On Sunday (9/04/05), Bart Whelton and I visited
Washtucna and turned up a few mildy interesting county
birds, but none of the big state rarities remained. In
the early afternoon, we checked Hooper too, but that
was extremely slow.

Within the vicinity of Bassett Park, we saw a pair of
TOWNSEND'S SOLITARIES, a couple of OLIVE-SIDED
FLYCATCHERs, GRAY FLYCATCHER, HAMMOND'S & DUSKY
FLYCATCHERs, W. WOOD PEWEEs, WARBLING & CASSIN'S
VIREO, SAY'S PHOEBE, BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK, WESTERN
TANAGER, SPOTTED TOWHEE, and the usual warblers. A
pair of conspicuous CANYON WRENs were on the
southwestern edge of town. Both SHARP-SHINNED HAWK and
a COOPER'S HAWK stirred up the hundreds of CALIFORNIA
QUAIL that seem to have invaded the town. One EURASIAN
COLLARED DOVE flew into the park too. Mule Deer
wandered around the escarpment.

In an abandoned homestead north of Washtucna, Bart and
I saw two seemingly out of place Porcupines, as well
as a Mountain Cottontail, and a GREAT HORNED OWL. By
this time, the wind velocity had picked up
significantly and diminished our chances for finding
migrant passerines.

As we drove Denakas road from the Tokio exit to
Sprague Lake, we encountered SWAINSON'S HAWK, PRAIRIE
FALCON, and a nice adult FERRUGINOUS HAWK. From the
Lincoln County fishing access, we spotted two
BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERONs (one adult and one
juvenile).

In Adams County, we saw one COMMON TERN. From a
vantage point the western side of the lake (the Four
Seasons Resort), we had great views of a pair of
FRANKLIN'S GULLs, BONAPARTE'S GULL and another
BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON. Unfortunately, we could not
locate any Sabines Gulls that had been previously
reported.

Gina Sheridan
Spokane, WA

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