Birds at Bennington Lake and County List Record

What a beautiful fall day for birding – warm weather, gorgeous fall colors, and tons of birds!  We started out with a Pacific wren.  Not that unusual for the county, but not a bird we see that often at the lake.  Next we saw a great blue heron adorning a dead tree.  Killdeer, greater yellowlegs and dunlin were in the mud and buffleheads and a western grebe dotted the water (what water there is).  We found two great horned owls today – one was sitting in a cottonwood that was brilliant yellow making for a nice photo.  Flocks of pine siskins, robins, goldfinches, cedar waxwings, juncos, white-crowned sparrows and house finches seemed to be everywhere we looked.  The biggest surprise was a PURPLE FINCH sitting in the top of a bare tree – calling.  The finch put our Walla Walla County list for 2012 at 257 – a record!  In addition, it was the first time one had been reported at Bennington Lake.  A northern shrike was in the shrubs on the east side and we had all three chickadees – black-capped, mountain and chestnut-backed.  Ruby-crowned and golden-crowned kinglets were mixed in with the chickadees.  We saw a total of 43 species today.  Days like today are what make birding so fun!  Ginger