Hello Tweets,

Today my mother and I birded the Dash Point area to Ruston Way area of Pierce Co.,as conditions remained quite good throughout our day between 12:30pm-4:30pm. We only encountered a few scattered rain showers at times,but overall birding conditions were favorable. We encountered a good assortment of species of the 72 species we observed and located a few species highlights that were worth mentioning. Our first highlight of the day was our first personal highest count of Hermit Thrush during the winter in western WA that were all observed from three separate locations along Marine View Drive(S.R.509),specifically along a brushy hillside immediately south of the Chinook Landing Marina at 2pm,where we located up to 25 birds that were actively heard calling,as we "pished" and imitated a Northern Pygmy Owl that really excited the birds to be even visible. At one time we observed 8 birds in one binocular view,but most other observations were of single birds. The specific location hosted primarily Hermit Thrushes and up to 34 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 1 Anna's Hummingbird with just a few Song and Fox Sparrows and Spotted Towhees that were noted. We were very surprised to see this amount of Hermit Thrushes,but know they have been encountered in relative good numbers of 4 CBC's that we have participated on this year. The other two locations we observed Hermit Thrushes along Marine View Drive hosted 8 additional birds for a total of 33 birds for the day. Perhaps they are highly concentrated along the thick,vegetated area along Marine View Drive from the east end of 11th Street to Browns Point. It truly was a good day for Hermit Thrush and perhaps more coverage in this immediate areas would produce more individual birds. Our second main highlight of the day was the albino Yellow-billed Loon that was observed at fairly close range along Ruston Way just north of the Lobster Shop(south of Asarco)at 4pm,as it mainly loafed on the surface of the water while surface feeding. Additionally our last species of the day was a single Western Meadowlark at 4:20pm perched atop a deciduous tree as observed from the corner of North 44th Street and Pearl Street near the town of Ruston. We watched the bird as it "flicked" it's wings in typical Western Meadowlark fashion,before we continued home. We only mention this species due to being in unusual habitat and seemed noteworthy and is our personal second winter record for the general Tacoma area.

After birding the Marine View Drive area we traveled over to the Gog-le-hi-te Wetland area and additional areas bordering the Puyallup River,including the rendering plant immediately east of the Gog-le-hi-te,which produced our highest concentrations of gulls for the day. The highest concentrations of gulls persisted at or near the rendering plant that seemed to be in full operation during our visit at 3pm. The main gulls species of note that were noted at all the locations we checked was Thayer's Gulls with approxiatemetly 1,200+ birds observed,which in possibly our highest,densest numbers that we have personally encountered from this area during any given time during the winter. Additional numbers of gulls were noted bathing and loafing in the sheltered cove at the Gog-le-hi-te wetland,as well as various points along the Puyallup River,primarily north of the Puyallup River. Additional species of noted including up to 11 Western Gulls and only 4 Herring Gulls that we thoroughly searched through the very large flocks of gulls. It seemed at times Thayer's Gulls greatly outnumbered Glaucous-winged/Western Gull hybrids with only a very few "pure" Glaucous-winged Gulls that were encountered. Of additional noted we noted that a new area has been cleared at the Gog-le-hi-te wetland,which may be possibly set aside for shorebird habitat or of additional purposes,as we located 8 Killdeer and 14 Dunlin at this location,which lies immediately east of the sheltered cove. Additional noteworthy species of note that we encountered during the day at selected locations follows below:

Red-throated Loon
1 off the Dash Point public fishing pier

Brandt's Cormorant
3 off Browns Point Lighthouse
6 off the Dash Point public fishing pier
135 along Marine View Drive

Northern Pintail
15 at the south end of the Hylebos waterway along Marine View Drive

Cooper's Hawk
1 along S.R.509(west of Port of Tacoma Rd.)

Red-tailed Hawk
14 at various points during the day(including an adult dark-morph bird along Marine View Drive between Browns Point and Dash Point)

Merlin
1 at Tacoma

Peregrine Falcon
1 adult perched atop the Wells Fargo building in downtown Tacoma(observed from 11th Street)

Spotted Sandpiper
3 along Marine View Drive(north of the Chinook Landing Marina)

Least Sandpiper
17 observed foraging on logbooms with up to 3 Black Turnstones along Marine View Drive

Dunlin
1 along Marine View Drive
14 at the Gog-le-hi-te wetland

Common Murre
5 off the Browns Point Lighthouse
12 off the Dash Point public fishing pier

Marbled Murrelet
1 off the Browns Point Lighthouse

Rhinceros Auklet
8 off the Browns Point Lighthouse
25 off the Dash Point public fishing pier
5 along Ruston Way

Band-tailed Pigeon
1 at Dash Point

Mourning Dove
1 along S.R.509(west of Taylor Way)

Cedar Waxwing
30 along Marine View Drive

Yellow-rumped Warbler
35 along Marine View Drive

Purple Finch
7 at the intersection of S.R.509 at Taylor Way

Am.Goldfinch
8 at a Browns Point feeder


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
godwit at worldnet.att.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20040102/2b9ae509/attachment.htm