Before the rain and wind hit yesterday I did a little birding at Lions Park
(sans scope, unfortunately). There were at least a dozen pairs of
LONG-TAILED DUCKS, a pair of HARLEQUIN DUCKS, a flock of 200-plus AMERICAN
WIGEON which included three EURASIAN WIGEON. Both COMMON and BARROW'S
GOLDENEYE were present, with the Barrow's far outnumbering the Common. I
watched Barrow's courtship displays with 10 males trying to impress 1
female, the males chasing each other away, then displaying to the female who
appeared to be ignoring them. Also in this duck soup was a COMMON LOON
successfully fishing, HORNED and RED-NECKED GREBES, a PIGEON GUILLEMOT, and
only a few SURF SCOTERS. There also were three MEW GULLS with the usual
horde of OLYMPIC GULLS wandering around one of the rain-soaked playing
fields.

When I stepped outside this AM to run an errand I heard an eagle call,
looked up, and two BALD EAGLES were soaring right above the condo complex.
Pretty cool. Later on I took my scope to the front yard to check out the
water and flushed a RING-NECKED PHEASANT from the shrubs on the bluff.
Dang, the way those birds just burst right up always scare the beejeezus out
of me! The waterfowl were spread out too far for me to see much, but there
were a couple of small groups of SURF SCOTERS and a HORNED GREBE. Funny,
3-4 weeks ago there were almost equal numbers of White-winged Scoters mixed
with the Surf, but I haven't seen nearly their numbers the past week or so.

Good birding and happy holidays,
Mary

Mary E. Klein
Bremerton WA
Cellobird -AT- Comcast.net

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