10/14/08 What’s Happening
October 13, 2008 by YH-R Outdoors
Bird Alert: Chinook Pass offers lots for Birders to enjoy
Fall colors, stupendous views and deep-purple blueberries were a bonus for birders enjoying fall hikes along Chinook Pass. While raptor numbers were low, they did see sharp-shinned hawks, red-tailed hawks, bald eagles and golden eagles. Other birds of note included sooty grouse, American three-toed woodpecker, brown creeper and winter wren. The best bird was pine grosbeak, an uncommon fall visitor to the east slope of the Cascades.
There appears to be a mini-invasion of mountain chickadees to some Yakima residential neighborhoods. Common in the high forests, the birds frequently descend into the lowlands in winter.
Another fall visitor to the valley showed up this week. Greater white-fronted geese were noted at Wenas Lake and on the Yakama Reservation along both Island Road and Oldenway Roads.
The game ponds along Bus Road east of Mabton held six species of shorebirds with killdeer, greater yellowlegs, lesser yellowlegs, pectoral sandpiper, long-billed dowitcher, and Wilson’s snipe. A great egret was observed fishing the shallows, and an immature peregrine falcon was dive-bombing the shorebirds.
Other sightings: Vaux’s swifts zooming about behind a Parker Heights residence; a brown creeper gleaning bugs on a power pole in a Sawyer yard; a western grebe on Lake Aspen; a merlin atop a tall snag along the Poppoff trail; and a northern shrike was noted just north of Costco.
Please call your bird sightings into the Yakima Valley Audubon phone line at 248-1963
— Kerry L. Turley
Climbing film tour comes to Central Thursday
Rock jocks — and, for that matter, anyone who likes watching climbers do that vertical dance up a rock wall — will want to check out the third annual Reel Rock Film Tour’s Thursday stop at Central Washington University.
The 7 p.m. showing at CWU’s Student Union and Recreation Center Theater will feature “Sharp End,” showcasing climbers in high-risk climbs on some of the world’s most-daunting rock walls. Tickets are $2 for CWU students and Recreation Center members, and $5 for general admission. Tickets are available at the student union box office or by calling 509-963-1301.
AROUND AND ABOUT
BOAT LAUNCH CLOSURE: The White Bluffs boat launch in the Hanford Reach will be closed either today or Wednesday, only for as long as it takes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to spray for invasive Russian knapweed, which crowds out native species and impedes the shrub-steppe habitat from recovering after fires like the one in the summer of 2007.
NEW GIFFORD PINCHOT SUPE: Janine Clayton, assistant director for minerals and geology in the U.S. Forest Service headquarters in Washington, D.C., has been named supervisor of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. She replaces Claire Lavendel, Gifford Pinchot supervisor from 1999 to 2008 and now director of Recreation, Lands and Minerals in the Forest Service Pacific Northwest regional office.
ON THE CALENDAR
TODAY: The Cascadians’ Tuesday hikers will do a 9-miler, with 2,200 feet of elevation gain, to Milakwa Lake. Tuesday hikers meet at 8 a.m. at the 40th Avenue Bi-Mart parking lot and carpool to the trailhead. Next week: Kendall Catwalk.
THURSDAY: The Pokies’ “Pomona ramble” hike will be different from the outing listed in the Cascadians’ newsletter (though the meeting place will be as listed there). For non-Cascadians who want to participate and need to know the meeting time and place, call trip leader Marion Mann at 452-4263 or Jeanne Crawford at 966-8608.
SATURDAY-SUNDAY: On Saturday, the Cascadians will hike to American Lake, a 14-mile round trip with 1,000 feet of elevation gain. The group’s Sunday hike will be an advanced trek to Tuck and Robin Lakes. For meeting time and place for both hikes, call Maurine Peck at 453-4244.
— From staff reports
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