Hi Tweets,



Last Friday I birded the Okanogan River delta from about 2 to 4 PM and had a great time re-acquainting myself with this very productive spot. It had been a couple of years since I last birded there and the couple of hours I spent there turned up a few unusual birds and about 5,000 less unusual ones (coots).



I found very little other than House (about 30) and White-crowned (about 6) Sparrows at the Okanogan River bridge entry to the delta area. I spent the bulk of my time in the Cassimer Bar area and walked out to the Columbia River from there. Along the way I scared up a surprisingly early AMERICAN TREE SPARROW. Other highlights included:



2 GREAT EGRETS

12 AM. WHITE PELICANS

1 SLATE-COLORED JUNCO (gorgeous adult male)

1 dark morph adult RED-TAILED HAWK



I also saw a probable FOX SQUIRREL. I didn't get a good look at it but it was a medium-large mammal of a rusty reddish color which scrambled away at my approach and went up into the thick trees. I ruled out something like Yellow-bellied Marmot and any ground squirrels on the basis of this tree-climbing and later George Wooten, of Twisp, who knows the?fauna of the Okanogan?pretty well told me that there is a population of Fox Squirrels in the Omak area which seems to be increasing. I know what the Western Gray Squirrel looks like and had just seen one that morning at Alta Lake. This critter, whatever it was, was not even close to the same color.



There was a nice variety of waterfowl but the only birds in abundance were the coots which I estimated at 4-5,000 birds.



good birding,



Jim Flynn
Seattle, WA