I have met Matt Yawney in the field a few times. Each time left me with new respect for Matt as a birder and as a really nice guy. One of the first times I met Matt was on a visit to Bassett Park in Washtucna, WA. This is a quite small town in eastern WA, and Matt had found an uncommon eastern wood warbler there the day prior. I don’t recall which warbler, but I do remember Matt spending some time looking around the park with me, and seeing and hearing lots of other migrants in the trees.
Later in 2018 Matt was doing a Grant County big year, and we communicated when Ken Brown and I were birding fall migration in the area. Ken and I located a Short-billed Dowicher at Potholes Park and a Pacific Golden Plover at Perch Point, and helped get Matt onto these two species he needed for his year list.
At the last WOS Conference in Moses Lake Matt led a field trip to Northrop Canyon that included many other stops. He was a really fine trip leader, and again we were all impressed and pleased at his low-key but high energy birding leadership on his home turf.
Grant County is a fairly rural county, with less than 90,000 people in the 2010 census, but has a nice list of birds. There are 339 species on the Grant County Checklist on WABirds.com and Matt has seen 286 species on his eBird list. I don’t know of anyone with a list that approaches Matt in the county. The closest on eBird is Gina Sheridan with 245, and on the WA Birder site Randy Hill has 264 posted. `
I especially enjoyed Matt talking about really working the expected migrant spots in the key times of the year. This sounded a lot like when I talked with Kimball Garrett on episode 71 and he talked about knowing the geography, the vagrancy patterns, and the expected local birds as keys to finding uncommon vagrants.
Here are some links that relate to topics discussed on the episode:
Matt’s eBird Profile page
The WABirder Page.
The episode of The Bird Banter Podcast with Ryan Rodriguez
The Bird Banter Podcast with Kimball Garrett
Here is a cool article with more info on Arctic Tern migration.
Until next time. Good birding. Good day!