Subject: [Tweeters] Bittern Luck Next Time
Date: Jan 26 18:25:26 2008
From: Kathy Andrich - chukarbird at yahoo.com



Hi Tweeters,

Thanks to Ruth Sullivan I did not have a one woman
field trip today, it was a two woman (participant)
field trip. We had a fun day anyway with our tiny
group of two and saw some good stuff. Ruth almost
didn't go as she was recovering from a bug, but once
we got there she couldn't resist. She was missing
Patrick a lot. Being at Nisqually Wildlife Refuge
made me think of all the times I ran into her and
Patrick together there and I missed him too. She told
me they didn't bird Nisqually much in winter, going
out to the coast instead.

Nisqually is famous for its American Bitterns but I
seriously think it has been more than two years since
I have seen one there. In 2006 when I was trying for
the big year, I visited Nisqually so many times
specifically to see/hear a bittern, never to find one.
That year I heard a bittern once at Riverview Marsh
and actually only saw them once that year on a field
trip with Patrick and Ruth at Chehalis Wildlife Area.
Not a good year for me with bitterns. Last year I saw
bitterns a lot but not at Nisqually. I had
point-blank looks at one at a refuge in California and
at the Thomas Pond one along with many other sightings
last year. Although the year is young I have only
seen one bittern, the Thomas Pond bittern, stone cold
dead. This is just another example of why birding is
such a weird and interesting hobby.

Back to our field trip. I'll only hit the highlights,
for the most part with some glaring
exceptions/differences we saw mostly the same birds
Dennis Desilvis reported from his trip last Saturday.
We missed the Rough-legged Hawk and Northern Shrike.

On the way out to McAllister Creek we saw our first
Song Sparrow on ice. It was quite fun to watch it
hop/slide around. We saw a few other Song Sparrows on
ice today. Coots and gulls too, but they seemed to do
better on the ice than the sparrows. Song Sparrows
were incredibly plentiful. We easily saw over 100 in
total. I think the stirred up gravel pathways were
their best foraging strategy in the frozen area.
Other sparrows and towhee's were also plentiful. Also
on the way out to McAllister, a female Northern
Harrier was feeding on a bird right by the path. We
decided the harriers breakfast was a female Redwing
Blackbird after looking at the feather remains. 30+
Bufflehead were in a group in the creek. Ruth saw 3
American Pipits here but I missed them.

Out towards the Ring Dike trail we saw 4+ Brown
Creepers, heard a haunting Pileated Woodpecker call
but couldn't find the bird. I tried to make a Fox
Sparrow into a Hermit Thrush but that didn't work. Got
great close looks at Golden-crowned Kinglet. We got
nice scope views of an immature Sharp-shinned Hawk
which we were able to share with two birders from
Holland. Nice mammal highlights were two River
Otters, two Black-tailed Deer, and one Sea Lion that
we heard barking. It started raining after noon and
we got back to our cars around 1pm.



Kathy
Roosting in Kent, near Lake Meridian
(chukarbird at yahoo dot com)


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