Greetings,

Ned McGarry and I left for the Waterville Plateau Friday after work and spent a fun filled weekend dodging snowflakes in central WA. The highlight of the trip for me was getting two of my three target birds, but for Ned, it was a "First of a Lifetime" encounter with a young Mountain Lion that thrilled him the most!

On Saturday am, we were at the Leahy Junction Lek at sunrise to see the Sage Grouse (There were 7 males visible in the cold morning wind). We then returned to Bridgeport to look for Sharp Tailed Grouse. (Much searching, but no luck) As we started south up the Bridgeport Hill Road, a young Cougar loped down the right slope, crossed the road in front of us and bounded up the left side embankment. Ned went nuts, and I was glad he kept the truck on the road. The cat looked quite healthy and probably weighed less than 100 pounds. We wondered if he was on range here in the sage and ravine country, or on the move, looking for a new home range for himself. Any cat experts out there care to comment?

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful except for us stumbling on to a pair of nesting Long Eared Owls, flushing 5 more Sage Grouse on a backroad east of Withrow, and my second lifer of the trip when I finally flushed a pair of Gray Partridge at the Ellensburg Airport on Sunday afternoon. 70 Species for the trip, and a lot of fun. Sorry we missed the wind storm here on the west side.

-Rolan


Rolan Nelson
Fircrest, WA
rnbuffle at yahoo.com
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