Subject: [Tweeters] Lewis county birding
Date: Oct 30 20:05:46 2010
From: Dave Hayden - dtvhm at nwrain.com


Lonnie Somers joined me today as we made the rounds through Lewis county. The weather was not that great, drizzle, rain, and limited breaks. The birds didn't mind and the fish loved it. We started at the east end of Riffe Lake. Many of the birds seemed to have left, but we still had some good birds in the area. We did not refind the Clark's Grebe back, but it could still be out there. Also, we could not locate the Pacific Loon that Marv Breece and Steve Pink had last week. We did have;
BALD EAGLE - 2
COMMON LOON - 8
HORNED GREBE - 20+
WESTERN GREBE 20+
CALIFORNIA GULL 30+
AMERICAN PIPIT - 4
GREEN-WINGED TEAL - 10
LESSER SCAUP - 1

We made another stop further east at Lake Scanewa. The lake was full of boaters fishing, so the birds were scarce. We did have a VARIED THRUSH and 4 HORNED GREBES.

We headed for the west end of Riffe Lake, making a stop at Swofford Pond. Our time of arrival was perfect. We stepped out of the car and had a PEREGRINE FALCON flying by with prey in its talons. At Swofford we had 1 COMMON LOON, 60+ RING-NECKED DUCKS, and 1 RED-TAILED HAWK. As we were just about to leave, Lonnie spotted another smaller falcon flying at us. It was a MERLIN. Later we found an AMERICAN KESTREL on Fuller Rd., making it a three falcon day. Very rare thing to do in Lewis county. At the west end of Riffe Lake, we didn't have much. We did have 1 COMMON LOON, 20+ AMERICAN PIPITS, 4 COMMON MERGANSERS, 2 HORNED GREBES and 1 BELTED KINGFISHER. Our best bird at the west end was a WHITE-THROATED SPARROW seen at Mossyrock Park.

Our next stop was at the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery above the barrier dam. There we had;
6 AMERICAN WIGEON
15 RING-NECKED DUCK
10 BUFFLEHEAD
8 COMMON MERGANSER
4 HOODED MERGANSER
8 LESSER SCAUP

We continued on to the Cowlitz Trout Hatchery, where we had;
3 SPOTTED SANDPIPERS
1 SAVANNAH SPARROW
1 PACIFIC WREN
1 NORTHERN FLICKER

Our last stop was at Fort Borst Park in Centralia, hoping to find the Thayers Gull and Western Gull. But both were no shows when we stopped. We had mostly all Glaucous-winged X Western hybrids, 1 CALIFORNIA GULL, and 3 RING-BILLED GULLS.

Dave Hayden
dtvhm AT nwrain.com
Centralia, WA