Hello Tweets,

Today my mother and I conducted our portion(Area 8)of the Tacoma CBC that includes from the west Narrows Memorial Park, and the Titlow/Day Island area east to the west end of the Tacoma Waterfront. We were very fortunate this year to encounter good and favorable weather conditions unlike the past several years,which allowed a good count of species and numbers of birds throughout the Tacoma CBC,as noted by Charlie Wright's Tweeters posting. My mother and I have our area broken up into three area to cover as much ground as possible and it seems to work best that way and this year we were able to tally 85 species,which is quite good for our area. This year we had an exceptional count of many species,of which several were key highlights and are noteworthy to our section and the general Tacoma CBC. Our most notable highlights for the day included our second record of BARRED OWL for our area and for the Tacoma CBC observed near the same location as we noted an individual 10 years ago near our home in Fircrest, and a RUFFED GROUSE located south of our main section along the Leech Creek drainage,which was a first record for our area. We of course had other highlights,but the other two parties in our area also had several species to add to our list,which always helps out due to the overall size of our area. We are fortunate to have the help for counters each year that always are able to make the best of their area and also for them being able to find additional noteworthy species to add to our list. This year like others was spent mostly on foot as my mother and scoured the west end of our area covering as much ground as possible. We were able to cover more ground more readily this year due to the favorable weather,although some area have changed quite considerably in our area from last year with more disturbance from building and clearing of land. Although some of the areas have changed from year to year we seem to always find species to make up for lost areas. Unlike past years we encountered high count on several passerines species,possibly due to the mild temnperatues and good weather.A list of several noteworthy species and species numbers that were noted in our area today,with some of particular note include the following:

2 Red-throated Loons off Day Island
5 Tundra Swans flying over Snake Lake Nature Center
13 Wood Ducks
7 Ring-necked Ducks
5 Sharp-shinned Hawks
2 Cooper's Hawks
8 Red-tailed Hawks
2 Merlins
1 Ring-necked Pheasant at Tacoma Community College
1 RUFFED GROUSE along the Leech Creek drainage in University Place
1 Ring-billed Gull
8 California Quail
3 Virginia Rails(heard only)at the Adriana Hess Wetland(behind the Tahoma Audubon Society office)
3 Mourning Doves
1 Western Screech Owl(heard only)
1 BARRED OWL
11 Anna's Hummingbirds(second highest count for our area)
41 Northern Flickers(high count)
1 Pileated Woodpecker
36 Steller's Jays(high count)
106 Black-capped Chickadees
2 Marsh Wrens
125 Golden-crowned Kinglets
91 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
2 Hermit Thrushes
3 Hutton's Vireos
3 Townsend's Warblers
97 Fox Sparrows(high count)
2 Lincoln's Sparrows
4 Brewer's Blackbirds


All in all a good day!


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
godwit at worldnet.att,net



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