Hello Tweets,

We had a few hours today to check on the adult male Tufted Duck near Federal Way beginning with an unsuccessful attempt beginning at the Weyerhaeuser Corporate"pond"at 11am. This pond yielded a small assortment of waterfowl consisting of Lesser Scaups,Rudd Ducks,Gadwall,Mallards and Am.Wigeon,as well as a few Canada Geese and Am.Coots. Small numbers of Tree and Violet-green Swallows were also active foraging over the pond and open field area,as well as a few Yellow-rumped Warblers singing from scattered trees along the west portion of the lake.

We soon made a drive over to North Lake that lies just east of Weyerhaeuser Rd. S,where much of the lake is somewhat limited to access,especially along the eastern shore of the lake that has private homes. We were able to get a few vantage points of the lake from the western portion of the lake,which most areas are accessed by foot traffic only. We ran into a patrolling security guard at one of these locations,in which we presented ourselves properly and she was able to give us some encouraging information back. She basically informed us it was OK to walk into the location where we were at and told us she personally heard about the Tufted Duck being seen at area lakes. This was all after we had checked from the eastern part of the lake and spoke with 5 separate home owners hat allowed us access to the lake via their property,which we graciously appreciated. All of the residents we spoke with were warm and courteous and interested in the Tufted Duck so that made us feel good. This general area is very private and all the homeowners are very cautious of outsiders,but kindly asking for permission was the best thing to do even if we were able to get some photos from only 1 of the properties. We basically watched the Tufted Duck from 4 different vantage points on North Lake during the day,so the bird does move around alot,but the bird never flew off from the lake entirely. The bird always kept close in proximity to a group of Ring-necked Ducks and Am.Wigeon. Other birds of note during our visit to North Lake included a single Pileated Woodpecker,1 Varied Thrush and a single male Rufous Hummingbird coming to a hummingbird feeder at a private residence.

The weather turned very wet after 1:30pm,but we enjoyed visiting with all the residents we did to inform them all about the Tufted Duck so they could be on the look out for it. We have placed 4 photos of the Tufted Duck onto our website,which are of much better quality due to a closer distance than our photos taken from last Saturday. These 4 photos can be viewable at the following link: http://www.pbase.com/godwit/recent_photos/


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
Fircrest,WA
godwit513 at msn.com