Hello Tweets,

This afternoon my mother and I located an adult Loggerhead Shrike along Wenzel Slough Rd. south of the Hwy.12 and the town of Satsop in eastern Grays Harbor Co. We observed and photographed the bird and 2pm,then again at 2:30pm 1.2 miles east of the Keys Rd. intersection along Wenzel Slough Rd.,(which the exact location is just north of the Newman Creek bridge along Wenzel Slough Rd.) The bird remained quite active during both observations,as well as observed catching a presumed tree frog from the ground and eating it nearly whole in a large bramble patch west of the road. The bird was first observed on a fence line along the west side of Wenzel Slough Rd. ,but was later observed mostly along the eastern portion of Wenzel Slough Rd.,where it was last observed as we left the bird at 2:35pm. The bird as an adult was very striking,especially noted in flight and it may appear that this may be the first record for Grays Harbor Co.,at least documented with photographs. It was truly an extraordinary sighting for us since the previous portions of the day were very slow,possibly due to windy conditions with just a few isolated scattered rain showers.

We located remains of a Bald Eagle of undetermined age(presumably an immature bird)in a corn stubble field along the eastern portion of Brady Loop Rd. west of Gillis Rd. and we presumed this may be the same individual bird than reported onto Tweeters several weeks ago at this same location or perhaps it is a different individual and felt it was worth mentioning/reporting. We also located minimal waterfowl numbers along portions of the Brady Loop Rd. complex at usual locations,but upon driving along the western portion of Wenzel Slough Rd. located a fairly large flock of Canada Geese that contained 1 Greater White-fronted Goose and a single "Aleutian"Canada Goose along with good numbers of other waterfowl species. This flock of Canada Geese appeared to be the same flock of Canada Geese than we noted along Brady Loop Rd. on the 21st of March,but were unable to locate the Pink-footed Goose upon searching today.

We checked along portion of the Brady Loop Rd. complex,as well as Wenzel Slough Rd. from Keys Rd. to Vance Creek Co. Park and noted just a few additional species of note including the following:

Eurasian Wigeon
1 male along the western portion of Wenzel Slough Rd.

Turkey Vulture
1 along Brady Loop Rd.
1 along Wenzel Slough Rd. over Vance Creek Co. Park

Osprey
1 adult perched at a nestsite east of Wenzel Slough Rd. near the Schouweiler Rd. wetland

Am.Kestrel
1 female at a nestbox along Foster Rd.(Brady Loop Rd. complex)with a male observed nearby near the same location.
1 additional female observed along Brady Loop Rd. near Hwy.12
1 along Wenzel Slough Rd.

Savannah Sparrow
4 along Brady Loop Rd.
2 along Wenzel Slough Rd.

On our way home we noted 2 additional Turkey Vultures including 1 along Hwy.8 west of Montesano and a single bird fairly high over Hwy.101 at Mud Bay,Thurston Co along with a nearby Am.Kestrel near the same location. This evening we had 2 Mourning Doves feeding with 2 larger Bad-tailed Pigeons in our Fircrest yard and earlier in the day we had 3 separate "Slate-colored"Juncos at our residence,as well.


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
Tacoma,WA
godwit at worldnet.att.net