This afternoon I spent a couple of hours on Fir Island with the following highlights:

Cattle Egret - 2 at Cowtown

Northern Saw-whet Owl - 1 at the Skagit Game Range that was first found by Lee Barnes CBC group. It was just above eye-level in thick brambles on the right side of the main dike just past the first bench.

RUSTY BLACKBIRD - 1 on Wylie Road in a flock of European Starlings, Red-winged Blackbirds and Brewer's Blackbirds. The flock was a few hundred yards north of the four-way intersection near the Game Range, just south of a house on the east side of the road. Most of the flock flew south to the field west of the entrance to the Game Range soon after I spotted the bird. A bad picture of it can be seen at:

http://www2.bc.edu/~merrillr/winter0405/RUBL.htm


Happy New Year,

Ryan Merrill
Kirkland, WA
merrillr AT bc.edu