Greetings Tweets!
A late post about our trip to Eastern Washington over
the April 1st weekend (not MANY jokes herein!).
Bob Stallcop orgainzed (but did NOT lead!) a trip over
to the Othello area on saturday, and up to the
Waterville plateau on sunday. Jeff Cohen was in
charge of navigating, while Barb Carmichael and I were
along for comic relief. ;)
Main Targets were SH Cranes, Bur Owls, Tri-colored
Blackbirds, and Sage Grouse. Which we found! Very
successful weekend!

We saw several nice flocks of several hundred Sandhill
Cranes in the Corfu area. The County Line Ponds had 2
Snow Geese, 2 Avocets (mating!), LOTS of Canada and
Cackling Geese, and the Eurasin (Common) Teal. The
Camano Island Cottle Company feedlot had 4 species of
Blackbirds, Red-winged, Yellow-headed, Tri-colored,
and Brewers. We saw Burrowing Owls and a fly-over LB
Curlew east of Othello. Frenchman Coulee and Dodson
Road ponds yielded our only Dunlin, 5 Black-necked
Stilts, and Cinamon Teal. Morgan Lake road gave us
Prairie Falcon and Say's Phoebe. We ended saturday
with an evening visit to the rookery on Moses Lake,
and saw a Great-horned Owl in the twilght.

Up early the next morning to the Leahy junction Sage
grouse lek, where we saw at least 10 males strutting
their stuff! After watching for about an hour, they
flew up from their distant ridgeline, and flew in
about 50 yards from where we were standing! Great
views were had by all! Also lots of singing Vesper
Sparrows.
We struggled all day after that to get Bob his Lifer
Horned Lark. If a struggle could be said to last 5
minutes! ;) I think he can now identify Horned Larks
in his sleep! It was a slow day, because we only saw
about 300 Larks that day!
We ran into Gina Sheridan and Kim ?? at the Bridgeport
Bar, which was fairly slow. Of note There was a swan
across the river we could not ID, about 6 Common
Loons, and a couple of Cackling Geese.
Gina tipped us off about the Dusky Grouse at Central
Ferry road and the LE Owl east of Mansfield, so we
headed that direction. At Central Ferry we heard the
Dusky Grouse, but could not spot one. Cassin's Finch,
Pygmy and Red-breasted Nuthatch, Red-naped sapsucker.
At the upper end we saw a pair of Mountain Bluebirds.
The Long-eared Owl gave us good views east of
Mansfield.
We then trooped over to Jameson Lake, and found
Canvasback, Scaup, a Common Merganser, and killer
views of Barrow's Goldeneye. We also ran into Gina
Sheridan AGAIN, and she directed us to some Peregrine
Falcons on the cliffs, and some White-throated Swifts.
We also heard a Canyon Wren. Further down Moses
Coulee we missed a Sage Thrasher by minutes, but
managed to call up a Sage Sparrow.
Then it was the drive home at dusk, getting home by
11:00 PM, making monday morning really nasty at work!

94 species for the weekend, at least 12 of which were
lifers for Bob, and close to that many for Barb. A
great weekend in good company!

Guy


Guy McWethy
Renton, WA
mailto: lguy_mcw at yahoo.com



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