Natalie and I have been around home a lot more lately, so my birding has
been tied to what I am seeing in and around the north end of Tacoma over
the last week. A couple of interesting notes:

- We had a small group of 15-20 Vaux's Swifts fly over our house last
night, just as the cloud cover had moved into the region. I first noticed
a group of four swifts flying east/northeast, and then about 10 minutes
later we had the larger group of 15 swifts fly east over our house.

- Although we don't tend to see many warblers migrating south through our
yard, we did have an Orange-crowned Warbler in the yard last Wednesday.

- Down along Ruston Way at the Dickman Mill Park site, where new Purple
Martin boxes were installed on piling just offshore, there were eight
Purple Martins flying around the boxes and hunting over Commencement Bay
on Friday morning, including at least two or three fledglings. These nest
boxes were installed in mid-May and despite the late arrival of the boxes
and the martins that used them, it looks like we had successful nesting
on the site this year!

Rob McNair-Huff ---------- mailto:rob at whiterabbits.com
White Rabbit Publishing -- http://www.whiterabbits.com/
Mac Net Journal ---------- http://www.macnetjournal.com/
The Equinox Project ------ http://www.whiterabbits.com/weblog.html