Les Carlson and I spent the day attempting to add some Skamania County year birds to our lists. Our first birds of note were two GREAT EGRETS at Franz Lake among the hundred or more TUNDRA SWANS. At Skamania Landing we found another GREAT EGRET at Doetsch Pond, while there Les spotted a RED-SHOULDERED HAWK perched on a snag near the Columbia River. I believe this to be the same bird that I first found there on Sept. 16, apparently the construction work creating another pond did not scare it away. We stopped along Highway 14 at Ashes Lake where a CHIPPING SPARROW was feeding along the railroad berm. And in the Columbia River just west of Stevenson, there was an EARED GREBE. At Rock Creek Cove, near the Skamania County fairgrounds, I was surprised to see eight TUNDRA SWANS, a new location for them for me. One of snags on the islands there held a PEREGRINE FALCON that was watching the waterfowl very closely. As we were heading back to my house we had another RED-SHOULDERED HAWK on Belle Center Road, near the pond on the right about 1.5 miles north of Highway 14.

When I mentioned the RS Hawks, my wife told me that she had also had one in Clark County about a mile west of the Skamania County line.

Wilson Cady
Columbia River Gorge, WA