Eight of us ventured into the Columbia River Gorge birding not knowing how
bad the wind and the rain was going to be for the day. Most times it is
nasty and tough to bird, but today was no wind and most of the time not bad
on the rain end of things. We started the day with Anna's Hummingbirds for
those who wanted to see them at Vancouver and off to see the Mute Swan near
Steigerwald NWR along with some Great Egrets.

Places visited in Skamania County were:
1. Saint Cloud Rec. Area--flock of Ceder Waxwings and a Pileated Woodpecker
2. Franz Lake NWR--Tundra Swans, Wood Ducks, Canvasbacks, Bald Eagle
3. Skamania Landing--Bewick's Wren
4. Bass Lake--The weirdest duck that any of us had ever seen(poss cross of
Common Goldeneye and Hooded Merganser.
5. Hamilton Island--few gulls, lots of fishermen and D-c Cormorants
6. Below Bonneville Dam--1 Bonaparte's Gull
7. Above the dam--Western Grebe flock with a Canvasback mixed in
8. Rock Cove near Stevenson--2 Greater White-fronted Geese, 1 Cackling Goose
9. Home Valley--raining hard while viewing scaup flocks mainly Lesser Scaup
10. Little White Salmon Hatchery--Eurasian Wigeon, Barrow's Goldeneye
11. Spring Creek Hatchery--Brown Creeper, tons of Golden-crowned Kinglets,
Tundra Swans
12. Underwood--large flock of Dark-eyed Juncos with too much rain to get out
and dig anything good out
13. Willard--Dipper
14. Wind River mouth--our first Killdeer and Kingfishers
15. Stevenson Water front--walked out on the pier, a Thayer's Gull adult,
scaup flocks

Ended the day with 60 species in Skamania County plue 8 others in Clark
County getting to Skamania.

A very good day considering what it could have been,

Ken Knittle
Washington Birder newsletter
2604 NE 80th Street
Vancouver, WA 98665
360-574-2590
mailto:washingtonbirder "at" hotmail.com