Tweeters,
It's a nice clear cool morning, I headed out to see if any ducks are using the newly reconstructed pond at Wallace Swamp Creek Park. Hoping to get to the pond before any dog walkers arrived I set out just before dawn. It turned out to be too early. I could hear peeps and tweets coming from the bushes around me but they were all staying undercover of both vegetation and darkness. There was nothing on the pond so I continued on to see what else was in the park. Around 7:30 things began to liven up. I saw most of the expected species and for the first time this fall got good looks at Varied Thrush, three of them posed nicely for me not far from the paved trail. Mixed flocks seemed to be every where. Both kinglets, winter and Bewick's wrens, black-capped and chestnut-backed chickadees, brown creepers, house finch, quail, junco, towhees, song and fox sparrows. I only lacked Red-breasted sapsucker or I would have had a 5 woodpecker day. Some ducks flew overhead that I could not identify, hoping they were Hooded Mergansers I headed back to the pond to see if they had come in for a landing. When I arrived there were still no ducks but a small dark bird flew fast and low across the surface of the water. I was able to relocate it a little ways up stream. There bobbing in the stream bed was an American Dipper. I came home with a list of 24 species, and didn't mind that I missed the mergansers.
Linda Phillips
Kenmore, WA
linda_phillips1252 at msn.com<mailto:linda_phillips1252 at msn.com>