My fourth day of birding in Eastern Washington, and the best weather yet.
Four days, and the wind turbines were still all four days. Sun most of the
time, and most of the time warm enough to bird without parka and gloves.
For early November, I'd say I had PERFECT weather. The light at Bateman
this morning was sublime - I could see plumage details on ducks a half-mile
away! Shorebird identification was easy.

I started the day needing just 2 county lifers in Benton County to get all
39 of my county life lists to at least 150 species. But Benton county is
HARD. I looked at my needs list, and had trouble finding two birds I might
reasonably find. The most obvious target bird was Herring Gull, but I'd
searched unsuccessfully for Herring Gull for years.

But this morning, first thing, I saw a GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL, and moments
later, a HERRING GULL, out from Wye Levee. Benton lifer #149, and it wasn't
even 8 a.m. I felt confident, then, that I'd get to 150x39 today without
problem.

I birded Bateman Island, where I found a flock of 7-10 HERMIT THRUSH, a pair
of CANVASBACK, some GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS, and GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROWS,
and enjoyed seeing several GREAT EGRETS. For shorebirds, there were
KILLDEER, GREATER YELLOWLEGS, LEAST SANDPIPER, DUNLIN, and LONG-BILLED
DOWITCHER. But none of those were new for my list. I worked my way down
Columbia Park, where there was a single SNOW GOOSE in with a huge flock of
Canadas. I went out to Columbia Point, but only added one more species. I
began to think I'd jinxed myself by thinking it was in the bag...

So I decided to try something different, and scooted out to Missimer Rd.,
north of Prosser. There were two COMMON RAVENS before I left the
agricultural fields. And then there was absolutely nothing for miles and
miles. I was beginning to doubt my sanity spending time going up that road
through dry sage. And then a NORTHERN SHRIKE popped up, hovering over the
road: BENTON LIFER #150! A bit later I saw a second shrike.

Not wanting to leave my 3rd straight county at exactly the 150 mark, I
headed south of Benton City to the barren cemetery just west of the
intersection of Travis Rd. and Cemetery Rd. I'd heard of the spot from Tom
Mansfield and Matt Bartels. I enjoyed the very active ROUGH-LEGGED HAWKS
and NORTHERN HARRIERS as the sun set. It made me hopeful for owls. But 20
minutes after the last hawk, long past sunset, I pretty much gave up, just
before the last of the light. Despairing, I decided to drive a half-mile
west to a farm house, thinking there might be owls there. But I hadn't
moved more than 200 yards from the cemetery when a SHORT-EARED OWL flushed
up from the road. There were two there, and they gave me awesome looks. I
pulled a u-turn and found a 3rd Short-eared about 200 yards west of Travis
Rd.

So a fabulous end to my quest!

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