I will add that there are juvenile Rufous Hummingbirds hanging around
the north end of Tacoma as well. One of the real signs of the change
of seasons in my yard though is the number of regular visits we are
having from Anna's Hummingbirds. We don't get the numbers of Rufous
hummers in our yard that many others report, but last fall and
through the winter we had three Anna's hummers making regular visits.

Birding in our yard is pretty slow right now, outside of the
hummingbird developments. We had a fly over last weekend by a
first-year Bald Eagle, and the Bushtits are really flocking together
now in small roving groups of 10-20 birds that move through the
neighborhood - 10 of them are working over the insects and checking
out the suet in the snowball bush outside my window right now.

Elsewhere in the north end of Tacoma, I did some birding while biking
a route from downtown Tacoma and along Schuster Parkway and then
Ruston Way before climbing the 320 feet in elevation back to our
house two days ago. I confirmed the presence of five Purple Martins
flying around and sitting on the piling that hold new nestboxes at
Dickman Mill Park, and as Charles Swift mentioned the other day,
there are two Glaucous-winged Gull chicks being tended by an adult on
the piling at the Dickman Mill Park as well.

The urban birding is a bit slow now, but it is sure to pick up soon!

Rob

At 9:56 AM -0700 7/16/03, Guy McWethy wrote:
>I still have the annual crop of juvenile Rufous around
>my yard in Renton. I have not seen the adults for a
>couple of weeks now, but their kids are hanging
>around.


--
Rob McNair-Huff ---------- mailto:rob at whiterabbits.com
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