Subject: New Year's Day birding
Date: Jan 1 15:49:48 2004
From: Ruth Sullivan - godwit at worldnet.att.net


Hello Tweets,

Today my mother and I spent a few hours between 10:30am-1pm at the Nisqually NWR in northern Thurston Co.,as conditions remained cold and windy at times with increasing rain showers during the mid afternoon. We encountered several noteworthy species(as we walked the entire McAllister Creek trail and to the Twin Barns from the main parking lot),of which many have been recently reported onto Tweeters including the 2 lingering Ross' Geese that were easily observed in the large open field at the entrance to the refuge from I-5 amongst a very large flock of grazing "Cackling" Canada Geese. Overall birding conditions were quite slow,but we were able to locate a few additional species of note including the following:

2 Pied-billed Grebes
8 male Eurasian Wigeons
1 male Eurasian/Am.Wigeon intergrade
9 Ring-necked Ducks
7 Northern Harriers
6 Red-tailed Hawks
1 Merlin
1 adult Peregrine Falcon
3 Virginia Rails
12 Am.Coots
1 Black-bellied Plover
7 Least Sandpipers
450+ Dunlin
3 Long-billed Dowitchers
1 Wilson's Snipe
87 Ring-billed Gulls
2 adult Western Gulls
2 Downy Woodpeckers
1 Brown Creeper
13 Golden-crowned Kinglets
8 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
1 adult Northern Shrike
42 Golden-crowned Sparrows
25 White-crowned Sparrows
10 Western Meadowlarks

After birding the Nisqually NWR we briefly checked the offshore waters off of nearby Luhr Beach and located the following notable species,despite fairly rough water conditions:

2 Red-throated Loons
1 Red-necked Grebe
45 "Black"Brant



Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
godwit at worldnet.att.net