Bennington Lake

We walked the lake today for the first time in two weeks.  It was good to get out there to see what birds were about. The lake is still frozen so there wasn't any waterfowl, but we did see some nice birds including a bald eagle, two great horned owls, several Townsend's solitaires, two northern shrikes, seven bohemian waxwings, two red-tailed hawks and two northern harriers.  Also, on Sunday Nat Drumheller saw a long-eared owl in the trees on the east side.  Ginger

Bennington Lake today

Today the walk was fairly typical for a December morning. Common mergansers, green-winged teals, and mallards dotted the lake.  Several killdeer were on the mud and the great blue heron was at its favorite spot on the beaver dam. A kingfisher guarded the east side of the lake, and there were large flocks of robins and juncos all around the lake.  Song sparrows, chickadees, white-crowned sparrows and Bewick's wrens scurried around in the brush.  Downy woodpeckers worked the small trees and noisy flickers let everyone know they were present. Townsend's solitaires sang to us from the trees, several yellow-rumped warblers darted around in the conifers and a great horned owl watched us with interest on the east side.  On the high trail a northern shrike, a red-tailed hawk and a northern harrier hunted the fields.  There are still plenty of insects in the air, but cold weather is coming later in the week.  It will be interesting to see how the birds react to the cold and snow.

Ginger

Milton-Freewater Raptor Survey

Mike and MerryLynn Denny, Rodger and I, have been participating in the East Cascades Bird Conservancy's Oregon Raptor Survey Project for four years.  We survey our route, which consists of 100 miles of roads around Milton-Freewater, once a month during the winter.  Today we drove our route for the month of December and observed the following birds of prey.

 

Red-tailed hawk - 150

American kestrel - 45

Northern harrier - 4

Rough-legged hawk - 4

Ferruginous hawk - 1

Prairie falcon - 2

Cooper's hawk - 1

Great horned owl - 1

 

Other interesting birds seen on the route were a flock of bohemian waxwings, a flock of horned larks and at least 50 savannah sparrows.  Of the red-tailed hawks, three were Harlan's and several were rufous morph and dark morph.  Usually on Couse Creek Road we find large flocks of wild turkeys, but today there were none.