Five of us from Yakima made the trip north today to look for the owl and the gull. We first checked the log booms at Coulee Playland this morning and to no avail. We next stopped at the dam overlook and found not 1 but 2 immature Glaucous gulls, one fairly buffy and one almost pure white. There was also a Thayer's gull on the booms. Then we headed up for the owl, a quick chat with people on the scene revealed it had not been seen this morning and the last confirmed sighting was by the Ollivers' taking off North yesterday. So we decided to get creative, found a road heading along the river on the west side of grand coulee dam, labeled as Washington flat Habitat Area. We drove back to the parking lot and walked down the trail. This is roughly in the direction that the owl was reported to have flown. There are many junipers and riparian hedges, but no owl. We did have both sharp-shinned and cooper's hawk in addition to calling Chukar and quite a few Solitaire and Cedar Waxwing. We also came back to this area around 3:00. While we were here we noticed a mix of pine snags directly accross the river. It would be my guess that the bird has set up residence in this area of scattered Junipers in the habitat area or accross the river in the pine snags, though since we didnt't see the bird I have no evidence of this. Also we had a nice views of a pair of soaring golden eagles over lake roosevelt at spring canyon campground.

A nice day in the field despite dipping on the targets. I would encourage others that might try for the Hawk-owl to explore the surrounding area as the bird may have left the substation area but could easily be in the general area still.

Scott Downes
downess at charter.net
Yakima WA