Subject: Winter's Coming....
Date: Jan 11 16:54:58 1998
From: "Jon. Anderson and Marty Chaney" - festuca at olywa.net


Hi folks,

The snow just quit here in west Olympia about 3:00 p.m., with 7" of snow on the ground. I'd kindled this morning's wood-stove fire with the front page of last weekend's January 4th Daily Olympian (Headline Story: "El Nino Is Taming Winter").

I was surprised a the level of activity from the juncos and song sparrows throughout the snowfall. The feeder was cleaned out twice, and they were pounding on the window demanding more. This was a day for ground-feeding under the vehicles in the driveway - which the juncos seemed to appreciate. A couple of towhees and a fox sparrow showed up. The Steller's Jays only showed once all morning, tanked up, then took off for places unknown. The chickadees didn't show all day - even though I'd just filled the suet feeder last night.

Yesterday (Sat the 10th) afternoon, I canoed Vance Creek over near Elma. The stretch of water I canoe is between the highway and Wenzel Slough Road, west of the airport/WDFW land. Cold wind coming down the Chehalis Valley, but beautiful and sunny all day. Not a lot of birds showing, but I enjoyed the trip and managed to avoid pneumonia.... while seeing 38 species.

Double-crested Cormorant
Canada Geese - B.c. moffitti only race noted
Tundra Swans, flying up and down the valley
Mallard
American Wigeon
Green-winged Teal
Pintail
Bufflehead
Lesser Scaup
Ring-necked Duck
Common Merganser - 1 drake
Great Blue Heron
Virginia Rail - sounded off right next to me from patch of reed canary-grass when I yelled
at the dog to sit back down...
Coot
Common Snipe
Ring-billed Gulls
Glaucous-winged-type gulls
Gull spp....
Red-tailed Hawk
Kestrel
Belted Kingfisher - male
Red-shafted Flicker
Hairy Woodpecker
Crow
Steller's Jay
Black-capped Chickadee
Bushtits
Marsh Wren
Bewick's Wren
Robin
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
House Finch
Spotted Towhee
White-crowned Sparrow (Didn't see any Golden-crowns...)
Oregon Junco
Fox sparrow
Song Sparrow
Red-winged blackbird
Starling - a flock of maybe 8,000 near the dairy/feedlot on Keyes Road
- probably some Brewer's Blackbirds mixed in, but I couldn't tell at that distance

I had forgotten my 'scope, so did not look at the waterfowl/gull flock at the ponds in the County Park east of the airport. Probably a bunch of stuff there... I'll look for it next time.

Best,

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, Washington
festuca at olywa.net