A birder that is visiting from Florida (Justyn Stahl)
and I birded the West Plains this afternoon (1/29/06).
Most of the day was rather slow, but there we did
find some nice birds. Around 3:00 PM, light snow began
falling and visibility deteriated.

Our route was from Coulee-Hite to Alexander to from
Sunset Hwy out to Davenport and the return on
Morrison/Detour. We did not see any Snowy Owls or
falcons (although we did see one American Kestrel).
Strangely enough, both Jim Acton and Chris Janette
said that no one has seen any Snowy Owls over the
weekend.

There was an adult BALD EAGLE on the Spokane County
side of Carstens. On Sunset Highway, we had three
ROUGH-LEGGED HAWKs (lifer for Justyn) and few
scattered HORNED LARKs (ABA lifer for Justyn), as well
as the more typical Red-tailed Hawks.

In Davenport, there were large flocks of AMERICAN
ROBINs but not waxwings. However, we did find an
EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVE (Lincoln County lifer for me)
perched on a wire at the junction of Main & 13th
Ave.On Morrison Road, we were treated to a cooperative
NORTHERN SHRIKE (lifer for Justyn), and a couple of
NORTHERN HARRIERs.

As the skies grew darker, we rechecked the corner of
Coulee-Hite and MacFarlane. Fortunately, we turned up
eight AMERICAN TREE SPARROWs. On MacFarlane (between
Coulee-Hite & Ladd), we were thrilled to see a
beautiful SHORT-EARED OWL with it's little ear tuffs
raised while it perched on fencepost. The owl's talons
were grasping a large Montane Vole. This was nice way
to end the day.

Gina Sheridan
Spokane, WA

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com