Hi Tweeters,

This is a bit belated and might get lost in weekend reports but I had to agree with Mary K. about the lack of postings so here is my observations from a great trip to Jaunita Bay Park last Wednesday around lunchtime.

The most entertaining part of my visit was when I was on the boardwalk that has 2 docks off of it. A family with two aproximately 8 year old girls and one younger were heading towards me and one of the 8ish girls asked her mom what was making all that noise? It sounded like monkeys in the trees to her. It was three quite noisy Bald Eagles in a lone fir tree amidst the deciduous trees. It felt like being at the Skagit flats in winter. The eagles were that thick and they looked enormous from my perspective. 2 juviniles and one nearly adult (just a few dark streaks in the white) eagles were talking up a storm in their odd high pitched squaks. It is hard to believe that it really was not all that long ago I listened to Mike West's eagle tape in the Winter Beginning Birders class and thought "yeah right, sure the eagle's sound like that..." I even asked him if he had heard them make those noises! (Skepticism can be amusing in retrospect...) That was in January of 2001.!
I hope
those girls remember that funny racket the eagles made.

The eagles I am guessing, have also made a huge mess on the boardwalk, fish parts, and whitewash abounded.

The funnest thing I got to see was a pair of Pied Billed Grebes courting and mating looking off of the dock of the middle boardwalk. I could tell something was up with them right away, they were close to each other and their necks were stretched up as far as they could make them without tipping their heads up. They spun in a mini-ballet in the water during the mating process, and afterwards only minimal preening and back to diving and flirting. One kind of snorkel swam just enough below the surface to create a hump in the water. That was pretty cool too.

This middle boardwalk is where the partial albino Red Wing Blackbird hangs out. He is so beautiful, he is worth the trip him self.

I also saw a fantastic sculpture by bird. I am assuming it must be a Marsh Wren nest but placed up very high on a shrub so it stands out beautifully and is well made to boot. It is on the paved pathway that semi-paralells the main road. As you walk down there is a big square wooden peg in the ground on the right, probably meant to have a sign on it. If you stand next to it and look over the stream towards the main road I don't see how you can miss that fantastic nest. Too bad I am not into photography yet. It is worth a picture or two.

It was a great little trip. I wish I could get there more often.

Kathy

Kathy Andrich
Roosting in Renton
chukarbird at yahoo.com


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