6/30 What’s Happening

Selah teen shooter a  2-time state champ

Todd Peterson, a 15-year-old from Selah, missed back-to-back shots in his first group of 25 targets, then broke the next 75 straight for a 98×100 round to capture to win the junior division of Sunday’s handicap event in the Washington State Trapshooting Championships in Spokane.

Peterson also won the “C” Division in Friday’s class championship singles in the four-day Amateur Trapshooting Association event, hosted by the Spokane Gun Club. He tied with two other shooters at 97×100, then won the shootoff with a perfect 25×25 round.

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Hunter ed class coming up in Selah

A hunting education class will begin July 13 at the Selah Civic Center.

Mandatory preregistration begins Wednesday at the Civic Center, with a $5 fee payable at sign-up. Because class size is limited to 30 and hunter’s ed classes always fill up, signing up quickly is recommended.

Class hours will be 6 to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday, July 13-17, and then 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 18. Students must attend each class session to pass the course.

For more information, call Tom at 509-457-8039.

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Volunteers needed for St. Helens trails

Volunteers are needed for a pair of upcoming backcountry project projects at Mount St. Helens in the ongoing campaign to repair storm-damaged trails within the national volcanic monument.

Forest Service trail specialists are partnering with the Mount St. Helens Institute, Washington Trails Institute, Northwest Service Academy, Backcountry Horsemen, Northwest Trails Alliance and Mountain Bike Mutts on a summer-long schedule of volunteer work projects. The two projects in July for which volunteers are specifically needed:

• July 18-19: Repairing hiking and mountain biking trails in the Butte Camp area on the south side, working with volunteers from the Northwest Trails Alliance. (For details: www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volunteering/documents/ButteCamp.pdf)

• July 25-Aug. 2: Repairing trails in the remote Mount Margaret backcountry north of St. Helens, working with volunteers from the Mount St. Helens Institute. (For details: 360-449-7887.)

For a complete list of volunteer work parties, go online to www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volunteering/BecomeaVolcanoVolunteer.shtml.

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BIRD ALERT

Secretive but curious skulker of dense thickets, the gray catbird is heard — its common call a raspy mew that sounds like a cat — more than it is seen. This week, though, gray catbirds were observed at the Toppenish National Wildlife Refuge, the Poppoff Trail and Clear Lake.

Bellevue birders visiting Fort Simcoe saw several Lewis’s woodpeckers as well as Bullock’s orioles, lazuli buntings, black-headed grosbeaks, a lark sparrow and a pair of ash-throated flycatchers among the oak trees.

A resident along Mieras Road reported a great egret busily consuming goldfish from their small pond and a single gray partridge scurrying across the lawn. Both are great birds not typically found on local yard lists.

A hike up Cowiche Canyon turned up plenty of swallows (cliff, northern rough-winged and violet-green). The canyon also held rock and canyon wrens, Say’s phoebe, lazuli bunting, Bullock’s orioles and black-headed grosbeaks.

A Parker Heights yard saw plenty of excitement as a pair of nesting western kingbirds chased and bickered at a Cooper’s hawk as it sped by. Other yard birds included two singing male lazuli buntings, and black-chinned hummingbirds that regularly visit the feeders. Their American kestrel box fledged four young and a California quail nest held 17 eggs.

The bluebird tallies from the “Vredenburgh Bluebird Trail” this week are in and it still appears that this will be a very strong year for the bluebirds. This week’s nest box totals included 43 eggs and 369 nestlings; 94 western and eight mountain bluebirds fledged this week. That makes 102 western and 29 mountain bluebirds fledged to date this year.

Please call your bird sightings into the Yakima Valley Audubon phone line at 509-248-1963

— Kerry L. Turley

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AROUND AND ABOUT

TRAIL WORK PARTY: Members of the All Wheelers Off Road Club and other volunteers earlier this week did back-to-back weekend work parties in support of the Department of Natural Resources near the Tree Phones Campground in the Ahtanum State Forest to help remove downed and dangerous trees that had forced a temporary closure of the area. The group logged 119 volunteer hours. Kudos to those hard-working volunteers.

WINTER ADVISORS NEEDED: The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission is looking for public nominations for its agency’s snowmobile and non-motorized advisory committees. The Winter Recreation Advisory Committee is seeking a non-motorized winter sports candidate from Area 5, which represents Kittitas, Yakima, Klickitat and Benton counties, as well as one for Area 1 (Northwest Washington) and an at-large candidate to represent snowmobilers.

The Snowmobile Advisory Committee is looking to fill candidate positions for Northwest Washington and North Central Washington (Okanogan, Chelan and Douglas counties), plus an at-large candidate to represent non-motorized winter sports enthusiasts. For more information on nominations, call 360-902-8684.

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ON THE CALENDAR

TODAY: The Cascadians’ Tuesday hikers will hike to the Granite Peak Lookout. The hardy souls in the Tuesday group meet at 7:30 a.m. at the 40th Avenue Bi-Mart parking lot and carpool from there, typically breaking into faster and slower groups. Next Tuesday: The Palisades.

WEDNESDAY: Mount Adams Cycling Club riders do their weekly 25-mile Naches loop ride, beginning at 6 p.m. at the Fred Meyer parking lot (near Key Bank). A faster group will begin a little later, since, after all, it won’t take them as long.

THURSDAY: The Cascadians’ Pokies won’t have a hike, this being the Thursday heading into the July 4 weekend. (And, no, there won’t be a Pokies hike at Pleasant Valley on Friday; that note in the Cascadian newsletter was incorrect.) The group’s next hike will be July 9, and that will be the Pleasant Valley trek.

Filed under All, Outdoors