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Highlights of a birding trip with Tom Aversa in Okanogan, Douglas, and Grant
counties on Wednesday and Thursday, January 16-17, 2007. Weather was below
freezing the whole time, low temperature 4 degrees F. at Omak before dawn on
Thursday. Partly cloudy on Wednesday afternoon, otherwise sunny and
fog-free.

1 TRUMPETER SWAN at the south end of Lenore Lake on the 17th at about
2:30pm, with a collection of other waterfowl. This spot was the only open
water on the lower Grand Coulee lakes.

6 male GREATER SAGE-GROUSE at mid-morning on the 17th, in a draw on the
southeast side of Road P NE, 0.6 mile in from the intersection with SR-17
just west of Leahy Junction.

56 SHARP-TAILED GROUSE on the 16th at about noon, viewed from the Scotch
Creek Wildlife Area overlook on Conconully Road a short distance northwest
of the intersection with Happy Hill Road. The birds were feeding in trees
along the creek bottom 200-300 yards northeast of the road, under excellent
scope viewing conditions. After a time the whole flock lifted off and flew
eastward until out of sight, quite high.

5 ROUGH-LEGGED HAWKS in about five hours of birding across the Waterville
Plateau on the 17th. This number is considerably lower than those reported
by other birders in the last few weeks, no doubt due to the uniform fairly
heavy snow cover.

1 AMERICAN THREE-TOED WOODPECKER in conifers at the Highland Sno Park off of
Havillah Road about a half-mile south of Havillah, on the 16th in late
afternoon.

About 100 BOHEMIAN WAXWINGS feeding in a big juniper in front of the house
at 685 Second Avenue N in Okanogan, late morning on the 16th. These were the
only ones we saw on the trip.

About 125 GRAY-CROWNED ROSY-FINCHES around noon on the 17th, on a snowbank
at the edge of McNeil Canyon Road just before it starts descending to the
Columbia, 100 or so feet west of the intersection with Road E NW (in Douglas
County more or less due east of Chelan). We looked for a Snowy Owl reported
by a local resident farther north on Road E NW but failed to find it.

Bird numbers and diversity were low overall. Our biggest disappointment was
the absence of redpolls. In fact we found very few finches of any species.

Hal Opperman
Medina, Washington
hal at catharus.net