Today (April 4) Barry Woodruff and I took Warren Walker on a birding tour of the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge. We met Warren at Beacon Rock State Park where he spent the night and he mentioned that there had been a CANYON WREN calling from the rock in the morning before we arrived. A stop at Bonneville Dam produced one WESTERN GULL. There were very few ducks on Rock Creek pond at Stevenson but from Highway 14 Barry spotted a large number of small birds sitting on the lawn at the fairgrounds so we drove around to check them out. They turned out to a flock of very cold and hungry looking TREE and VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOWS with five CLIFF SWALLOWS among them. At the east end of the fairgrounds we found a SAY'S PHOEBE using logs and boulders in Rock Creek as perches.Either we have had one of these birds at this location since late February or there have been multiple birds in Skamania County this year where there have been less than five phoebes ever reported.
We checked Drano Lake at the mouth of the Little White Salmon River for the Tufted Duck in the morning and again in the afternoon both on Saturday and today without finding it. There were still numerous HORNED GREBES and BARROW'S GOLDENEYE on the lake.
Entering into Klickitat County we made a stop at the Catherine Creek Nature Conservancy Preserve to do a little weed-watching before heading for the cemetery on Balch Road where we found LEWIS'S WOODPECKERS, WESTERN BLUEBIRDS and LARK SPARROWS. It took about fifteen minutes of scoping the granary tree south of Old Highway 8 before we saw two of the resident ACORN WOODPECKERS come to the tree. Yesterday a VIRGINIA RAIL had called from the tiny pond along the road here but I could not get it to respond today. As we headed down the road to get back to Highway 14 Warren spotted a flock of LESSER GOLDFINCHES working the weeds just below the Balfour Trailhead parking lot. There were hundreds of RING-BILLED and CALIFORNIA GULLS on the sandbar at the mouth of the Klickitat River along with two CASPIAN TERNS.
When we got back to the Beacon Rock parking lot to pick up Warren's vehicle I heard the Canyon Wren calling during a downpour of rain. We ended up with 69 species for the day that the three of us all had seen but Warren and I added two more species, FOX SPARROW and RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH at the feeders at my home in Skamania County after Barry headed to Vancouver.

Wilson Cady
Washougal, WA


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