Greetings all,

Tracey Norris and I made our way to Grand Coulee this morning at 3:00AM arriving at the site the hawk owl has been seen all week ~ 1 mile west of the intersection of Hwy 155 on Hwy 174 near the Grand Coulee Dam substation (though a bit farther west than earlier reports). We found several people already watching the owl as it perched on a road sign along the road edge. The bird showed absolutely no fear as we watched and photographed the bird on this perch for almost an owl before it flew eastward at 9:45AM.

Other birds in the area were an immature Glaucous Gull on the logbooms above the Grand Coulee Dam, a couple of Thayer's Gulls in amongst the Herring Gulls at the same location, and an adult Mew Gull at the Playland access in Electric City along Banks Lake. We could not locate the Black-headed Gull before we made our way towards Tonasket and the Okanogan Highlands.

The Highlands around Chesaw and Havillah were quite slow, with the only highlights being 40 Snow Buntings and 2 flocks of about 20 Gray Partridge just north of Havillah. No redpolls were located at all, a stark contrast to a previous visit we made 2 weeks ago. We attempted owling at the Highland Snow Park near Havillah with Charlie Wright and Bruce LaBar, but no luck (though one Great Horned Owl was flushed along the road south of the snow park).



I've posted several photos of the hawk owl in Grand Coulee that were digiscoped today. Couldn't ask for a better look at the bird.

I also took many photos with my SLR but I will wait until returning home to edit the RAW files.

Here is the address

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shyalbatross/

Ryan Shaw
Lakewood, WA (from Okanogan, WA currently).
rtshaw80 at hotmail.com




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