Hey Tweeters,

Yesterday evening on the way back from the pelagic I checked the
Alderton Mitigation Pond at the intersection of 96th Street and McCutcheon
Road. In addition to the Killdeer pair with three growing ploverlings there
were six Least Sandpipers, a Semipalmated Plover, a Greater Yellowlegs, and
a Spotted Sandpiper. This morning, while driving to Kent Ponds, Roger
Orness and I saw a Green Heron flying along Hwy 167 at 285th Street. We
took the exit and birded the flooded fields north of 285th St, and had one
Dunlin, two Greater and one Lesser Yellowlegs, and one Eurasian Wigeon.
Most interesting was a Bald Eagle which we observed capture and eat three
young (one day old?) Mallards. The bird flew in, flushing all of the
waterfowl except one female Mallard and her brood of 14. The eagle then
hovered low over the water briefly, landing in the water, and somehow
managed to grab a duckling in each talon. After consuming those birds, it
took another one as the hen Mallard attacked it. We guessed that this may
have been one of the eagles nesting at Lake Fenwick, as it flew off in that
direction with the third duckling. At Kent Ponds today we saw nothing
particularly unusual, and no spring arrivals except a Wilson's Warbler
singing along Frager Road on our way there. One of the good birds of the
day was a female Mountain Bluebird along 199th Street in Kent in the early
afternoon, just north of the "Boeing North Pond." Interestingly, Roger had
seen a pair at the exact same place for one day several years ago. A bit
later we had another highlight, a Solitary Sandpiper flew over Frager Road
just north of 212th Street. I saw where it landed so we walked the Russell
Road Trail and 15 minutes after we saw it in flight, located it in a small
puddle underneath a cottonwood. We watched it for 5 minutes before it flew
off to the same area it had come from, calling on its way.

Cheers and good birding,
--
Charlie Wright
Sumner, WA
charlie at birdwright.com