12/2 What’s Happening

Presentation to focus on owls, woodpeckers

Award-winning wildlife photographer-naturalist Paul Bannick will be the featured presenter at Thursday’s 7 p.m. Yakima Valley Audubon Society program at the Yakima Area Arboretum.

Bannick, director of development for Conservation Northwest and the official photographer for the “Birdnote” radio programs, will be showing photographs he took while putting together “The Owl and the Woodpecker: Encounters with North America’s Most Iconic Birds,” published in October by The Mountainers Books.

Bannick will take visitors on a visual journey of 11 key North American habitats, with a focus on the Pacific Northwest, the meet the needs of all 41 of North America’s owl and woodpecker species. The photographic study will be accompanied by anecdotal field stories and Bannick’s knowledge of natural history derived from thousands of hours in the field.
SCI banquet slated Saturday in Yakima

The Central Washington chapter of Safari Club International will hold its annual wild-game banquet and auction Saturday at the Yakima Convention Center, with doors to open at 4 p.m., dinner at 6:30 and the auction to follow.

Trips to be auctioned off include deer hunts to Canada and Mexico, South Africa hunts, an elk hunt at Hanford, fishing trips to Alaska and Mexico. The wild-game dinner includes venison (deer, elk, moose) and wild birds, as well as ham and turkey. In addition to the auction, entertainment will include music by the Horsecrazy Cowgirl Band.

Prices are $45 adults and $20 ages 13 to 18, with 12-and-under kids free. Of the proceeds, 70 percent will go towards SCI projects in the Yakima Valley, including reintroduction projects involving antelope and wild turkeys. For information or to purchase tickets, call Eric Rasmussen at 877-3260 or Deborah Barrett at 966-0504.

Busy weekend for Yakima trap club

The Yakima Valley Sportsmen trap club will have a busy couple of days of shooting this weekend at the Pomona Gun Club in Selah.

On Saturday, the club will host a Pacific International Trap Association 50/50/50 bird registered shoot, with scores being phoned in from other shoots around the state, with the competition involving up to 30 clubs. Entrants will get 50 shots at each of three events — 16 yards, handicap and doubles, with cash prizes in each  event. Signup is at 9 a.m., with shooting to begin at 10.

Sunday will feature the annual Toys for Tots turkey shoot available to all shooters, club members as well as outsiders, who donate a toy to the Marines’ Toys for Tots program. As always, a tank detachment from the U.S. Marine Corps Bravo Company will be on hand with one of their huge Abrams tanks. Tickets are $25, with all shooters guaranteed a turkey. Shooting begins at 8:30 a.m.

• If you’re planning ahead, the Yakima Valley Sportsmen trap club has scheduled a crab feed for Jan. 17, with tickets set at $32. For information, call Paul Klingele at 945-0604.
Nethery fares well at half-iron nationals

Vince Nethery, a Central Washington University faculty member who also serves as co-director for the Whisky Dick Triathlon, competed strongly in last month’s half-ironman triathlon nationals in Clearwater, Fla., finishing 14th in the 50-54 men’s age category.

The Nov. 8 race was officially called the Ironman World Championships 70.3, the number referring to the number of miles in a half-iron event — a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike ride and 13.1-mile run, exactly half of what each stage would be in a full ironman triathlon. Nethery, who had earned his national berth last July in a Lake Stevens qualifier, finished the Florida race in four hours, 44 minutes and 27 minutes. His split numbers: 32:10 for the swim, 2:16:58 for the bike and 1:49:05 for the half-marathon.
Bird Alert: Unusual sightings in Valley

Birders on the Yakima Training Center enjoyed good views of 20 gray-crowned rosy finches preening themselves in a tall serviceberry bush — an unusual sighting, since these birds are a ground- or cliff-dwelling species. Also noted were three gray partridge, a white throated sparrow, a male common redpoll spotted in a clump of water birch, a long-eared owl and seven greater sage grouse.

A swamp sparrow — a rare find for Yakima County, normally ranging in eastern and central North America — was spotted along the Yakima River near Mabton this week. Birders on a morning trip up the Horse Heaven Hills near Mabton encountered mountain bluebirds feeding on the berries of the western juniper trees, along with lots of American robins and a few Townsend’s solitaires.

A Renton visitor found three cackling geese, and a single immature snow goose in a small field in Selah and, at Yakima Sportsman State Park, a small flock of bohemian waxwings and a very cooperative American bittern.

An afternoon trip to French Canyon past Tieton produced good looks at a juvenile northern goshawk, as it perched in a small tree for a few minutes before launching into its recognizable short-flap, long-glide flight down the hillside. There were also 30-plus Lewis’ woodpeckers noted in a mix of aspen, ponderosa pine and garry oak.

A merlin was spotted from the Nob Hill Overpass near First Street. An extremely clever and ambitious bird, this one may possibly be attracted by that area’s large population of rock pigeons.

Please call your bird sightings into the Yakima Valley Audubon phone line at 248-1963.

— Kerry L. Turley

ON THE CALENDAR

TWIG MEETING TONIGHT: The 7 p.m. meeting of the Trails and Wilderness Interest Group (TWIG) will feature a presentation by John McGowan, manager of the Oak Creek Wildlife Area, which spans more than 40,000 acres that border the Naches Ranger District on its eastern side. The meeting, the last TWIG gathering of 2008, will be held at the Naches Ranger Station, and visitors should park in the rear lot and enter the station through the back door. District Ranger Randy Shepard and district recreation staff members Sue Ranger and Mike Rowan will host the meeting.

WOLF PRESENTATION TONIGHT: Anthony Novack, a deer/elk conflict specialist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, will be giving a presentation on wolves at tonight’s meeting of the Richland Rod and Gun Club. Novack will discuss the state’s current wolf-management draft plan as well as wolf impacts to big-game populations. The 7 p.m. meeting, open to the public, will be at the City of Richland Maintenance Facility, 2700 Duportail Street. (To get there, follow I-82 and then I-182, then take Exit 3 off 182 and go left on Queensgate Drive; the maintenance facility is on the north corner of the intersection of Queensgate and Dupertail.)

TODAY AND EVERY TUESDAY: The Cascadians’ Tuesday trekkers meet at 8 a.m. at the 40th Avenue Bi-mart parking lot and carpool from there to whatever hike, cross-country ski trek or snowshoe trip is decided upon that day, usually determined by weather and snow conditions or the whim of the trip leader.