Sunday, March 18, 2012

March Audubon Field Trip

Mike and MerryLynn Denny led the March Field Trip to the west side of the county on March 17 in search of early migrants and wildflowers. The wind was howling but that didn't stop the group from walking around Hood Park where we found many yellow-rumped warblers, an orange-crowned warbler and a pair of black-capped chickadees setting up house in a nest box along the water.  We saw a glaucous gull on the Walla Walla River Delta and set up scopes at Wallula Grain Terminal to get a lesson in how to tell the difference between lesser and greater scaup. The highlight was hiking the rocks in Wallula Gap where we found desert buttercups, shooting stars and prairie stars, lichen and several other plants emerging from winter's cold.  Robins were everywhere, there were around 200 snow-geese and several hundred white-fronted geese on McNary NWR, and three great horned owls on nests.  All in all, it was a great trip.

 

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