Tweeters,

It was great to see so many people from Washington at the Winter Wings
Festival in Klamath Falls this past February. The 3-day festival was a
huge success. Over 550 people registered and nearly all of the field
trips sold out. The workshops, presentations, and other
activities were well attended too, and post-festival evaluations from
participants have been overwhelmingly positive. We hope to build on
our success next year with an even bigger and better festival, and we
hope you'll join us.

We were very fortunate this year to have a number of top-notch experts
assisting with field trips, workshops, and other aspects of the
program, including:

- Scott Weidensaul (keynote presenter and trip leader)
- Bill Clark (presenter and trip leader)
- Rick Sammon (Canon photography)
- Jeff Smith (HawkWatch International)
- Dick Ashford (American Birding Association)
- John Alexander (Klamath Bird Observatory)

This year's festival drew in folks from all across the western US and
from as far away as Arizona and Texas. We put together a Google Map to
show the geographic "footprint" for this year's festival -- check it
out:

http://bit.ly/ciHpC7

We hope to see more Washington birders in 2011!

Field observations during the festival were tracked with eBird
(http://ebird.org). We recorded 93 species over the three days. As
usual, raptors and waterfowl stole the show. Of particular note was a
count of over 130 Bald Eagles leaving their night roost in Bear Valley
National Wildlife Refuge during the flyout field trip on Sunday --
this is a high count for recent years. Some other notable highlights
included:

- Western and Clark's Grebes
- American White Pelican (3 stuck around all winter in town)
- Eurasian Wigeon (many)
- Northern Goshawk
- Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk (juvenile light morph; found by Bill Clark)
- Peregrine Falcon
- Loggerhead Shrike
- Barn Owl
- Short-eared Owls (putting on a show in the evening at the LKNWR auto
tour route)
- Tree Swallow (arrived very early)
- Rock and Canyon Wrens
- California Towhee
- Cassin's Finch

Wrap-up information, including a summary of the bird observations,
will be posted to the festival web site soon:

http://www.winterwingsfest.org/

Finally, we'd like to thank our title sponsor Pacific Power, our host
Oregon Institute of Technology, and all of the other presenters,
leaders, sponsors, vendors, and the nearly 100 volunteers that made it
all happen. With field trips and activities again planned for a full 3
days during the 2011 festival, we hope you'll join us in observing and
recording the diversity and abundance of bird life in the Klamath
Basin of Oregon and California!

--
Dave Hewitt
Klamath Falls