Subject: Labor Day week birds in W WA.
Date: Sep 7 19:27:35 2000
From: Li, Kevin - Kevin.Li at METROKC.GOV


A brief note on notable birds during recent activities:

Friday 9/1 with Kris Baker
Hoquiam sewage ponds/airport: 6 purple martins among many hundreds of barn
swallows. We heard them out over the pond, and then picked them out readily
with the scope. People at the cafe at he airport said the swallows had been
congregating over the past few days. Brown pelicans were scattered all over
the place.

One turkey vulture seen as we drove by Satsop around 1030 a.m.

Yellow billed loon off of Damon Point, seen along side a common loon on the
south shore; thanks for the many recent tweeter postings!

Labor Day with Kris, Stan Kostka & Lyn, Ed Newbold & Delia:
The tip from Dennis Paulson on purple martins instigated a visit to Spencer
Island; we saw 30+ purple martins feeding high off the E/NE end of the
island. At that end we also saw a peregrine being harried by 2 harriers and
a red tail, and later we had great light on two nearby ospreys.
Western Kingbird by the entrance, after a tip from Marv Breece.

Parasitic jaeger at the north end of Camano Island, harassing two Caspian
terns. Despite many hours in the field on Puget Sound, this was my first
jaeger in WA; in the Bering Sea I used to see them frequently at very close
range.

Stan Kostka has five pairs of purple martins in his nest boxes at a new park
at the north end of Camano; at least a dozen showed up around dusk, flying
around for about 30 minutes before retiring.

Thursday 9/7: one black swift on Lake Sammamish, the first I've seen out
here since early June. Saw a pileated woodpecker again by the boat ramp. One
Arctic tern at the mouth of Issaquah Creek was determined to perch on a
nearshore buoy despite our proximity, a mere 5 feet away.

Kevin Li
Seattle, WA
e-mail: kevin.li at metrokc.gov