Hi Tweeters,

Lori and Stan Isley, Ellen and myself left Yakima at 5 am this morning to try for some of the great birds discovered by Richard Hendrick (sp.?) from the Waterville Plateau, Bridgeport, and Lake Chelan this past week.

We first spent several hours in the morning searching for the Northern Hawk Owl along SR-17 southeast of Bridgeport between Mileposts 127-130 with no luck. We did see both eagles, a dark Rough-legged Hawk, Red-tailed Hawks, and a MERLIN (in Bridgeport).

North 50 yards of the 90-degree corner of Moe and Grange Roads west of Bridgeport in the Wells Wildlife Area, is a handsome HARRIS'S SPARROW. Rich is putting out seed at the base of brush piles at this location. You can view the Harris's and many other sparrows from a point 25 feet east of the 90-degree turn on the north side of the snow-covered spur. BOHEMIAN WAXWINGS are here too. A LONG-EARED OWL is roosting in a leafless tree about 0.5 mile to the west along Grange.

In Lake Pateros just east of the bridge into Brewster at Milepost 10, there was a LONG-TAILED DUCK just off the south shore. EARED GREBES (5 or so) peppered the water. A total of 3 PACIFIC LOONS were out in mid-channel here.

We found the YELLOW-BILLED LOON, a juvenile bird, at Lakeside Park in Chelan. It moved very rapidly as is often the case with Yellow-billed Loons (per Vic Nelson of Point No Point) between the Lady of the Lake dock to the park west about 1 mile on the lake's south shore. It provided us stellar views in the bright sunshine, even though we had to race along the shore to keep it in view. From the park a careful 200-degree scan of Lake Chelan revealed 110 HORNED GREBES, a personal record for me from one spot in eastern Washington.

We found the immature SNOWY OWL, a gorgeous bird ,just a couple minutes before sunset ( 5 pm) atop a snowy moraine in exactly the location Rich reported it on Tweeters:

"This afternoon (28 January) two of us saw our first Snowy Owl for 2009.It was east of Mansfield. Go east of Mansfield on Hwy. 172. When you get to Rd. H, turn left (north) The bird was on Rd. 16, going east (right) off of Road H. There is a yellow-flowered mail box with the name Cora Nordby. This is an area that had Snowies last year too. A little less than 1/2 way down Rd. 16,(it ends at Nordbys) on the left hand(north) side there is now a small rock cairn, with pink flagging tape. The bird was on the high ridge to the north, at least 1/4 mile away."
Thanks so much to Rich and Meredith Spencer for getting the word out on these and other great sightings from the north country!Andy and Ellen Stepniewski Wapato WAsteppie at nwinfo.net