Hi Tweets,

I couldn't resist a quick trip to the Cedar River mouth late this afternoon to search for the Palm Warbler, and after a bit of searching, I heard yellow-rumped warbler like call notes, and there it was, tail-bobbing away, in a small deciduous tree along the trail near the Boeing liquid nitrogen tank. It must really like this area!

I have heard Dennis Paulson hypothesize several times that bright contrasting white underparts of some birds such the as the Brown Creeper and flashing white in the wings of the Northern Mockingbird may function in part to help scare up insect prey. I wonder if the Palm Warbler's vigorous pumping of its glowing yellow undertail coverts may in part serve a similar function.

As others have reported, this stretch of the trail to the river mouth is a nice birdy area (though there were lots of small planes and helicopters taking off and landing nearby while I was there), with lots of diving ducks including good numbers of both Goldeneyes, some sparrows including a Fox Sparrow calling just across the river, other small insect-feeders including a few Ruby-Crowned Kinglets and Yellow-rumped Warblers, and lots of gulls settling in for those larophiles.

Good birding,
Evan Houston
Seattle, WA