QUINCY LAKE DRAGONFLIES, BIRDS AND GEOLOGY- *Sundays with Sunny and Friends!
FULL DAY TOUR

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Email experience@evergreenescapes.com or call 206-650-5795 for reservations

Tour Length: 11 Hours
Tour Code: ES05
Pick-Up: Issaquah P&R
Departing: 8:00 a.m.
Returns: 7:00 p.m.
Activities: Dragonfly and Bird Watching, Walking, & Educational Sightseeing
Difficulty: Easy
Carbon Footprint:
Min No of Passengers:

Inclusions:
Issaquah pick up and drop off; highly qualified and knowledgeable naturalist guide; travel in luxury vehicle; excellent casual lunch; selected fruit, energy bars, soda, juice, and tea; all entry and parking fees; and comprehensive commentary.

Description:
Enjoy this Sunday with tour guide Sunny Walter, professional wildlife photographer, nature photo tour leader, and co-author of “Washington Nature Weekends, 52 Adventures in Nature.” Our accompanying dragonfly expert is Dave Nunnallee, Dragonfly Society of the Americas member, and butterfly/dragonfly/birding tour leader.

We head to Quincy Wildlife Area north of George to visit a one of the few great areas where you can get close to dragonflies and damselflies from land.

We will stop at Frenchman Coulee see Yellow-headed Blackbirds and dragonflies in a marsh, search for White-throated Swifts near the basalt rimrocks, and see spectacular geological formations, including the “feathers,” a basalt formation that is very popular with climbers and very photogenic.

We will eat our excellent box lunches from “On Safari Foods” picnic-style at the Quincy Wildlife Area (we will bring ground cover for guest seating). We will then split our time in the afternoon between several excellent dragonfly areas: a small stream and riparian corridor near one of the lakes; several ponds with a good variety of dragonflies including skimmers, darners, emeralds and damselflies; and a hike along the trail to Dusty Lake.

Dragonflies and the much smaller damselflies are easy to observe in these freshwater ponds and gentle streams since they are active during the day. The males are generally the most colorful; the females more drab. Be sure to bring your binoculars and cameras for close-up photographs.

Our guide will bring enough nets so everyone can catch some dragonflies and damselflies. He will teach us the secrets of successfully capturing these beautiful insects. Dragonflies are fast flyers and hard to catch, but they can be handled gently without damaging them before we release them.

We will also stroll the shoreline of Quincy Lake and the nearby pond to view spring and summer birds – ducks, blackbirds, orioles, kingbirds, yellowthroats, sparrows, killdeer, geese, herons, doves, terns and cormorants. We will provide a good spotting scope to study distant sightings.

Our quest for dragonflies, birds, and geology ends with a 2 hour drive back to Issaquah, arriving at the Issaquah P&R around 7:00pm.

For more information on geology, natural history, species list, and itinerary, please click here

This tour can be customized as a private tour, call or email for a quote.