Tweets,
Inspired by all the "bird locally" chatter, I fought rush hour traffic to get a few miles from home to Juanita Bay Park. The lingering Sora I was hoping for had perhaps finished feeding for the morning, but when I got down to the "mud" end of the lake on the old road, there were 23 snipes foraging in earnest. (I had seen 2 more from the northwest platform.) Has anyone seen this many snipe at JBP before? At one point there were 10 in my scope! Many of the usual passerines were there in good numbers--Fox and Song Sparrows, one WC Sparrow, Sp. Towhees, both kinglets, both lowland chickadees, Marsh and Bewick's Wrens, Bushtits, House Finches, etc. Fall arrivals included Ring-necked Ducks (many), Bufflehead (a few) and a pair of Canvasbacks amongst the hundreds of Coots. It was quiet enough to hear the Gadwalls' soft quack and the Wood Ducks' peeps. But the most amazing thing was the 11 a.m. snipe convention!

Penny Koyama, Bothell
plkoyama at verizon.net