Subject: [Tweeters] Re: Daytime owling
Date: Feb 27 10:02:36 2007
From: Bill and Nancy LaFramboise - billnanl at verizon.net


For those of you who want to bird Johnson Park in Richland, here are new
directions for your Birder's Guide to Washington. As Ken mentioned,
development has changed our area a lot. From Riverstone, go all the way to
the end to where it currently joins Tanglewood. Turn left and go a short
distance (a few house lots). An asphalt drive leads down to a white gate
but please park on Tanglewood. This park is relatively quiet as far as
humanity goes (most of the time) and can have a tremendous variety of
migrants. Black-chinned Hummers perch in bare tree tops. It is one of the
few places in the TriCities where you can pretty much be guaranteed of
Yellow-breasted Chat (May-Aug)

We would hate to see this park over owled. There are Great Horns,
Long-ears, and W Screech there but they could easily be driven away or have
the LE's and screeches become prey of the GHs. It's not just a winter roost
for them but their breeding territory. Occasionally a Saw-whet is present
over winter. Locals only use tapes there during the Christmas Bird Count
and count it a luck day if we see or hear owls there at other times.


<snip>
We tried several parks in the Tri-Cities at night for Screech Owl, but only
found our way frustrated.
The southern end of W.E. Johnson, is now a housing track, we arrived at
riverstone st. but could not find the dirt track into the park. Ken Brown

Bill and Nancy LaFramboise
Richland WA