Subject: [Tweeters] Brown's Point & Saltwater State Park birds
Date: Jan 29 15:20:15 2006
From: Andrea Wuenschel - chyroptera at yahoo.com


Hi all,

Today it was not raining in the morning in Des Moines,
so I decided to head out to Brown's Point, & wherever
else struck my fancy.

At Brown's Point, there were just a few of most
species. There may have been more variety beyond the
viewing range of my binos. (Will have to purchase a
scope one of these days!!)

Brown's Point Lighthouse Park ~10:30am (light
showers):

Pigeon Guillemot (1)
Common Murre (1)
Red-breasted Merganser (2)
Glaucous-winged gull
Pelagic cormorant
Surf Scoter (~3)
Common Goldeneye
Barrow's Goldeneye
Bufflehead
Great Blue Heron
Western Grebe
Horned Grebe
Red-necked Grebe
American Crow

Harbor seal

I stopped at Dash Point, but didn't stick around long
due to the lack of variety of birds and steady rain.
Saw a Northern Flicker, Am. Robin, a flock of
Glaucous-winged gulls and ~20 mew gulls. Then I drove
to Saltwater. Since by now it was raining pretty
hard, I only stuck around ~15 min at the south end.

Saltwater ~noon (Steady rain)(Binos only):

80+ Surf Scoter
30+ White-winged Scoter
~2 Black Scoter
5 Harlequin Duck (4 males, 1 F)
Bufflehead
20+ Common and Barrow's Goldeneye
Glaucous-winged Gull
American Crow
Cormorant sp.

This winter, I have found Saltwater to be fairly
reliable for seeing all three scoters. They are
usually in one large raft at the south end of the park
fairly close to shore, allowing for great looks
through binoculars. Often the Harlequins are mixed
in. They seem to be there every other visit. You can
count on seeing both the Common and Barrow's Goldeneye
regularly as well, usually on the edges of the scoter
raft close to shore.

So not very many species, but some nice close-up
looks.

Happy Birding,

Andrea Wuenschel
Des Moines, WA



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