Hi Tweeters,

Ollie and I tried to find the 4 rare gulls in Asotin County Feb 25-26.
Thanks to Andy and Stefan and Carol and Denny for recent reports! Also
thanks to everyone that has been reporting these gulls.



Our results were similar to Stefan's from this past weekend. Swallows Park
had zero to few gulls each time we checked it, and never were they close in.
We did find 1 adult Thayer's in the Snake River at Swallows Park.

The landfill was open 8am - 4pm. The people there are very nice to birders.
One guy chatted with us about gulls and mentioned he'd nicknamed the
Glaucous Gull. There are a lot of gulls at the landfill (several hundred
estimate) and we never found any of the targets there. MANY ring-billed,
herring and CA gulls were there. We birded the landfill in the mid-morning
and in the late afternoon.



Leaving the landfill at 4pm we checked out Snake River along hwy 12 and
found a large and growing flock of gulls. So we scoped this large flock of
gulls from a large pull off between Elm St. and Evans Rd. and finally had
some luck. Glaucous Gull was in this flock and stood out as the only large
white gull in the group.



This morning as we were leaving Clarkston early, we again scoped the large
flock at same point and had good luck to re-find the Glaucous Gull as well
as the Kumlien's Gull. Looks like many of the gulls work the landfill and
then spend the evening in this section of the Snake River. A little after
7am, the flock was leaving, we assume they were going to the landfill.



One last try for Lesser Black-backed Gull was made at the Yakima River
Delta. Middle of this month, Denny Granstrand and then Carol Riddell found
the gull at this spot. There were not many gulls while we were there middle
to late morning today and those that were there were far off. None appeared
to be really dark mantled.



We failed to find a Snowy Owl Monday early afternoon in nine Canyon Road
area - reference Carol Schulz's earlier tweeters posting dated Jan. 16. Fog
came down to the fields and so visibility was poor. 1 Rough-legged Hawk as
well as lots of Horned Larks made it worth the time.



We got snowed on Monday evening as we were driving to Clarkston starting in
Dayton and we made a slow, careful descent on hwy 12 to Clarkston. The
incline is steep. The next day, the snow stuck in the highlands and we were
not able to bird up there as a result. We did go up Weissenfels Ridge Rd
(from Snake River Rd, not far South of town of Asotin) until snow covered
the muddy road. Best birds were Wild Turkeys and Canyon Wren singing and a
large flock of American Robins ~65. Along the section of the Snake River
near Weissenfels Ridge Rd, we had a nice flock of Violet-Green Swallows,
adding to many others reports in recent days.



Grace and Ollie Oliver