Subject: Say's Phoebe on Olympia CBC
Date: Dec 14 21:47:23 2003
From: Gary Wiles - wilesharkey at yahoo.com


Hi Tweeters,

Kelly McAllister and I had the probably the most interesting bird on the
Olympia Christmas Bird Count, which was held today in Thurston Co. At
noon, we found a Say's Phoebe in the Nisqually River valley about 1 mile
south of Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. The bird was first seen as
it flew into and then perched inside the closed down McAllister Creek
Hatchery, which is located where the Nisqually Cutoff Road crosses
McAllister Creek (the hatchery is shown in DeLorme on p. 62). The bird
then flew across the road and perched for several minutes on a low wire
fence in a large open pasture directly across from the hatchery. We got
good looks at it and were able to easily see the salmon-colored belly and
a number of other traits.

The Nisqually Cutoff Road produced a variety of other good species for us
too, most of which were seen in the vicinity of the recently plowed
pumpkin field located just south of the exit off I-5. These included the
2 Ross's Geese which have been seen at the Refuge for the past month or
so, flocks of about 35 American Pipits and 25 Western Meadowlarks, and
both a Merlin and Peregrine. We also got a glimpse of a Virgina Rail in a
reedy marsh further south along the road.

Gary Wiles
Tumwater, WA
wilesharkey at yahoo.com


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