I saw some interestng birds on my recent motorcycle trip through Oregon, Idaho,?and Montana.??Since a motorcylce turns where you point your head,?riding is not conducive to close bird spotting, but I?tried?to take note of the birds I did?see along the way.

I had to swerve to avoid hitting what I think was a red-tailed hawk on Grant County Road 62?south of Prairie City, OR.??? The hawk?was sitting in a shadow on the road feeding on something.??It flew up in front of me with?its prey in?one talon.? I swerved right and it swerved left, dropping?the prey.? I assume it?flew back to retreive it after I passed by.

I saw an intersting bird along I-82 in the Yakima?Valley.? It?had the shape and color of a?white-tailed kite?(all white underneath with black wing tips) and was being chased by a smaller bird in much?the same way as crows chase hawks.??According to my bird book, white tailed kites are not found it that area, so I don't know what it might have been.

I got a nice photro of a blue-green swalllow sitting on a nest in Halfway, OR.?? The nest was above and behind where we had parked our motorcycles and did not seem phased by our presence.
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I watched two barn swallows swap nest-watching duties at the rest stop on west-bound I-90 east of Moses Lake.? The two had a nest built on a vent on the east?end of the building.? There was also a nest in a?nearby tree.??A bird, possibly?a scrub jay, was sitting? quietly in a branch in the same tree.
Bill Anderson; Edmonds, WA. ?