A sunny Saturday with lots of birds. It just doesn't get much better than
that!
I had just barely recovered from a very long and tiring, but fun and
educational field trip on the Skagit Flats w/ Bud Anderson's hawk class on
Thurs. We didn't get a 5-falcon day, but we saw 6 different Peregrine
Falcons and 76 different Bald Eagles! among other birds. And we also
witnessed a Peregrine swooping low over our heads, snatching up a duck,
losing the duck to a Harrier, and then the Harrier losing the duck to three
Bald Eagles. Quite a show. Bud had a Celestron scope w/ something like
56X magnification so we were able to observe birds almost a mile away. I'm
now starting to suffer from magnification envy!
Saturday dawned warm and sunny so some relatives and I met about 11:30 at
the Black River Slough. It is just north of I-405 between Renton and South
Center. Directions from Renton:
Drive west on Grady Way (which parallels I-405) about 1 mile to Oaksdale.
Drive north on Oaksdale about 0.6 miles and park on the right at a road
spur at Oaksdale and Monster Road. There is a trail into the marsh.
Almost immediately you will see some large cottonwood trees w/ a very
active heron rookery silhouetted against the sky. Wow. Now's the time to
see it before the trees leaf out (or the eagles eat the babies). We saw
one imm BAEA fly overhead. The Great Blue Herons are sitting on the nests
and flying around through and over the trees. They look prehistoric.
There were a number of ducks which included Green-wing Teals, Shovelers,
Greater Scaup, and Gadwall. But the Eurasian Green-wing Teal that we had
seen there earlier in the week were not visible on Sat. We took pictures
of the GBH's and then I headed north to Juanita Bay Park on North Lake
Washington, in search of the rare and elusive White-faced Whistling ducks
as described so well by Teresa M (avocet at halcyon.com). I walked around the
park from about 2:30PM until 5:30PM. I never saw the Wt-f. Wh. ducks or
Deborah Wisti-P. who was there w/ her cast on and who was also looking for
them. Did meet some other birders who didn't see them either. But I was
very impressed w/ Juanita Bay Park and intend to go back there soon.
Watched a muskrat no more than 10 ft. away do his thing w/ the new green
shoots of cattails. He kind of rolled around in them and held them in his
paws and ate them. There were lots of very healthy turtles of at least 2
varieties. All this up-close viewing is possible because of the various
boardwalks and bridges at the park. The animals and birds were just
ignoring the people.
>From the bridge in the park, I watched a Common Snipe in the mud at the
edge of the lake near the dead cattails. I was told that Virginia Rails
are seen there too. I heard them but never saw them. (This continues to
be my holy grail). The park had a number of explanatory signs about
wildlife and the history of the area. All were very informative and
answered a lot of my questions. I want to thank Teresa Michelsen for
writing about this excellent area.
Carol Schulz
DesMoines, WA
linusq at worldnet.att.net