Dear Tweeters,

Despite winds of Beaufort Scale 7 to 8, birding in
Skagit County was excellent today. Here are some
highlights:

At Lake Erie was a lone female REDHEAD, along with
close to 200 Lesser Scaup. In the trees along the
steep roadway leading to the perennially-closed WDFW
boat launch was a remarkable flock of passerines: a
singing Hutton's Vireo, a singing Ruby-crowned
Kinglet, a few Golden-crowned Kinglets, a Winter Wren,
a Bewick's Wren, two Bushtits, fifteen Black-capped
and six Chestnut-backed Chickadees, a Red-breasted
Nuthatch, a Pine Siskin, a Brown Creeper, and an
Oregon Junco. A male Rufous Hummingbird visited
flowering currants periodically.

Pelagic Cormorants at Rosario Head and Green Point
were showing their white flank patches. Brandt's
Cormorants at Rosario sported white plumes on their
necks. A few Rhinoceros Auklets at each location also
sported breeding plumage.

On the Samish Flats was a PACIFIC GOLDEN-PLOVER with a
few Black-bellies. This was on the east side of the
road leading south from the T-90. South and west of
there were 32 Snow Geese.

At the DeBay's Slough swan preserve, an adult
Peregrine Falcon blew in, terrorizing a large flock of
American Robins at the old farmhouse site.






Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch

near Lyman (Skagit County), Washington

garybletsch at yahoo.com




____________________________________________________________________________________
Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check.
Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta.
http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/newmail_tools.html