Hiya tweets,

It was a great morning to be birding at the Union Bay Natural Area. Lots of good stuff out there for the patient.

First good bird was a Virginia Rail. I was talking to another gentleman who had just seen it, and I went around the bushes and out she popped. I say 'she' because I also discovered the makwers of some odd high-pitched sounds coming from the tall grass - two fluffy black VIRA babies! An excellent find! This was at 8:30am.

There was also a Pied-billed Grebe on her nest here, and another a little further around the west end of UBNA.

I continued on around past Central pond (Lesser Scaup was the highlight here) and circling past the small, quickly drying pond under the cottonwoods, heard some interesting sounds and went to investigate. I soon had a Bewick's Wren with at least 3 recently-fledged babies!

Then, across the pathway by the water, I heard and then saw two new neotropical migrants: Warbling Vireo and Western Wood-pewee! Both were very actively foraging in their different ways. While watching them, I enjoyed being serenaded by a Common Yellowthroat and many Savannah Sparrows. There were also some Orange-crowned Warblers and at least a couple of Wilson's Warblers here.

I was disappointed at Shovelers Pond. There was a group of like 5 photographers all standing right on the mudflats along the edges that last week had 5 shorebird species. Today though, none except one Killdeer. I hope they had fun watching Gadwall fights..

I then checked the northern pond under the cottonwoods. This one had a pair of Gadwall and 6 babies and a lovely male Wood Duck.

After taking a foray around the far side of the Center for Urban Horticulture, I made another trip around the trail just to see if anyone else popped out. I picked up a Sharp-shinned Hawk and 2, maybe 3 jillion swallows (Tree, Cliff, Violet-green, Barn, Northern Rough-winged) and Vaux's Swifts. My final new neotropical migrant was picked up by the Central pond, but near the large corkscrew willow on the opposite side of the trail: a Yellow Warbler. I have to admit to always loving the Yellow Warbler. Not only is the male absolutely gorgeous, but the 4-letter AOU code is YWAR. Why indeed...

So this turned into a 50 species morning there. I didn't get Western Tanagers there, but I got them all over the upper campus and U-District earlier in the morning, as well as over here on Capital Hill where I sit typing. Lots of fun stuff to see out there today!

Brett A. Wolfe
Seattle, WA
m_lincolnii at yahoo.com




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