Rose and I went to the arboretum yesterday morning to see the cherry
blossoms and to try and find the hummer that Michael Hobbs emailed about.
We went to the area in question, and started searching for the nest, with
no luck whatsoever......until she flew in and landed on the nest. Rose and
I both saw her at the same time, and we stayed and watched her for almost
an hour. Had we not known in advance in was an Anna's, I don't think
either of us would have been able to tell whether she was an Anna's or a
Rufous, as her nest was nicely shaded, and kept us from getting any good
details. Lots of walkers came by wondering what we were looking at and
would get quite interested when told it was a hummingbord nest with a
female sitting on it. She made three short excursions to feed while we
were there, but would be away for less than 3 minutes.

Also, the Great Blue Herons of Redmond, specificly, the ones who nest in
the woods owned by the Redmond Town Center (a point of some controversy in
Redmond, as the RTC folks now want to develop the land, but it wasn't in
their original land use agreement, and can't do it until the Herons are
gone permanently anyway - HA!), have been nest building over thepast week.
When driving home I've watched a number of them carrying large sticks into
the trees, and Rose has watched a couple of mating dances. At one point I
saw a flock of about 26 of them fly into the trees.

--
Steve Mansfield steve at nw.verio.net
Verio NorthWest Network Engineer 425-649-7467