Hi everyone,



Early this evening, Marv Breece, Mason Flint, Evan Houston and I got back from a three-day (Feb 19-21) trip to the Waterville Plateau and Okanogan Highlands.? The trip was filled with highlights and we will post a more complete trip report later, but you may wish to click on the following link and check out images (and a very entertaining short raptor video)?taken by Evan on the trip.? The link is - http://tinyurl.com/yz52jv9 .? The species included in this link?are GRAY-CROWNED ROSY FINCH, RUFFED GROUSE, GREAT HORNED OWL, AMERICAN TREE SPARROW, SAGE GROUSE (males displaying on a?lek), GOLDEN EAGLE, GYRFALCON, PRAIRIE FALCON and the highlight, a MERLIN eating the foot of its breakfast.? (No, I'm not making this up.)? The video shows the same MERLIN cleaning up a bit after its meal.?



Thanks to the numerous Tweeters who posted info earlier about locations of target species, many of which we were able to find.? It was also nice to run into quite a few fellow birders during the trip - brought out by the great weather and the quantity and quality of recent sightings being reported from the area.



John Tubbs

Snoqualmie, WA

johntubbs at comcast.net

www.tubbsphoto.com