yesterday was spent with friend skye at a variety of locations around
(mostly) lake washington, birding from early until storm shutdown...

for such a beautiful start to the day, not much was really going on...
a.. at wallace swamp creek park, we dipped on the dippers... tons of
robins and northern flickers, the normal chickadees and bushtits, crows,
yada yada...
b.. at tracy owen station (log boom park), common mergansers and the
occasional horned grebe were evident. two belted kingfishers were heard but
never seen... i seem to recall there were 6-8 purple martin gourds at the
end of the pier last summer, but saw only two this time. is my memory that
bad, or did something happen to the other gourds?
c.. at juanita bay park, the intergrade green-winged teal was found again.
one adult bald eagle and a male coopers hawk flew through, a common snipe
was seen along the western boardwalk, and max appeared again, dazzling fans
with his beauty and intelligence... common and hooded mergansers were
around, DC cormorants were seen fighting over what looked like a catfish of
some species, and ring-necked and lesser scaup were in numbers on the bay...
ruby-crowned kinglets were everywhere, and one marsh wren was noted on the
western boardwalk. everyone around wondered that no wood ducks were seen or
heard...
d.. at david brink, a juvenile (4th year?) bald eagle was changing plumage
in a shoreline deciduous - head was whitening, and breast blotches were
giving way to normal dark... we were told three adults were around, but
didn't find them.
e.. houghton beach was sadly-lacking - goldeneyes (sp) and wigeon were out
on the lake, as kayakers and dogs made their normal shoreline habitat less
desirable... no canvasbacks were spotted (this is a normal eastside winter
location)...
f.. union bay natural area: northern pintail, northern shovelers, and
ruddy duck males were found in the main pond, along with almost every other
local duck species... about the time we left, about 150 wigeon flew in...
three adult bald eagles and one juvenile surfed thermals above the slough,
and the first two tree swallows i've seen since september were seen
bugnapping between the main pond and the slough around 1530 or so...
grazing with canadas (cacklers amongst the sp) west of the main pond were
the (apparently) wintering family of six greater white-fronted geese, all of
whom were oblivious to the attention... less welcome, one nutria on the
main pond...
g.. finally, jack block park had a few barrows goldeneyes and red-breasted
mergansers...
this morning at my busy feeders, the first pine siskins of the winter, a
flock of between 10 and 15 doing their level best to empty the feeders along
with the normal denizens of late...

photos of the weekend can be located in the "photos of the month" gallery at
parkgallery.org ... enjoy!

00 caren
http://www.parkgallery.org
george davis creek, north fork