Hi all.

Yesterday, 10/3, Judy Duvall and I birded Spencer Island, Big Ditch, Jensen
Access, North Fork Access, and the Game Range.
We started off in a cold fog at Spencer Island. While we stood there
shivering and looking at Long-billed Dowitchers and Pectoral Sandpipers, a
juvenile Northern Harrier flew by us, 10 feet away! When the sun burned off
the fog, the temperature jumped about 20 degrees, and all the birds woke up.
Highlights included a Nashville warbler, a Pileated Woodpecker, a Merlin,
three Cooper's Hawks, and a peregrine. It was great fun to hear and see two
Fox Sparrows singing lustily from the blackberries; these skulkers of winter
must have thought it was a spring day.
At the end of Eide Road near Stanwood were at least five different red-tails
and a bunch of pheasant hunters.
At the Big Ditch were at least ten American Pipits, 500+ Snow Geese, five
harriers, and a pair of peregrines bowing and vocalizing to each other on a
wooden structure out in the water (and hassling the ducks).
There was a bittern at the Jensen Access (and nothing else). North Fork was
very quiet.
The Game Range was beautiful but also quiet - lots of sparrows in the brush
and a sharpie lurking in the trees.
Red-tails and harriers were very evident everywhere we went. Most of the
red-tails were adults; most of the harriers were beautiful "chocolate and
cinnamon" juveniles.
Did I mention that the weather was gorgeous?

Ruth Taylor
Seattle
rutht at seanet.com