Subject: [Tweeters] Southwest Washington; 19 April 2005
Date: Apr 19 23:16:34 2005
From: Charlie Wright - c.wright7 at comcast.net


Greetings all
I birded today from Woodland to Washougal with Fred Boesche. The day in
general was a bit slower than anticipated, though we located 116 species.
Perhaps it is just a bit early. Woodland produced the first of many House
Wrens during the day, plus large numbers of Cackling Geese.

At Ridgefield we drove the autotour route. The most activity was seen during
the first stretch where snipes were winnowing overhead, Soras were calling,
and Yellow-headed Blackbirds were displaying. Overhead were my first Vaux's
Swifts of the year. On the shore of Rest Lake were several shorebirds,
including a Lesser Yellowlegs. White-breasted Nuthatches were widespread and
fairly common on the refuge, though vastly outnumbered by swaths of
Yellow-rumped Warblers (mainly Myrtle). We scanned through many thousands of
Cackling Geese, coming up only with an adult Snow and a Greater
White-fronted Goose. We checked the Carty Unit of Ridgefield as well, but it
was extremely slow.

Vancouver Lake held small numbers of Aechmophorus grebes, including two pair
of displaying Clark's Grebes.

Our last stop of the day was the area of Steigerwald NWR, where we walked
the dike on the southern border of the refuge. Several Purple Martins were
perched around the boxes, and we located a Western Kingbird flycatching from
a barbed wire fence just beyond the two barns.

Charlie Wright
Bonney Lake, Washington