Subject: [Tweeters] Vantage 2/20
Date: Feb 20 17:07:04 2006
From: Scott Downes - downess at charter.net


Tweets and inlanders,
Headed out to Vantage today for the main purpose of seeing if any of the
shrub-steppe spring arrivals were back yet. A couple of stops along the
vantage highway revealed not much except a cold windy experience. There was
a MERLIN at the corner of No.81 rd and the Vantage highway and I managed to
find 2 cold MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRDS sitting on the fence wires along the vantage
highway along with 1 SAY'S PHOEBE. No sage sparrows were heard, though the
strong cold wind wasn't helping... As Vantage is often more windy than
further back up into the hills, I was pondering if I had made a mistake on
my choice of birding venue. Luckily upon arriving the wind was barely
noticable and even the cold wasn't that bad. At the vantage public boat
launch the waterfowl numbers are much reduced from a couple of weeks ago,
there was one HERRING GULL floating out in the river. In general waterfowl
numbers were low, compared to recent weeks, but Canada goose numbers were
decent with 246 found, but no cackling geese were present. Along huntziner
road, 2 EARED GREBES were found, 1 above the dam, 1 below. Sleeping just
above the dam were 2 WESTERN GREBE. A nice treat was 3 BARN SWALLOWS feeding
out over the island in the columbia below Wanapum Dam. At the entrance to
the training center down near Sentinel Gap SAGE SPARROWS were singing and
sitting up on the Big Sage. 8 males were seen.

Scott Downes
downess at charter.net
Yakima WA