Tweets,

Bill Ward & I spent a typical November morning at Nisqually today. You know,
clear with a forcast high of 60. Happens all the time....right!!

When I left the house at 7:30 the Weather Channel said it was 30 in Olympia.
When I got out of the truck in the parking lot I believed it!! Thank God it
warmed up soon. Anyhow, we had a great day. Lots of waterfowl around and
someone must have called a raptor convention and forgot to tell the rest
us....About 11:00, near the "duck pond area" we could see 3 Red-Tailed Hawks
kettleing over the middle of the refuge, 2 Northern Harriers over the
Nisqually River side and a Northern Harrier and a Rough-Legged Hawk Near
McAllister Creek. No wonder it was pretty quiet!!

Earlier we watched a Northern Shrike chase a wren(?) for 75 yards or so
before the wren (little bird) dove into a thicket and the shrike landed on
top of the thicket, empty taloned. The Red-Tailed also spent quite a bit of
time high in the trees warming up in the sun.

I commented (complained?) to Bill that while I see lots of sign of Pileated
Woodpeckers I never see the bird at Nisqually. Well, as we got back to the
parking lot I saw a bird land in a large tree between the parking lot & the
freeway. The undulating flight told me woodpecker and the size? Well, I
wasn't sure. As we put our binoculars on the tree I held my breath, I saw it
& Bill said Pileated! Confirmed! My first Pileated at Nisqually since I
started going there soon after I got here in 1984.

We still didn't see the Short-Eared Owl that I saw 11/8 last year, but we saw
25 species including the above. Also saw Mallards, Gadwalls, American Wigeon
(no Eurasians), Norther Pintails and Shovlers, Green-Winged Teal, Bufflehead
and Coot. We also saw Song, White-Crowned and Golden-Crowned Sparrows,
Robins, Starling and Juncos. Red-Winged Blackbirds, Marsh Wren, Spotted
Towhees and Black-Capped Chickadees were also plentiful. Besides the Pileated
Woodpecker we also saw Northern Flicker and a Downy Woodpecker. Crows and
Great Blue Heron also were seen. We also saw several peeps flying by and a
bunch of gulls that I still can't ID...but I'm trying. Did see a
Glaucous-Winged Gull that was sitting on a piling(?) that I called.

We also heard a belted kingfisher that we never saw. All in all, a great way
to spend a November morning...Sure beats work, where I'll be tomorrow.

Phil Kelley
Lacey, WA
scrbjay at aol.com