Subject: 5th fall Graysmarsh survey
Date: Sep 16 20:59:17 2001
From: Scott Atkinson - scottratkinson at hotmail.com



On Saturday, Sept. 15, Anne Winskie and I undertook the 5th annual fall
survey of Graysmarsh, a private property just north of Sequim in Clallam
County. Our all-day survey netted 104 species, equal to the last survey on
May 20th and very close to the other fall counts. The migrant passerine
flight was generally mediocre (just one HAMMOND'S FLYCATCHER, no Warbling
Vireos), the warbler flight included 7 sp. but numbers were down some from
other years. Sparrows, however, definitely caught our attention, in
particular a record-early imm. WHITE-THROATED SPARROW of the tan-striped
phase, at s. Graysmarsh. Of the other six sparrow sp., we noted returning
FOX and GOLDEN-CROWNED, and we had quite high counts (for the site) of
WHITE-CROWNED (52), LINCOLN'S (16), and SAVANNAH (103) SPARROWS.

Canada Geese were much in evidence at the s. Graysmarsh wheat fields, among
them were 5 GR. WHITE-FRONTED GEESE, somewhat noteworthy but the
groundskeeper said it has been a good fall so far for them. 2 CINNAMON TEAL
lingered on the marsh, a MERLIN was near the entrance, and on a day of very
few shorebirds, 12 RED-NECKED PHALAROPE and a BAIRD'S SANDPIPER were of note
(35 more RN Phalarope were more typical on the Edmonds-Kingston ferry run
the eve of the 14th). An early RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET was in deep forest
along the bluff trail.

Of local breeding residents, we had high numbers of Bewick's Wren,
Red-breasted Nuthatch, both the common chickadees, and RED CROSSBILL (46),
the latter evidently drawn to an abundant Doug-fir cone crop.

In the regular-but-noteworthy category were Am. Bittern 1, Sora 1 (answered
the tape, the Va. Rail count was six), and N. Saw-whet Owl 1 (which almost
hit the headlights).

Aesthetic highlights included two DC Cormorants doing tug-of-war over a
luckless fish; close views of Harlequin Duck pairs off the beach; a mother
Cal. Quail with 8 very recently-fledged young; and a huge bull elk at
Einarsen meadow.

Scott Atkinson
Lake Stevens
email: scottratkinson at hotmail.com

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