[Tweeters] Today's Highlights in Asotin County

[Alex Sowers]

Hey Tweets,

Today Jacob Miller, Luiz Stern, Sara Schneider, and I, headed down to the
Clarkston area in hopes of finding a continuing Glaucous Gull and escaping
the monotony that is birding Pullman in the winter. It was a clear day
though the single digit temperature didn't help. We ended up birding around
Asotin county the whole day and ended up with a pretty nice list of
highlights starting around sunrise. Here's a recap of some of the nice
finds and the itinerary:

Hells Canyon Marina:
- As we entered Clarkston around sunrise I scanned a flock of gulls from
the car with my bins. It soon became apparent that our GLAUCOUS GULL was
waiting for us right at Hells Canyon Marina! As it was 3 degrees and the
Snake was mostly frozen over, we were able to walk out and get decent looks
of it napping with some other gulls on the ice.

Chief Timothy Park:
- Sometime after crossing the bridge to the island, Jacob and I heard some
tapping from a nearby Ponderosa. Hoping it was the Red-breasted Sapsucker
that Dave Koehler had reported the day before, Jacob walked over to
investigate. He declared it was a WILLIAMSON'S SAPSUCKER and soon the whole
group had views of an adult male flying tree to tree away from us. We
caught up with it and were rewarded with nice views. It was in the same
area (east end of campground) when we left. While I expected Red-breasted
to be pushed to the interior following the cold front so I was quite
surprised to see that a Williamson's had also been seen the same day on the
Idaho side of the Snake!
- After tracking down the Williamson's at the east end of the campground,
we happened upon the rather loud continuing RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER. This is
the first Asotin county record on eBird. Always nice to find two sapsuckers
out here!
- Other notables included nice Aythya numbers with Canvasback (25), Redhead
(12), and Ring-necked Ducks (310) notably present. Two BARN OWLs and three
chickadee species were also seen.

Swallows Park
- Having found two in the same location last December, it was no
surprise to come to stumble upon a small flock (4) of CHESTNUT-BACKED
CHICKADEEs in a wooded row along the river. Chestnut-backed Chickadees
appear to be a lowland rarity in Asotin county, though this winter has
seemingly been good for them.
- Ice appeared to have brought in a fair number of ducks as well as a small
gull flock to the inlet. There were two THAYER'S GULLs in this flock - a
first winter and adult. While flagged in the county, they seem pretty
regular in small numbers.

Anatone Flats
- No Gyrfalcon though we had nice looks at a PRAIRIE FALCON chasing a
smaller bird. Maybe a Merlin? Also quite a few Gray Partridge, Wild
Turkeys, a NORTHERN SHRIKE, plus the county high count of Red-tailed Hawks
(26)! Notably few Rough-legged Hawks (1) which seems about right
considering what we've been seeing Whitman this winter. I'll note that the
Gray Partridge were doing the interesting behavior of burying themselves in
the snow up to their necks. Jacob made a nice catch spotting them as their
floating heads simply looked like rocks to me.

Snake River Rd.
- Common Goldeneye was the most abundant duck on the river with only a few
Barrow's nearby. A calling Canyon Wren was nice to get but did not make up
for the unfortunate miss of Golden Eagle.

Asotin Regional Landfill
- Refound the continuing first winter GLAUCOUS GULL with a flock that
included two adult THAYER'S GULLs. We're assuming this Glaucous is the same
one we saw earlier at the marina. There was also a first winter
GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL which seems typical for large gull flocks in the area.
Right before heading out Jacob and I got on a bird flying away from us with
a few other gulls. There is a very low chance this bird wasn't an adult
Lesser Black-backed Gull, though we only saw it flying directly away.
Around 150 Horned Larks were also present which seems about typical from
what we observed throughout the day.

Peola Rd.
- Got our target SHORT-EARED OWL while driving Peola Rd at sunset. A few
had been seen the previous day so we had our hopes up and fortunately
spotted one on a distant post. Driving these rural roads this time of year
around dusk always proves to be productive for gallinaceous birds. We
counted the county high count of 107 GRAY PARTRIDGE while scanning the
fields for owls.

All in all a pretty productive day and a nice break from Pullman with 82
species.

Good birding,
Alex Sowers
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