Dear Tweeters,

Today (Friday, 12-03-04) at around 2:15, I saw a pair
of Redheads at the Green Road ponds, Butler Flats,
Skagit County. The Redheads were with a female scaup,
swimming in the middle of a large, temporary pond in a
pasture, just west of Green Road's northern end. On
the permanent pond to the east, close to a thousand
waterfowl were concentrated, mainly Northern Pintail.

This is the first good flock of waterfowl I have seen
on these ponds this season. The Redheads were the
first I had seen on the ponds in about six years.
Recent attempts to improve this area have, in my
opinion, degraded the site somewhat. For example, the
last few years, Sora and American Bittern have been
either absent or nearly so, whereas they were easy to
find there in the late 1990's. Last week, the Samish
River flooded over its banks in this area (and in
several other places), an event which seems to have
been a plus, at least from the waterfowl perspective.

It was nice to run into Mary Frances Matthis and Mike
West out there today. They got to see the Redheads,
too.

Yours truly,
Gary Bletsch
garybletsch at yahoo.com

=====

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch

near Lyman (Skagit County), Washington

garybletsch at yahoo.com




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