Northern Goshawk at Bennington Lake

The last bird we saw as we were walking back to the parking lot – an immature northern goshawk.  Unfortunately, only two of us were still on the trail at the time.  Other than the goshawk, the day was pretty typical for a winter walk around the lake.  There was very little water on the lake, and half of it was frozen.  We did see two common mergansers, five mallards and two northern pintails.  Bewick's wrens continued to serenade us with their spring song, and they were joined today by juncos, song sparrows and northern flickers.

 

It's that time of year when anticipation is great and discovery is still to come.  I know it won't be long before the swallows return, and then the other spring birds will be along to make it really seem like spring. Ginger

Waterfowl/Raptor Field Trip

Eighteen of us met at Harper Joy Theater this morning to spend the day looking for birds. The forecast was for rain, but fortunately we had none.  However, there is always a trade-off, and today it was wind, and then smoke.  Trying to hold on to scopes on the Columbia River proved to be a real challenge, but we still managed to find 20 species of waterfowl.  Highlights were several thousand SNOW GEESE, over 300 WHITE-FRONTED GEESE and thousands of CANADA GEESE flying all over McNary NWR.  We only saw four BALD EAGLES along the route, but did find two GREAT HORNED OWLS.  We looked for raptors on the way to the river along Sudbury Road and Dry Creek Road.  There were numerous RED-TAILED HAWKS and AMERICAN KESTRELS, several NORTHERN HARRIERS, a PRAIRIE FALCON and a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK.  A COOPER'S HAWK at McNary Headquarters brought out raptor species count up to six.  We planned to look for more raptors on the return trip to Walla Walla, but encountered farmers in the process of burning their fields.  Needless to say, it didn't make for good birding conditions.  Our species count for the day was 40 – not bad considering the conditions. Ginger