On 2/2
I convinced my boss to let me out of the house for the day, and try and see some birds. He lives in the "lime belt" north of Riverside, WA, Okanagon, Co. At his house this week I have had very active Great-horned Owls at night, 3 Pine Grosbeaks, 10 or so Townsend's Solitaires and some fly by Redpolls.
We drove the Riverside Cutoff rd to Concunully, then took the snow covered "road" from Conconully Lake to Fish lake and back to Riberside, (not recommeneded for non 4X4 travel).
It took quite some time to see any birds, and we were highly discouraged when we entered the first entrance to the Scotch Creek WMA. At one of several state subsidized "feed lots" in the wildlife area, 3 hen Pheasant were foraging amongst the 100 or so loafing reasons to be a vegetarian, just on the other side of the sign explaining the major factors of Sharp-tailed Grouse decline being habitat loss. They had me excited for a second, with Grouse on the mind.
After getting back on the Conconully Rd, we spotted 2 Sharp-tailed Grouse on the other side of a wide field on the east(?) side of the conconully rd. They were high in trees and looked like they were eating catkins. This was a life bird for me, but my excitement was hampered by the fact that I was with two local, non-birders, one of which had grown up "blasting the hell" out of Sharp-taileds.
After watching through the scope for a while, 1 of the Grouse flew towards us, which prompted the other to lift off as well, and as we watched them, we were surprised to have 23 more materialize out of nowhere to join the two. It was really something.
At the next pull off toward Conconully, the UbarU ranch, we had distant scope views of a large Redpoll flock. I counted 210 within my scope's field of view at 60 power, and estimate that that was about half of the flock. Though they were far away, light individuals could be picked out. I wished we could have gotten closer views.
We then went to the Pub in Conconully and had some really good beef hotdogs and wondered whether once and for all if our current global/economic/social situation would help us take personal responsibility and action for how our world is, instead of pointing fingers at the managers,
Good birding
Drew Wheelan
Port Angeles, WA

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