Another escape between downpours.......

At the ponds near the Kent Animal Shelter I spotted a few water birds.

Common Merganser
Hooded Merganser
Buffle Heads
Lesser Scaups (male and female)
A Pied Billed Grebe (I think it was.....It's behavior said "grebe".
Kinda like "going down....down....down...." it didn't dive untill it was
halfway sunk.)

I also spied a group of sleeping ducks, bills tucked under their feather
as they floated in the pond. I think they may have been Ruddy Ducks,
because several of them had crisp, stiff tails sticking out. They also
had white-ish patches on what I could see on the sides of their faces. I
waited for a while to see if they'd wake up, but the rain started to come
down harder and harder and I had to head back to my car.

I encountered another birder on the path and he pointed out a VERY
SCRAGGLY hawk or some other raptor sitting on a log in the middle of one
of the ponds. The sorry looking bird looked like it had been blown to
Bakersfield by way of Lewiston and back with out a break. We weren't
sure if it was a young eagle or a hawk. This other birder told me he
spied several Great Blue Herons near the path that connects 64th S. and
West Valley Road.

Time to sign off.....Time to count rain drops landing in the mud puddles.
Lydia In Kent


Lydia Gaebe In Kent, WA
lydia at wizards.net
Life Is A Soap On The Reality Side Of The Tube