. It was quite irritating
to see this, due to all of the negative publicity we (birders) have gotten
from for people trespassing, international incidents, etc. I was a little
curt when I stopped in front of them but did tell them about the Tufted
Duck. I still feel I should have said something about safety issues and
what non-birding people driving up the road would think about them. After
I found a place to turn around, there was another car parked in the middle
of the lane in front of the first car with two more people standing there
looking at rosy-finches. Is a 75-yard hike up a hill too much effort?

Photos of the Tufted Duck are in the "new photos" folder on my website.

Denny Granstrand

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