Hello Tweets,

Today we enjoyed several nice species from our Fircrest yard in Pierce Co.,as the spring season progresses. Of most significance were 7 species of raptors all observed from our yard in flight only during separate times during the day,but primarily during the afternoon. Of these 7 species our main highlights were 2 TURKEY VULTURES observed drifting fairly low overhead followed by an adult Peregrine Falcon and a Merlin. Additional raptor species included courting pairs of Red-tailed Hawks, 1-2 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 1 Cooper's Hawk, and rounding out our list with an adult Bald Eagle that flew overhead during the afternoon. We have only encounter a 7 raptor day from our residential yard only once before,but for us it helps to train our eyes skyward,especially during migration. In this sense it was a nice day for us!

Other notable species from our yard included the increased presence of sky bound Violet-green Swallows in numbers ranging from 7-10 birds,which makes it the 3 day in a row that we've noted them from our residence. In weeks time they will hopefully breed again in our birdhouses and so far a pair of Red-breasted Nuthatches has taken interest in one of our birdhouses,so maybe they will breed. During the early to mid morning we have been regularly hearing our residence in full song from several species including Varied Thrush, Bewick's Wren, and "Oregon" Juncos,which all visit our yard to our feeders. We have also had a pair of "Slate-colored"Juncos visiting our yard infrequently for the past week. We also still have our wintering flock of 25+ Bushtits coming to our suet feeders on a daily basis along with 1-2 Townsend's Warblers, 1 Yellow-rumped Warbler, and singles of Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglet that also come regularly to our suet offerings. As we wait patiently for our arriving Rufous Hummingbird we have added an additional hummingbird feeder to our yard since our resident male Anna's Hummingbird are very aggressive and territorial. We also have blooming Red Flowering Currant in our yard that attract the hummingbirds too.

In addition we wish to also mention we have updated our website with many new photos taken yesterday of the White-tailed Kite that continues at Bottle Beach. The bird appears to be changing plumages from subadult plumage into adult plumage due to the bird being overall cleaner since it was first reported at this location in early February. Our recent photos of the bird can be accessed at the following link: http://www.pbase.com/godwit/white-tailed_kite_photos/

Good yard birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
Fircrest,WA
godwit513 at msn.com