Tweets,

Most of the Osprey that nest in the Snohomish River estuary
have returned. They have been coming in for several weeks
now. Ed Level reported the first one here March 29. Sunday I
counted 49 Osprey. One of the nests in Steamboat Slough is
occupied by a Canada Goose. At this point the birds have not
been doing too much work on the nests with only a few nests
having new accumulations of sticks.

Last summer one of the observations made was that the birds
seemed to be taking a lot of Starry Flounder (Platichthys
stellatus) which is identifiable by alternating light and dark
bands on the fins and tail. (See
http://www.whozoo.org/anlife2000/smithahlgren/Flounder_index.h
tm or
http://www.enature.com/fieldguide/showSpeciesFT.asp?fotogID=84
2&curPageNum=10&recnum=FI0144 for images and more info on the
flounder.) If any of you manage to get good looks at prey
being taken by Osprey around Everett, I would appreciate
hearing about it. We are going to try to get better data on
what the birds are eating here.

Ed Schulz
Everett, WA
eschulz at gte.net