The baby owl continues to be very cooperative in showing him/herself at Nisqually. We were lucky and didn't get rain today until 3:00 or 3:30 or so. Mama geat horned owl and baby (who is perhaps just about a month old now and can stand up quite tall) are on the walkway between Twin Barns and the River overlook. Ask a ranger, they all know where they both are. How long can we expect the baby to stay stationary?

Photographing the pair was quite frustrating. The light was low and there were branches in the way in almost all shooting angles.

We also saw at least two eurasian wigeons, a male and female wood duck (we may have seen two pairs or the same pair twice), and the purple martins starting to nest in the boxes near twin barns. All of the normal ducks were present: wigeons, northern pintails, northern shovelers, mallards, coots, buffleheads, etc. We also saw a male and female hooded merganser. Male and female northern harrier hawks were especially active, regularly diving and putting large numbers of ducks into the air. We got a report on the Twin Barns loop of a browner creeper (near Twin Barns), but we did not see it ourself so cannot vouch for this report. Two red-tailed hawks and several bald eagles (mostly adults, plus one juvenile kettling overhead) rounded out the raptor contingent. We did not see the American Kestrel at Twin Barns today. My wife saw one of the eagles land in the large nest near Twin Barns.

In the morning around 8:45 - 9:00 and in the afternoon around 3:00, hundreds of Canada geese were flying overhead, northward in the morning, southward in the afternoon. It was quite a spectacular sight.