Hi All,

My brother Dan and I birded the Columbia Basin this weekend, enjoyed a
few interesting sightings, and stayed dry until the latter part of
today. After driving through the heavy rain upon crossing back over the
crest of the Cascades, we were even more happy with our decision to head
east this weekend. We started Friday evening by re-finding the Wanapum
State Park two LONG-EARED OWLS. We then headed to Ephrata for the night.
Highlights for the remainder of the weekend included:

Saturday, March 12

EURASIAN WIGEON - one at Steamboat Rock.

SAGE GROUSE - 25 displaying males along with 5 attending females at the
lek near Leahy Junction.

TURKEY VULTURE - one at Electric City and one at Coulee City.

FERRUGINOUS HAWK - imm. circling over Steamboat Rock for several minutes
including brief comparison with a Red-tailed Hawk and a Golden Eagle.

LEAST SANDPIPER - two at the south end of Soap Lake. I can only imagine
these two wintered in the area.

LONG-EARED OWL - one at Steamboat Rock State Park.

BOHEMIAN WAXWING - 14 in Electric City.

AMERICAN TREE SPARROW - 6 at Steamboat Rock.

HARRIS'S SPARROW - one in Electric City at the end of 4th Street off of
Sunny Drive - sw part of town.

Today, March 13

FERRUGINOUS HAWK - another imm. seen in flight over the Para Ponds near
Othello.

DUNLIN - 22 at the County Line Ponds west of Othello.

BUSHTIT !! - 2 /plumbeus /(photographed one) at the north end of the
Potholes Reservoir near the heron rookery site - very end of the gravel
road past rookery location.

BEWICK'S WREN - since when did they become such a common bird in the
Potholes area? We had 10 total in the area past the rookery.

TRICOLORED BLACKBIRD - 12 in a mostly Brewer's Blackbird flock at the
end of Mayes Road west of Othello.

We also had a great time looking through numerous flocks of waterfowl
which obviously were recent arrivals/migrants. Some of the lakes we
visited were still partially ice covered. Common Mergansers were quite
abundant in several places as were Canvasbacks. And I was amazed at the
fair numbers of Red-breasted Mergansers on Banks Lake. Also nice to see
newly arrived Say's Phoebes, Violet-green Swallows, and migrant
bluebirds of both species in places where they obviously don't nest.

Cheers and good birding,

Brad Waggoner
Bainbridge Island
mailto:wagtail at sounddsl.com