Hi Tweeters;
As I mentioned in my original post a couple of months ago, I just moved
to Gig Harbor from Madison, Wisconsin. Deb Grove in State College, Pa.,
happened to log on to Tweeters that day and saw my post. She wrote
saying she'd be in Washington for a conference and then would be
visiting relatives Gig Harbor. She invited me to join her Feb. 26 for
some birding.

We met Saturday morning and arrived at Nisqually at 8:45. Neither of us
has much experience with Western birds. Our list would have been longer
if we'd been able to identify gulls. (I'm pretty embarrassed about this
since I have done a lot of birding in Wisconsin with Tom Schultz who
illustrated the gulls and terns in the National Geo. Field Guide.) We
agreed we'd work on gulls and add those to our count the next time she
comes out this way. As it was, we saw:

Bewick's wren
golden-crowned sparrow
Red-winged black birds
robins
golden-crowned sparrow
shovelers
common goldeneyes
green-winged teal
mallards
Am. wigeon
common mergansers
pintails
bald eagle
No. harrier
ruby-crowned kinglet
golden-crowned kinglet
towhee
house finch
kingfisher
marsh wren
winter wren
brown creepers
buffleheads
lots of great blues
Lots of gulls we couldn't identify
coots
flicker
pied-billed grebe
horned grebe
Canada geese
brants
juncos
chestnut chickadees


We drove to Olympia where we had lunch and then saw lesser scaup and
ruddys in the Capitol Lake. At Priest Park, we saw more gulls we
couldn't identify, a hooded merganser, white wing and surf scoters, dble
cr. cormorants, a lot of crows and a great blue heron.

We got back to Gig Harbor around 4:30 and decided to make the most of
the daylight. We drove to Home on the Key Peninsula where we saw a
barrow's goldeneye, white wing and surf scoters and a common loon. The
barrow's was a life bird for Deb.

In between birds, we shared our stories; Deb grew up in Ohio a few
miles from the town my mother grew up in and not too far from
Pittsburgh, Pa., where I grew up. We both know biochemist Jack Gorski
at the University of Wisconsin. We both have a son and a daughter,
though mine are now grown and no longer embarrassed by a mother who
watches birds. Deb still has a few years to go before she and her
husband are empty nesters!

Thanks, Tweeters, for a great day of birding and a new friend.

Debby de Carlo
Gig Harbor
bobolink at centurytel.net