Dear Tweeters,

Thanks much to Jerry Householder for sharing the Clark's Grebe sighting. This afternoon I was able to see the bird from Channel Lane, a short, one-way loop road that jogs westward off Channel Drive. There is an empty space between two houses along Channel Lane, and that spot gave me just enough room to spot this bird. I had spent an hour at the usual Channel Drive birding spot, but that vantage point gives very little opportunity to view the channel itself.

I know of only three prior CLGR records from Skagit County, although I suspect that there might have been a couple of others in the last seven or eight years. Keith and Jan Wiggers had one in 1991 at the north end of Swinomish Channel; that bird lingered for quite a while. Ken Knittle found one the following year at March Point. I saw one in the Skagit River at Concrete in 1993.

Today's bird had the eye isolated within the white of the face. The bill was bright orange, with nary a trace of Western Grebe greenish. There was a goodly amount of white on the flanks. A huge yacht came barrelling down on the grebe, but it just dove and resurfaced as if nothing had happened.

Afterwards, I drove up to the Samish Flats. On the way up there, I spotted a Western Kingbird on Person [sp?] Road in Bay View. At the slough between Edison and West Edison were 11 Short-billed Dowitchers and a few Western Sandpipers.

Then I went out to Samish Island Public Beach, where I searched in vain for jaegers. I did see a late Rufous Hummingbird there, as well as a Mew Gull, a couple of California Gulls, and a slough of Glaucous-winged Gulls.

I thought I was a lucky observer of things natural, but when I got home, it turned out that I should have stayed home and gone bicycling with my wife. She spotted a young cougar on Cockreham Island. She said it was a fifty-pound tawny cat with a long tail. I drove over to check on it with my son and his friend. Of course, as soon as we drove by the spot, both boys insisted that they saw it leap from the road into the bushes. Oddly, I was looking in the same spot, and all I saw was a small flock of American Robins. Oh well. They think they saw a cougar, and my wife definitely saw one. All I got was a Clark's Grebe!

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch
Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA ? garybletsch at yahoo.com ? ?

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