This evening around 6 pm I headed west from Othello toward Corfu and down Lower Crab Creek Road to a wetland restoration "recognition" event hosted by Ducks Unlimited. About 11 miles west of town there were about 45 Sandhill Cranes flying over SR 26 toward fields north. Cranes have been here in small numbers for nearly a week.

Returning on Lower Crab Creek Road around 8 pm I had a COMMON POORWILL flush off the road about 3 miles west of Corfu. Then another, and another, and by the time I reach the Corfu Road fork I had flushed seven poorwills! Pg 362 in Opperman doesn't even mention Common Poorwill (mainly because I have never encountered even one there before tonight) although the habitat certainly looks suitable. Maybe I just haven't drive that road at the right time of darkness. I've found poorwills in mid-September other years where they were not present during the spring or summer, and I'm wondering if this is a migrating group?

Randy Hill
Othello