on a day when the weatherman lied almost all day, i decided to head to
edmonds for their bird festival... while it's not the largest in the area,
it was certainly among the more friendly... and, on a day when there wasn't
much to see, those who were there certainly seemed to be enjoying
themselves...

while at the marsh, numerous killdeer, marsh wrens, tree and barn swallows,
red-winged blackbirds, house finches, and great blue herons were doing their
normal "thing", as were the virginia rails... there was a report of a
barred owl at yost park, seen by the multitudes on that tour (between 40 and
50 people!)... at brackett's landing, with the aid of a gentleman with very
good optics, we managed to spy a pigeon guillemot, a surf scoter, and we
weren't sure about the third bird... a little south of the landing, i found
four western grebes about 30 metres off the shoreline... and, of course,
there was the greylag goose wandering the beach just north of the ferry
terminal... he's been there for more than a few months now, and has people
trained to turn on the beach shower so he can get a drink of relatively
fresh water...

while walking to my petrol-powered mode of transport, i was surprised to see
a white-crowned sparrow darting about in the shrubs just off the sand beach
south of the terminal...

wandering back to the art center (the hub of the festival), the volunteers
from washington state university's raptor club (
http://cub.wsu.edu/wsuraptor ) were accomodating to any and all who were
interested in up-close-and-personal time with various raptors... i was
pleased to see Windsong (a mostly-blind sharp-shinned hawk), Paco (great
horned owl), and Tiki (barn owl), and able to photograph the last two...

the sky becoming more ominous, it was time to head home... along the way,
tracy owen station (the newly-renamed log boom park) in kenmore beckoned...
once again, not much to see, but it was nice to note the double-crested
cormorant with the injured (deformed?) left wing is still holding court,
though he was only one of three cormorants seen in the entire area... i
didn't notice any of the purple martin gourds in use by swallows or martins
(neither was seen)... bewicks and marsh wrens were singing along the
pathway, a great blue heron and an adult bald eagle both flew from west to
east along the shoreline...

and, as i was getting ready to take my leave, spotted about 100 metres off
the pier were a pair of ruddy ducks in full plumage and blue bill... nice
way to end the day...

photos of many of the above are available on my website as Photos of the
Month *and* in the BIRDS gallery where almost 160 species are now on
display...

enjoy!

00 caren
http://www.parkgallery.org
edmonds bird festival, tracy owen station

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