My wife and I have just moved into a new house I have been building on my
son's property in the Elk Plain area south of Tacoma. I have been surprised
at the variety of birds I have seen since last fall when I first started
working on the property. The seasonal changes in species are more noticable
here than in Puyallup where we were. Yesterday with the rain, I observed
three birds we hadn't seen here yet. The Savannah Sparrow I had expected to
see often here as it seems to be the right habitat, but yesterday was the
only sighting so far. The Wilson's Warbler stayed only a moment and was a
nice addition to the Yellow-rumped, Orange-crowned, and Yellow warblers
we've seen previously. The surprise bird to me was the Lincoln's Sparrow. I
have not had this bird in western Washington before, so to have it for a
yard bird was real nice. This morning I have a couple of juvenile
Golden-crowned Sparrows, the first since early spring.
I haven't been keeping a close count but the following list are
approximate numbers of birds being seen here daily;
Song Sparrow 6
Black-capped Chickadees 4-8
Chestnut-backed Chickadees 4-8
Red-breasted Nuthatch 2
White-crowned Sparrows 12-18
Mourning Doves 4-6
Steller's Jay 3-4
Chipping Sparrow 2 today but just about gone
Robin 6
House Finch 4
Flicker 3
American Crow 25+
Yellow-rumped Warbler 3
Not every day but frequent is the pair of Red-bellied Sapsuckers
We will be building a pond and planting native plants in the future,and are
looking forward to building our new yard list.
Joseph Higbee
Spanaway, Wa.
e-mail to; jvhigbee at hotmail.com
photos; http://www.pbase.com/jvhigbee