Tuesday, May 29, 2012 last day for Eastern WA

This was the last day of our birding trip to Eastern WA. so we got up early and headed out north on McManamon Rd out of Othello. From there we turned right onto Morgan Lake Rd. This road goes quite a long way into the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge. It has numerous places to get out and look for birds. It was a bit confusing for us, not exactly knowing the area, we floundered around a bit but made the best of it. The good thing was that there were hardly any other people out there. We got out at a number of locations and saw a couple of beautiful great egrets, a blue heron and a number of terns and bunches of swallows. In another area we saw tri-colored blackbirds (#137) singing in the cattails. One of our last stops brought us to the Soda Lake Dam area. We had just a quick glimpse of some ducks and were trying to get a better view. A lady stopped and asked if we'd seen anything--we talked for a bit and she said those were blue-winged teals (#138). She also said she had just been up to the dam but hadn't seen anything. After that conversation Rudy and I almost decided not to go the extra 1/2 mile to check out the area, but Rudy decided we might as well go. It was a good thing too because there on the shallow part of the water was a single black-necked stilt (#139). A very cool looking bird and well worth the extra bit of time. It also proved to be a good bird to end our lovely time of birding in Eastern Washington.

We were gone 4 days/3 nights and added 26 new birds to the list in addition to seeing deer/porcupines/a yellow-bellied marmot/prarie dog and a cotton-tailed rabbit. We really didn't want to come back--I think we are made to bird all day long. Too bad you have to have money to keep going because it sure puts a crimp on the lifestyle we would prefer. Oh well, it was a great, great time. Here is a short video of some of my favorite birds from our long weekend.