Hi Tweets, Red-faced Birder (that's me) left her scope in one of the parking areas on the northwest side of the Hood Canal Bridge on Tuesday. As you can imagine, I'm truly embarrassed and chagrined, as well as hampered, by its loss!! Please contact me if you know of anyone who found such an item. Thanks!!

Aside from that, we had a wonderful week of birding with our 13-year-old grandson, a birding enthusiast from Honolulu. We've brain-washed him well, and now he's our #1 spotter, even though his attention span doesn't yet run from dawn to dusk! Anyway, Monday the 7th was disappointing since unfortunately the Hawk-Owl and Black-headed Gull had abandoned their recent Coulee Dam area haunts, and various other targets were missed. However, we found a Townsend's Solitaire along the Okanogan Hill Road and observed a delightful burst of 10 Gray Partridges emerging from the snow near sundown along Hwy. 2 about 10 miles east of Douglas when we stopped to check out a couple suspicious-looking "lumps of coal" in the snow. The 2 "lumps of coal" were the heads of 2 partridges barely poking out of the drifts.

Tuesday the 8th after visiting relatives in Bothell (where we found 2 Townsend's Warblers in a mixed flock, as well as a Merlin) we had only the afternoon to bird, but made the most of it, including an Edmonds/Kingston ferry trip that ended in that ill-fated stop by the Hood Canal bridge as it turned dark. However, before that fiasco we were treated to views of far-off Long-tailed Ducks, and 4 Pacific Loons almost at our feet in Port Gamble! We also found Rhinoceros Auklet, Common Murre and Pigeon Guillemot, as well as Golden-crowned Sparrows during the afternoon.

Wednesday the 9th we drove the shoreline from Southworth's Fauntleroy ferry terminal to Port Orchard. For this trip, no scope was needed since the birds hang out right beside the road. Some of the highlights of the day included:

9 Eurasian Wigeons (highest ratio was 2 males and 2 females to about 100 American Wigeons on Newstrom's Pond, Olympiad Dr. in Southworth)
8 Harlequin Ducks (6 along the beach at the north end of Nokomis Rd. and 2 along Cornell Rd. in Harper)
lone Red-throated Loons at almost every stop
2 large flocks of 500+ Western Grebes
2-3 hundred Horned Grebes everywhere, singly or in groups of up to 20
10 Black Turnstones on Yukon Harbor Dr.
Hutton's Vireo in a mixed flock of the usual chickadees, kinglets and such at Manchester Beach State Park

This was my husband's and my "old" haunt from 1978 until our 1992 move to Connecticut for 13 years. In those days we did a New Year's Day (or thereabouts) count taking this route every year (as well as feeder birding) from Southworth to Gorst. We topped out at 70 species in 1991. As reported previously by other Tweets, this route continues to be highly productive.

Nita Hamilton
Deer Park, WA
hamiln at u.washington.edu

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