Hi all,
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Delia and I went to Stillwater this morning.? ?It was heartbreakingly beautiful in a late-summer kind of way with many just-fledged birds and still a lot of bird song.
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?(Stillwater btw, is north of Carnation: ?take the first right past the Sillwater store.? You need a Stewardship Pass to go there, but ours is past due and we went anyway.? The ?WDFW needs to set up a more convenient on-site user-fee ?collection system because their entire Stewardship pass system is dysfunctional.? The only good thing about it (and it?s not really a good thing) is that if you do go to one of their tracts, you usually get the whole place to yourself (and maybe a hunter or two training their dogs) ?because the fee system is so inconvenient and offputting to the general public no one else ever ?goes there.)
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We saw:
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1 Barn Swallow?
2 Western Wood Pewees (quite a few were still singing)
3 Red-tailed Hawk (young birds ?singing? all morning)
4. Wood Duck
5. Pied-billed Grebe
6. Am. Robin
7. Mallard
8 Swainson?s Thrush still singing
9 Song Sparrow
10. Cedar Waxwing? (is that called singing?)
11 Red-winged Blackbird
12 Great Blue Heron
13 Red-eyed Vireo (singing up a storm (and visible) near the parking lot, another was singing at the Carnation Marsh)
14 American Goldfinch
15. Common Yellowthroat (some still singing. I hate the use of ?Common? in names, but these were very much so today with lots of young birds)
16. Willow Flycatcher a few still singing
17. Vaux?s Swift
18 Violet-green Swallow
19. Northern Flicker?? (I guess just-fledged family groups?one with six birds)
20 Rough-winged Swallow
21. Lazuli Bunting (bringing food to the nest)
22. Belted Kingfisher
23 Bullock?s Oriole? (4 or was it 5 kids?)
24 Bushtit
25. Bank Swallow (this colony on the river seems to be really thriving and the birds fill the air with their beautiful call.? Every Hirundinadae has a very different sound and each one is beautiful in its own way)
26. Killdeer
27 Spotted Sandpiper
28 Bonaparte?s Gull (We were surpised to see this on the River, but didn't know if it was really ?unusual, an adult with black head, red feet and white fore-wings, so no doubt)
29. Black-capped Chickadee
30.? Downy Woodpecker
31. Hutton?s Vireo (heard only)
32. Rock Dove
33 Crow
34 Purple Finch
35 Brown Creeper (singing)
36 Osprey
37 Turkey Vulture
38 C. Raven?? these last three in Carnation
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YardBirdRace is Back in action?report soon
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Thanks all Ed Newbold residential Beacon Hill Seattle where ?Violet Greens fledged four and returned to the nest box at night for almost 2 weeks, Barn Swallows in the process of flight-training 3.
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