Cheney on Sunday

On Easter Sunday, Joseph, Anthony, and I went to Cheney for a couple of hours in the afternoon.  We went to the dam right away and right as we got to the top we saw several Horned Grebes.

Horned Grebes are gorgeous in their breeding plumage!

We moves on along the dam a couple of hundred feet, when Anthony exclaimed that he found a Loon.  Any loon is good, but when we got scope views we were all thinking we had a Pacific.  This was confirmed when we got home and looked at our pics.  A lifer all around!

Pacific Loon

Unfortunately, it was far enough out that we couldn't get any good pics.

There were many Bonaparte's Gulls and one Eared Grebe as well, along with the other more common birds.

This Bonaparte's was just getting his breeding plumage black hood.

We continued along the dam seeing several year butterflies such as Common Sootywing and Painted Lady.  Joseph also got some pics of one of the Olympia Marbles that were cruising the south side of the dam, in the sun and out of the wind.

Olympia Marble: pic by Joseph

We decided to hit some other points in the state park on the way back.  It was a good thing we did.  When we got out to scope some scaup, Joseph mentioned that he had a Red-breasted Merg, I looked up and saw a obvious Horned Grebe, we debated heatedly about this for a bit, both thinking the other crazy.  Eventually we realized we were looking at different birds, so I guess we were both right and are still friends for now.

Since the Merg was to far away to get pics, I will just put in this coot pic:)

While driving back around the lake we spotted a Bald Eagle nest, a quadcopter, and a friendly man out enjoying the beautiful day with his sons.

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Fish Crow

I visited the sandpit on Monday and found that the Fish Crows are back at the Hoskinson's Sandpit, along with my FOS Franklin's Gulls and a flyover Osprey!



Andrew