Hi Tweets,

Tempted to subtitle this post 'Which Way Did They Go?', after the crowd of
the evening before (July 02: 7,000-8,000 Western Sandpipers WESA, over 25
Semipalmated Sandpipers SESA) on all four settling ponds, last night's high
tide threw up a paltry few hundred WESA and a handful of SESA. Boy, did they
vacate fast! Are southern staging sites getting a fresh influx? I'd guess
that the Pacific Low between Vcr BC and Alaska, with its head-on SE winds,
likely has the next wave bottled up at Stikine & Copper River Delta.

Forgot to mention that the other night, Ken & Kris Klimko and myself watched
as in virtually full dark an adult Bald Eagle made a couple of strikes
against ducks along the shore of Iona Is. at the base of the Iona South Jetty.

Conditions: Temp: 24 Celsius; Wind: NW ~20 km/hr; Barom: High; Cloud: 4/10
high cirro- and altostratus, decreasing; Visibility: forever (the low wall
of the Olympics ghosting over the shoulders of the Gulf and San Juan
Islands); Tide: 4m high, slack.

Great Blue Heron 2
Green-winged Teal 2 2m, one in partial ecl
Mallard 1 m, ecl
Blue-winged Teal 1 m, ecl (numbers down from avg 6-7)
Cinnamon Teal 2 m, beginning ecl
Norther Shoveler 2 m, ecl
Gadwall 31 3f with 19y, 9m
Bald Eagle 1 ad
Cooper's Hawk 1 ad, resident in cottonwoods to E?
Virginia Rail 1 S end, Iona Causeway
Ring-necked Pheasant 1 m
Killdeer 8 6a in 3 prs, 2y
Spotted Sandpiper 4 4a in 2 prs
Semipalmated Sandpiper 12 Def Alt
Western Sandpiper ~450 50% Def Alt, 50% Ptl Alt
Least Sandpiper ~30 Def Alt except for 2 Ptl Alt
Ring-billed Gull ~200 Iona Causeway, most Alt 2
Glaucous-winged Gull 4
Caspian Tern 14 flying downriver, N Arm of Fraser
Mourning Dove 2 S end, Iona Causeway
Vaux's Swift 1
Rufous Hummingbird 1 f/jv, NW pond
Tree Swallow 6 2m
Violet-green Swallow 2 1m, 1f
N. Rough-winged Swallow 1
Cliff Swallow 1
Barn Swallow 8 3a, 5jv
Northwestern Crow 7
Marsh Wren 7 6m
American Robin 5 3f, 2m, all carrying food
European Starling ~500 3a, the rest jv
Common Yellowthroat 3 2m, 1jv
Spotted Towhee 2 2m
Red-winged Blackbird 7 4f, 3m
Yellow-headed Blackbird 2 2jv, begging calls*
Brewer's Blackbird 18
Brown-headed Cowbird 2 1m, 1f
House Finch 5 2m 3f/jv
American Goldfinch 3 2m, 1f

*both just to the W outside treatment plant fence; one just W of the SW
corner of SW pond, the other just W of NW pond.

Cheers,

Michael Price When I found out that seven of my years
Vancouver BC Canada was only one of theirs,
mprice at mindlink.net I started biting absolutely everything.
-Max Carlson (Ron Carlson's dog)