No White-tailed Kite Today

On April Fools Day Ken, Bruce, Marcus and I headed to the Longview area to try for the White-tailed Kite that had been seen there for the four previous days. We met at 6:30 AM at the I-5/ Hwy. 512 Park & Ride and got to the location a bit before 8:30 AM. Greeted by a drizzle and foggy conditions, we spent the next 3 hours looking in vain for the kite. We met lots of the WA birding elite there, but none of us were able to locate the bird. Both male and female N Harriers, Eagles, TV’s and a reasonable variety of passerines were located, and we found the Red-throated Loon that had been making the hotline just west of the Barlow Point Road kite location on Willow Grove Road, but no kite. On the way home we made a quick stop at the Mountain View Cemetery in Centralia to see the Lesser Goldfinches that had been regular there, a FOY WA bird for all of us. A nice day with friends, but a disappointment to me to not see a new WA Life list species. I added 11 species to my meager Cowlitz County eBird list.