Keith Brady and I made a trip up north today in order to preoccupy ourselves while the votes are counted. Started out fine at the Juanita Beach Park site where we saw the AMERICAN BLACK DUCK with no problems. It was foraging in the grass and large puddles with some Mallards and some mutt Mallards. It later waddled off to the water and made its way over to join the rest of the many waterfowl at this location. While here we also saw: P/B Grebe, Gadwall, A. Wigeon, R/N Duck, Greater Scaup, Lesser Scaup, a flock of Canvasback, loads of Coot, and 1 California Gull.

Heading north we lost the rain and had high hopes for relocating the CATTLE EGRET from earlier this week at Cowtown. We canvassed the area pretty well, looking amongst the many fields and few cattle (how do you find a Cattle Egret without cattle?!). We drove for a few hours noting one large flock of SNOW GEESE and a few scattered birds. Also saw a handful of distant SWAN SP. Raptors included: N. Harriers, 2 Merlin, 1 Peregrine, 2 Kestrel and quite a few R/Taileds.

Jason Paulios
Jpaulios at earthlink.net
Olympia, WA