Today, my nonagenarian mother (Olive) and I birded from about 8a to 3p
on the River "S" Unit at Ridgefield NWR (~4mi W of I-5 at Exit 14 in SW
Washington; http://www.fws.gov/ridgefieldrefuges/ ).

It was pretty cool, and wet some of the time, but we managed to find
some brief periods of sunshine.

The ice has all melted. Hunting season is over. I suspect that as a
result of all this new freedom, birds have spread far and wide.
Numbers of individuals were down, and Rest Lake had very few ducks on
it. Also, I counted only about 65 Tundra Swan today compared to over
500 last week. Two Swan had blue neck collars with P777 and P775, I
think. I only have binoculars at the present time, so I would not
swear to the collar numbers.

We watched one of the BITTERNS hunt for a while and it caught a
Long-toed Salamander (ID, based on Google images) about a third of the
way up on the dike. The BITTERN almost immediately turned toward us
and paused for a few seconds (allowing a good binocular view of the
Salamander's yellow stripe). As the Salamander wiggled in vain, the
BITTERN walked hurriedly down to the water control canal and diped,
shook and swallowed. Good bye Salamander.

Bill Clemons
SW of Portland in Mtn Park
Willclemons AT Yahoo dot com


Complete list of 47 species seen / heard:

Pied-billed Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
AMERICAN BITTERN (2 seen on dike, E side of Rest Lake)
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Cackling Goose
Canada Goose
Gadwall
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal (only 2 seen)
Ring-necked Duck
Lesser Scaup
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser (4 hens seen)
Ruddy Duck
Bald Eagle (about 10 seen)
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
Dark Phase Red-tailed Hawk
ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK (1 seen, SE corner of Rest Lake)
American Kestrel
American Coot
Sandhill Crane (about 40 seen)
Killdeer (1 seen)
GREATER YELLOWLEGS (90% sure, at a distance, Canvasback Lake)
Glaucous-winged Gull
Northern Flicker
Steller's Jay
Western Scrub-Jay
American Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
Winter Wren
Marsh Wren
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
American Robin
European Starling
Spotted Towhee
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
LINCOLN'S SPARROW (3 seen N of The Blind)
White-crowned Sparrow (2 seen on road w. G-C Sparrows)
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
WESTERN MEADOWLARK (1 seen on dike, E side of Rest Lake)




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