Alan Richards and I birded southeastern Washington Wed- Friday (July 6-8). Saw many good birds. Tuesday night we arrived at Wallula Jct. a little after 1am. We ran up 9-mile Canyon just after dawn and saw Lark Sparrows and Ferruginous Hawks. MerryLynn Denny joined us as we headed up Jasper Mountain Road. Lots of the normal Blue Mountain birds including Chestnut-backed Chickadees, but the Least Flycatcher was not present, which the Dennys had seen and heard just three days earlier. We made a stop by Tom Lamb's place south of Dixie and saw the female Broad-tailed Hummingbird visit several feeders. Just south of Pomeroy we had a Lewis's Woodpecker which is a quality bird for Garfield County. Wednesday evening we ended up at the Clearwater Lookout and just by accident ran into Mike Denny and a Northern Three-toed Woodpecker in the trees nearby.

Thursday morning we made a brief stop at the Wenatchee Guard Station in Asotin County and did not hear any Green-tailed Towhees. Just east of Misery Springs we encountered Clark's Nutcrackers flying over the sub-alpine Firs. We tried in vain down the Misery Springs road for possible Green-tailed Towhees and again could not find any. Of special note was a pair of House Wrens nesting in a woodpecker hole in a large snag above 5000 feet at the Misery Mountain Trailhead. Didn't realize House Wrens nested so high in elevation in the Blue Mountains. Returning down into Pomeroy we found Black-chinned Hummingbirds at the same house that had the Blue Jay last winter. A fast trip up to Washtucna and hours later we could not relocate the Eurasian Collared-Dove. We then returned to Biscuit Ridge where a couple of Green-tailed Towhees finally sang for us. Near dark we found a Greater Yellowlegs behind the K-Mart in Eastgate, Walla Walla.

Friday morning with wind blowing at Port Kelly (extreme western Walla Walla County) we noted a Common Loon on the Columbia River and 3 Peregrine Falcons on the cliffs. The water level at Wallula Jct. was low, where as it was very high on Wednesday morning when we had spent the night there. The Dodd-Iowa Beef Ponds produced a Green-winged Teal, 1 Semipalmated Plover, 3 Lesser Yellowlegs, many Western Sandpipers with 1 Least Sandpiper and a handful of Long-billed Dowitchers. We checked out the Mockingbirds at Horn Rapids County Park and we did see a dove fly across the river that was not identified as it seemed very skittish. It never reappeared. As we headed east up through Webber Canyon we noted a Ferruginous Hawk overhead and 100's of Bank Swallows. We tracked down 4 Black-necked Stilts in eastern Klickitat County that Wilson Cady had posted earlier about. Ash-throated Flycatchers were along Rock Creek as usual. They were feeding on the dry hillside adjacent to large trees where they would fly. Two quick stops, one at Bingen Marina and one at Skamania Landing produced Purple Martins at both. Purple Martins are rare in eastern Washington so it was nice to show Alan where they hang out at the far east end of the marina in the tops of tall trees. Total species seen added up to 138. We noted birds were not singing near as much as they were just a week earlier.

Ken Knittle
Vancouver, WA

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