And while Spring has sprung here in Preston (at about 1000') we have more
than an inch of new snow and it is coming down hard. The Chickadees are
using their new nest boxes - carrying in supplied materials while being
thumped with snowflakes about as big as they are.

Good birding to all...



Rob Conway
Newcastle, WA

robin_birder at hotmail.com





>From: "hrudkaj mary" <hrudkajm at hotmail.com>
>To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
>Subject: [Tweeters] Spring is Sprung
>Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:11:26 +0000
>
>Being too nice a day to hang around indoors I headed out into north Mason
>County to look for some target birds for the county list Tim O'Brien is
>keeping. Except for the strong wind (great for all the turkey vultures
>heading north) it was a nice morning.
>
>Along Bald Point Vista Rd by Rodney White Slough I flushed up a Ruffed
>Grouse from the roadside as I pulled over to check the slough. The grouse
>startled me and the ruby-crowned kinglet working the brushy roadside. In
>the slough (part of an unnamed lake) a male Wood Duck kept company with a
>pair of Hooded Mergansers and a couple of Barrow's Goldeneyes. Despite
>checking the entire road I couldn't come up with any bushtits or northern
>shovelers for the county list. (Are there southern shovelers and if so,
>where are they?)
>
>Dewatto Bay yielded the usual cast of common loons, red-breasted and common
>mergansers, both goldeneyes and lots of buffleheads. But no pied-billed
>grebes which are usually here in good numbers. Oh well, onward.
>
>One target species for my personal county list was the dipper. I finally
>located one standing on a log on the Dewatto River at the bridge of Bear
>Creek-Dewatto Rd. I'd always thought this would be a good place for one
>but until today they have eluded me. With the shaded, sheltered, secluded,
>fast running river and a nice bridge under which to next this is probably
>the dipper's idea of the easy life.
>
>Further north along Bear Creek-Dewatto Rd near Oak Lake I was able to add
>Downy Woodpecker and Red-naped Sapsuckers to the county and my own lists.
>
>Meandering back to the Tahuya River bridge on North Shore I found 20 great
>blue herons standing around on the mud flats as the tide ebbed. The
>landscape was far different from when I had been there 3 hours earlier and
>found only buffleheads and wigeons in the flooded estuary. The herons all
>kept their distances from one another, all looking like befuddled tourists.
>
>Finding trillium in bloom and wild bleeding heart plants coming forth I
>know that Spring is really here.
>
>Mary Hrudkaj
>Belfair/Tahuya
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>5.5%* 30 year fixed mortgage rate. Good credit refinance. Up to 5 free
>quotes - *Terms
>https://www2.nextag.com/goto.jsp?product=100000035&url=%2fst.jsp&tm=y&search=mortgage_text_links_88_h2a5d&s=4056&p=5117&disc=y&vers=910
>
>_______________________________________________
>Tweeters mailing list
>Tweeters at u.washington.edu
>http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters

_________________________________________________________________
5.5%* 30 year fixed mortgage rate. Good credit refinance. Up to 5 free
quotes - *Terms
https://www2.nextag.com/goto.jsp?product=100000035&url=%2fst.jsp&tm=y&search=mortgage_text_links_88_h2a5d&s=4056&p=5117&disc=y&vers=910