Hi Tweets,

Spent a great Saturday with my friends Woody Wheeler, Wayne & Margie
Sladek, covering the Waterville Plateau in Douglas County and then driving
up Cameron Lake Rd on to Havilla Highlands Sno-park in hopes of a Great
Gray Owl at dusk. After many a gale force wind on the plateau, the weather
on this trip was delightful - overcast, No wind and hovering in the
mid-30Fs.

We were staying in Chelan, so we came up the Mcneal Canyon Road and were
greeted at the top by beautiful PRAIRIE FALCON. One of 3 seen during the
day.

In Mansfield we saw 13 EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVES (Also saw EuCD in Bridgeport
and Tonasket!) & a Great-horned Owl. We ran into Charile Wright in friends
from Tacoma who told about seeing SNOW BUNTINGS near the town of Winthrow,
near the intersection of Sprauer Road and F NW. So back we went and after
a bit of back and forth we found the flock about 2 miles north of the
intersection. Did I mention how many? We guestimated at least 1200 SNOW
BUNTINGS!! Since my previous highs never reached 2 digits, I was dumb
founded. We searched through at least 300 Snow Buntings that were coming
up onto the road for grit looking for McKay's Bunting. No obvious males,
but there sure were some very white birds with only a hint of black
streaking across the shoulders. With 3 different bird books between us, we
still were uncertain on to properly identify a McKay's, but there must be a
least one in this massive flock.

Ended up finding 7 ROUGH-LEGGED HAWKS between the Snow Buntings and the
north end of Bridgeport Hill Road. We did a lot of scanning for
Gyrfalcon's and Snowy Owls, but no luck in that department.

The big hope of the day was to find SHARP-TAILED GROUSE and after many a
trip with nary a chicken, today we were rewarded with 13 birds feeding at
the tops of the River Birch trees! The were on Bridgeport Hill Road, 1
mile north of Dyer Hill Rd in the copse of trees on the left in the Wells
Wildlife Reserve. We saw them at 9:00 am and actually heard them clucking
before we found them. They flew back and forth a few times in the ravine
and then we watched while they entertained us with their antics in the tops
of the trees - quite special.

Walked into Bridgeport State Park in Okanogan County and after a bit of
searching located a NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL - always a pleasure to see.

Cameron Lake Road was very rutted, muddy and icy, which severely limited
our ability to bird.

All in all, it was a great day!

Marcus Roening
GSK Oncology - Hematology
Tacoma, WA
marcus.d.roening at gsk.com
C: (253) 988 8313