Pre-Count Field Trip

Mike Denny led a field trip to various areas in the Christmas Bird Count Circle on December 8.  We visited Bennington Lake, the Airport, Biscuit Ridge Road, Five Points, Evans Road and several spots in Walla Walla and College Place.  The highlight of the day was a northern pygmy owl.  It was a life bird for several of the people on the trip, which always makes it a special event.  Other highlights were a large flock of common redpolls, a northern shrike, and several white sacks at the airport that we hoped were snowy owls, but weren't!  It was a good trip and nice to acquaint the group with the areas in the circle.  We even had a little snow at Five Points!  Looking forward to the Christmas Count next weekend.

Ginger

Northern Harrier With an Attitude

As we walked around Bennington Lake this morning, we noticed a red-tailed hawk sitting in the top of a pine tree.  Soon a female northern harrier started dive bombing the red-tail.  Not only was she diving at the bird, she was also screaming for it to leave.  This went on for several minutes before the red-tail took off – with the harrier in hot pursuit!  There were two northern shrikes today on our walk and two Townsend's solitaires, plus all the usual winter birds.  While on the east side of the lake we flushed about 35 California quail – that woke us up!  The lake was pretty quiet – 13 common mergansers, 5 green-winged teal, 3 mallards, 2 killdeer and a solitary ring-billed gull. There was a winter bite to the air this morning – it feels like snow!  Ginger