After the WOS board meeting on Saturday (3/10/07),
Bart Whelton, Cindy McCormack, and I did a little
birding around Othello. Temps were mild, skies were
cloudy, and it was breezy.



We saw one TRICOLORED BLACKBIRDS at the Para Ponds
feed lots, and another dozen TRICOLORs at the Camino
Island feed lots west of Othello. Within the latter
flock, were YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRDs, RED-WINGED
BLACKBIRDs, BROWN-HEADED COWBIRDs, and BREWER'S
BLACKBIRDs. While Western Meadowlards were singing
from the pasture, , a flock of a dozen SANDHILL CRANEs
flew over. All of these birds were in Adams County.

In Grant County, we located a flock of 600+ SANDHILL
CRANEs on the Royal Slope north of Hwy. 26. In the
Frenchman HIlls, we saw a SAY'S PHOEBE and a COOPER'S
HAWK.

West of Fishtrap, we saw a herd of Elk. Washington
Ground Squirrels were along the highway at Sage Hills
Golf Course.

On Monday (3/12/07), Jan Reynolds and I birded
northern Whitman and sections of Lincoln County. On
the south end of Sprague Lake, the wind began gusting
and toppled my Questar scope. The net result was a
severely cracked objective lens that will put me at a
huge birding disadvantage for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, we did see BALD EAGLEs on both the south end
(Adams Co.) and north end (Lincoln Co.) of the lake.
COMMON MERGANSERS and LESSER SCAUP were on the Lincoln
Co. side, but there wasn't much waterfowl on the south
end of the lake. The weird hybrid pair of SNOW X
CANADA GEESE that we saw last year have returned to
the mudflats north of the Sprague Lake Resort.

In Whitman County, we saw a subadult TRUMPETER SWAN
with a flock of TUNDRA SWANs on the ponds west of Rock
Lake. At Rock Lake, we saw a male MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD
(county lifer), and TREE SWALLOWs. Several
ROUGH-LEGGED HAWKs were west of Ewan.

A long drive through Lincoln County did not produce
much, but we did see several MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRDs on
North Telford Road, and a SAY'S PHOEBE in the
community of Lincoln. We had at least five NORTHERN
SHRIKES in various locations (both counties) during
the day too.

On the mammal front, there was a pair of
Yellow-bellied Marmots at Sprague Lake, and Mule Deer
in Redwine Canyon.

Gina Sheridan
Spokane, WA



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