Tweets,

Another terrible day at Nisqually. Warm and sunny, light breeze. Tough
birding conditions. 12 of us braved this bad weather to spend about 5 hours
walking the part of the refuge open year round.

The good news id the weather has been pretty good recently. The bad news is
the grass has grown high and it is hard to see in some of the ponds although
we di manage to see a WILSON'S PHALAROPE on the pond on the right on the way
out to McAllister Creek and an AMERICAN BITTERN on the pond on the left as we
returned from McAllister Creek. Bitterns were "calling" in several places,
but were hidden in the tall grass.

We had a female HOODED MERGANSER with 5 young, a female WOOD DUCK with
several young, and a female COMMON MERGANSER with 14 young on the Nisqually River.
Recently fledged birds were common today.

We found an active DOWNEY WOODPECKER nest hole in the trees on the right as
you enter the riparian area just past the Nisqually overlook, and an active
BUSHTIT nest in 'hummingbird tree" inside the boardwalk on the Nisqually River
side, as well as an active RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER nest hole in the same area.

BAND-TAILED PIGEONS were common as were CEDAR WAXWINGS. COMMON
YELLOWTHROAT, YELLOW WARBLERS, and MARSH WREN also were common today.

All told we had 41 species today with nothing new for the year, leaving us
with 126 species for the year. the only mammal we saw was a MUSKRAT. I guess
everything was hiding in the tall grass.

I'll be out of town next week, but Eric Slagle, Dawn Bailey, and Maurie
Kirschner will be there at the usual time. I'll be back on station on the 23rd.

Until then....

Phil Kelley
Lacey, WA
360-459-1499
scrubjay323 at aol.com

"We were few and they were many. Now we are many and they are few."
Confucius