Hello, tweets.

Netta Smith and I spent yesterday, March 10, in the Columbia Basin. Amazingly, it didn't rain at all, and much blue sky was in evidence in various directions, but the sun only shone on us for less than an hour. As usual, it was a photo and get-out-of-the-rain trip, with no attempt to rack up a species list, but we saw/heard 50 species.

A Eurasian Collared-Dove flew in to the bird- and chipmunk-feeding area at the eastbound Ryegrass Rest Area on I-90, then flew off to the north. This is the avian world's super-disperser. I have chuckled to see this species spelled "collard" on several posts to tweeters, as if it was a member of the cabbage family rather than having a ring on its neck.

2 American White Pelicans roosted on rocks at the edge of the Columbia River just north of Beverly, also a first-year Glaucous-winged Gull at the same spot.

Dead small clams of about 2 cm diameter were abundant on the beach there, and I'm pretty sure they are invasive Asian clams, Corbicula fluminea or a related species. I don't recall seeing them in the past, and I'll bet their presence explains the large numbers of diving ducks, especially scaups, present all along that part of the river. Just as the invasive zebra and quagga mussels have brought about a great increase in marine diving ducks in the Great Lakes, these clams probably are the reason why there are so many scaups on the Columbia.

Hundreds of Sandhill Cranes descended from very high in the air above Corfu (on Lower Crab Creek) at about 11 am. With the air full of groups of cranes circling and descending for 15 minutes or more, all to land along the creek in front of us, and the constant sonorous bugling that accompanied them, it was a bona fide spectacle. They were criss-crossing the sky too rapidly to count them, but there were at least 400 and possibly as many as 500 birds. We wondered if they were incoming migrants or just coming in as part of the day's routine. It was like a tiny imitation of the spring show on the Platte River. We also saw some small low-flying flocks over highway 26 west of Othello.

One Say's Phoebe hunted from shrubs above Lower Crab Creek near Smyrna.

There were hundreds of American Robins in Russian olive groves everywhere we went. I don't know if they winter there or if these might have been migrants, but it was quite impressive numbers. White-crowned Sparrows were the other common species along with them. Smaller numbers of Dark-eyed Juncos were out in the sagebrush.

We passed a dozen or so Great Blue Herons in the air at one grove of cottonwoods on the north side of I-90 west of Ellensburg. Several Bald Eagles were flying among them. Another doomed heronry?
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Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



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