9/18/08 What's happening

Clean-up Saturday
in Little Naches

A "Pick Up a Mountain" volunteer trails clean-up, sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Four-Wheel Drive Association and hosted by a Yakima-Selah four-wheeler group called the Shindig Wheelers, is set for Saturday in the Little Naches.

Participants will be meeting at Long Meadow, which is just south of Crow Creek campground and northwest of Kaner Flat. It's most easily accessed by turning left off the 1900 road (Little Naches Road) onto 1902, and then taking a left (south) on 634 to the Long Meadow campground.

All user groups and trail-use enthusiasts are invited to participate. Prospective participants are asked to call Pam or Frank Remley of the Shindig Wheelers at
658-2496 or PNW4WDA
Region 4's Kelda Hagemeier at 698-3703, so that organizers can better coordinate volunteer efforts.

River expert to speak on basin salmon runs

A plan on how best to restore salmon and steelhead runs to the Yakima River Basin will be the focus of a
presentation by Jack Stanford, Ph.D, at 3 p.m. Wednesday at the J.M. Perry auditorium in Yakima.

Stanford, an expert in river ecology and river restoration, is an ecology professor at the University of Montana, the director of the Flathead Lake Biological Station and a member of the National Academy of Science.

Bird Alert: Backyard sightings rolling in

Your yard is a place where you can enjoy yourself, the great outdoors and backyard birding, one of America's most popular pastimes. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that the yard was the place to see a good variety of migrating birds this week.

A white-winged dove, a bird of the southwestern United States, was reported in a yard on the corner of Lincoln Avenue and 36th Avenue in Yakima. The sighting is unverified, and the likelihood of of the bird being so far from its usual haunts is so minimal that each of the rare previous reports of this species are considered hypothetical.

We also had reports of an outstanding 47 species being observed in just four hours of watching the migration flow through a Konnowac Pass yard, including a common yellowthroat, lazuli bunting, savannah sparrow, western tanager and Vaux's swift. This was followed by reports of a Lincoln's sparrow and a first-year ring-necked pheasant feeding in a Terrace Heights yard. The 31 species noted in a Parker Heights yard included red-eyed vireo, fox sparrow, varied thrush and western screech-owl. There were at least three Eurasian Collared-Doves flying around the neighborhood at W. Prasch and Landon avenues.

It was a good week for gull watching at Priest Rapids, with reports of two immature Sabine's gulls near the Yakima County shore as well as ring-billed gull, California gull, a herring gull noted in mid-channel and a first-year western gull spotted below the dam. Grebes were plentiful, with pied-billed, horned, eared, red-necked and western grebe all noted.

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

-- Kerry L. Turley

AROUND AND ABOUT

BIG FISH ON THE BIG RIVER: With water temperatures in the entire Columbia River having been generally lower than normal in recent weeks, that's made for better upriver movement. The steelhead run is about 10 percent above the 10-year average at Bonneville, where some 330,000 steelhead have passed through the ladders, and about 40 percent above average at John Day, with anglers having some success there and above McNary. And the fall chinook run is also running above normal, with nearly a quarter-million already through John Day Dam, so anglers are already targeting those upriver brights in the Hanford Reach.

PUBLIC LANDS DAY: Day-use fees at most Forest Service recreation sites will be waived Sept. 27-28, the weekend of the 15th National Public Lands Day, to honor America's veterans and new citizens. Campground fees will still be in effect.

METHOW CLOSURE: The Methow River will close to fishing today, two weeks before the catch-and-release trout fishery was scheduled to end, to avoid incidental catch of protected wild steelhead.

ON THE CALENDAR

SATURDAY: The Yakima Hiking Club will head to the famed Kendall Catwalk, on the Pacific Crest Trail north of Snoqualmie Pass. The hike is an 11-mile round trip with some 3,000 feet of elevation gain. Yakima-area participants will be meeting at 7 a.m. in the Selah Save On Foods parking lot for carpooling, and then stopping at Super One Foods in Ellensburg to meet up with Kittitas County participants. Hikers should bring water, lunch, appropriate clothing and hiking gear, and be ready for a full-day experience.

SATURDAY: The Cascadians' Saturday hike will be a 15-mile round-tripper to Alta Mountain, with 3,300 feet of elevation gain. For meeting time and place, call Maurine Peck at 453-4244.

TUESDAY: The Cascadians' Tuesday hikers will go to Owyhigh Lakes, a 7-miler with 1,300 feet of elevation game. Participants meet at 7:30 a.m. at the 40th Avenue Bi-Mart parking lot and carpool from there.

WEDNESDAY: The Mount Adams Cycling Club's weekly 25-mile loop ride to Naches begins at 6 p.m. at the Fred Meyer parking lot off 40th Avenue. For info, e-mail anotherjones@earthlink.net.

THURSDAY (Sept. 25): The Cascadians' Pokies will trek to Red Top in Kittitas County. For meeting time and place, call Jeanne Crawford at 966-8608.

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