Today my husband requested that I take him to see the baby owls that I had been talking his ear off about for the last couple weeks. We got to Nisqually NWR around 10 am and went straight to the Great Horned Owl viewing area. No owls were visible in the nest tree, however, one adult Great Horned Owl was in a tree right next to the nest tree. We watched it for a while and then headed out towards McAllister Creek and on around the loop. The first bird of note was a very colorful Savannah Sparrow in the first batch of willows next to the south side of the trail that goes out to McAllister Creek. The tide was moderately high as we walked along the McAllister Creek side of the loop. My husband saw his first ever Mink near where the trail turns north. We had long looks at this very cute critter. We had several Greater Yellowlegs fairly close in. Also several Horned Grebes were seen near the mouth of the creek. The Great Blue Heron rookery was quite active with many birds !
on nests.
I noticed that the trees had leafed out considerably since this last Wednesday, I am wondering how long this will be easily seen. We definitely enjoyed it while we could. The next thing of note was about 15 paratroopers falling from the sky to land into the water between the refuge and the Tacoma Narrows bridge. With the cold south wind and a swift outgoing tide I didn't envy them that experience! We had a Coopers Hawk fly over a little further east of the reach overlook. Along the Ring Dike Trail we had brief looks at our first Common Yellowthroat of the season. A very striking male. We made our way back to the owl area but again there was nothing in sight on the nest tree. The adult owl had moved to another tree further to the east of the nest tree. Several people got nice looks at it, but the baby owls would have stole the show had they been "allowed out to play". We wandered around the area a bit and tried once more, but had no further luck. We finished t!
he day
with sitting along the trail to McAllister creek near where we had spotted the Savannah Sparrow (which we saw there again) watching this seasons first Cinnamon Teal. One gloriously colored male and one female. I watched as the male occasionally nipped at some Green-wing Teal that were nearby, mainly females that seemed to be eating where he thought he should be. All told we had 52 species(listed below) for the day, adding three to my year list. Several usual suspects were not seen today, most likely due to the wind, I would guess, or maybe they are all off finding nests...

Pied-billed Grebe
Horned Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
Great-blue Heron
Greater White-fronted Goose
Canada Goose (nesting)
Cackling Goose
Wood Duck
American Wigeon
Mallard
Cinnamon Teal
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Ring-necked Duck
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Hooded Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Common Merganser
Bald Eagle
Northern Harrier
Cooper's Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Coot
Killdeer
Greater Yellowlegs
Ring-billed Gull
Western Gull
Rock Pigeon
Great Horned Owl
Rufous Hummingbird (territorial squabbling action)
Belted Kingfisher
Downy Woodpecker
American Crow
Tree Swallow
Violet-green Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Bushtit (working on nest)
Bewick's Wren
Marsh Wren
American Robin
European Starling (going into a nest hole)
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Spotted Towhee
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird

Happy Birding,

Maurie Kirschner
Olympia WA
outdoorchickerooatyahoo.com







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