Hello All,

At last a moment to sit down and report on a great event here in Walla Walla Co.. Four hummingbird banders set up stations at Tom Lambs hummingbird haven outside of Dixie in eastern Walla Walla Co. on 26-27 July 2008. These banders were Fred Bassett, Dan Harville, Mark Myers and Ned Batchelder. This is the largest number of hummingbird banders at one site in Washington State that we are aware of. These four pros along with great help from three of their wives captured and banded 214 hummers of three species after 7 hrs of banding. This is a record for Walla Walla Co.. Time will tell where these many hummers migrate to and through. These birds were mostly HYB and adult females except for 22 adult male Black-chinned Hummers. It was a real privilege to observe these scientist/conservationists at work. It will be very interesting to see if any of these hummers return to Tom Lambs next spring.
Later Mike.
PS
A large portion of the Wallula HMU/McNary NWR in western Walla Walla County is burning as I write this. This is one of our states wildlife habitat treasues and cannot be replaced or the habitat recovered quickly as this site is in the 6-8 inch precipitation zone. This is a huge loss for native migrating birds and resident mammals and reptiles.