I took a trip out to Whidbey Island today - the first new additions to
my 2007 list conveniently came with the pair of Barrow's goldeneye and a
Western grebe right by the Mukilteo ferry jetty.

My first stop was the intersection of Rhodena Drive and Snakelum Point
Road in Coupeville around 10.45am, looking for the Northern Mockingbird
reported there over the last couple of weeks - no luck, and after 20
minutes or so, I drove on to my primary destination of Ebey's Landing.

I did the 3.5 mile loop over the bluffs above Perego's Lagoon and back
along the beach. Surprisingly little activity in the fields and trees on
top - there were various gulls around in the fields, but far fewer
passerines than I would have expected, and not as many raptors on view
as I've come to expect from the site. But there were a lot of ducks and
diving birds in the water on my way back along the beach, including
horned grebe, surf scoter, red-breasted mergansers, common loon,
harlequin duck and red-necked grebe. There were a pair of greater
yellowlegs on Perego's Lagoon.

Heading back south, I called hopefully by the mockingbird site again
about 2.30 and it was sitting right there on the cables by the holly
bush, exactly as described in earlier posts. So it's still around to be
found with a little perseverance.

Driving west on 20 through the marshes towards the Port Townsend ferry
turned up a couple of red-tailed hawks. The old pilings near the ferry
terminal were shared by double-crested cormorant and a smaller number of
pelagics for a nice comparison of size.

Back at the Clinton ferry terminal, more surf scoter were picking at the
encrustations on the pilings, and making themselves much more
conveniently available for photography than the guys at Ebey's landing!

Overall species list for the day:
American Crow
American Robin
Barrow's Goldeneye
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Common Loon
Dark-Eyed Junco
Double-Crested Cormorant
European Starling
Feral Pigeon
Golden-Crowned Sparrow
Great Blue Heron
Greater Yellowlegs
Harlequin Duck
Horned Grebe
Killdeer
Mew Gull
Northern Flicker
Northern Harrier
Northern Mockingbird
Pelagic Cormorant
Red-Breasted Merganser
Red-Necked Grebe
Red-Tailed Hawk
Ring-Billed Gull
Ring-Necked Pheasant
Song Sparrow
Surf Scoter
Thayer's Gull
Western Gull
Western Grebe

There are others I was 90% sure on, like common murre, but these are the
certainties - I'm slowly improving on the American gulls now, at least!

Louise Rutter
Kirkland

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