Hello, Tweeters! Today my dad and I went the Smith Brother's "Lake" and
GRNRA. At Smith Brother's, we ID'ed the 9 swans as Tundra (even saw the tiny
yellow patch on bill). After that, we spent a lot of time scanning the ducks.
We found Buffleheads, American Wigeons, 2 shovelers, MANY Canada Geese (with
MANY Cacklers in with them), Northern Pintail, Gadwall, and American Coots.
We both were scanning the wigeons vigorously for a Eurasian, and after a long
time it really paid off! We found 2 male Eurasian Wigeons, a lifer for both
of us! Then came a large flock of Dunlin, and one came about ten feet away,
providing very good looks. After a while longer a harrier spooks some ducks.
When we looked up we saw a line of geese and 700 or more feet up. When we
looked through our scopes, we could see very clearly that the "geese" were a
flock of 12 swan sp! They never landed, though, so we couldn't ID. After
that, we left after scanning the ducks one more time.
When arriving at the Kent Ponds, we saw a very large Red-tail up on a
dead tree. After that, we saw nothing. When we got to the ponds we were very
disappointed at how far away we had to stay. All we saw were some
buffleheads, coots, Canada geese, Ruddy Ducks, and Common and Hooded
Mergansers. Then we tried another path. On that path we saw Savannah
Sparrows, a Peregrine Falcon, and a possible Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk. We
went to one of the observation towers and all we saw were owl pellets! What
kind of owl do you think these are from? We proceeded on the path and flushed
up a - Ring-necked Pheasant! We tried to find it again, but after we couldn't
we went over to Van Doren's Landing Park to check on the river. We got a
great look at a singing Bewick's Wren and a Towhee, but not much else. We
heard a possible rail, but after looking for some time, we think it might
have been a carpenter hammering a nail in the distance. It was now 1:00 and
we had to go home, so that's was about all the birds that we got to see.

Birdking88 at aol.com
Charlie W. Wright
Sumner, WA
Age 10