Having read Scott Downes' report from Vantage yesterday, I decided to try my luck today.

There was a pretty good wind out of the west, which pushed the huge flocks in close to the Kittitas shore, so I had LOTS of birds to look through. And looking north, the light was perfect.

The best spot was walking north from the boat launch at Wanapum State Park. There were huge flocks of American Coots and American Wigeon in closest, with Greater and Lesser Scaup further out (though still close to shore), and Buffleheads tending to hang out even further out. Everywhere were Horned Grebes. And throughout all of the flocks were a few *other* - Mallard, Ring-necked Duck, Canvasback, Western and Pied-billed Grebe, and Ruddy Duck.

Best birds were:

REDHEAD Maybe 5, with several glowing males
SURF SCOTER Two females
EARED GREBE Two, in slightly different plumages

Below Wanapum Dam were about 6 COMMON LOON, but no sign of the Pacific that Scott had yesterday. Lots of COMMON MERGANSER there too, along with four male BARROW'S GOLDENEYE, the only goldeneyes I saw all day. There was also a ROCK WREN.

My hopes of finding an American Tree Sparrow proved fruitless. I could find almost no dicky birds at all anywhere, though I did find two NORTHERN SHRIKE.

So while I missed my target birds, I still had a pretty good day.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
== http://www.marymoor.org/BirdBlog.htm
== birdmarymoor at frontier.com