Hi Birders,

I am not a suscriber, but at the suggestion at a couple of your
members, I have been regularly checking the Tweeters site. I work with
an environmental section of Pierce County and we monitor our mitigation
wetlands for a variety of things, including plant mortality and types of
animals. The most exciting thing I've seen is that many of you have
been to the 96th Street Wetland Mitigation site east of Alderton, which
is one of our projects. I was so excited to see that so many of you
have had some great findings of shorebirds and other species. I have
been printing off your messages and placing them in our monitoring files
(I hope no one minds). I think it's absolutely fantastic. While I'm at
it, I'd like to also suggest one of our sites just north of 8th Street
East (east of SR 167, just barely south of the King County line). Just
take a left onto Butte Ave. across the railroad tracks and drive maybe
1/2 mile. There is a mitigation site on the right with a big red Pierce
County gate. In just our casual passing and monitoring (nothing nearly
as intense as your sightings, plus we are not quite as experienced in
bird ID, and we have to carry along our bird guides) we have seen many
Belted Kingfisher (I think they come to eat the Coho fry that come into
the wetland from the Stuck River), multiple Great Blue Heron, Bald
Eagle, Lesser Yellowlegs, Band-Tailed Pigeon, Killdeer, Tree Swallow,
Mallard, American Widgeon, Red-Tailed Hawk, Canada Goose, and many other
species which I am sure I saw and unfortunately might have passed off as
something less significant. There are also great amphibians (Pacific
Treefrogs and Norwestern Salamanders) and insects and invertebrates such
as Caddisfly Larvae, Water Striders, Western Tiger Swallowtails, Tule
Bluets, Pacific Fritillary, and Western Pondhawk. I hope this helps out
with your birding. If you have any significant findings, please let me
know. I would be absolutely ecstatic to see them!

Sincerely,
Michelle Banonis
Pierce County Public Works and Utilities, Transportation Services
Consultant Engineering/Environmental Section
mbanoni at co.pierce.wa.us