Tweets,

Today 20 of us enjoyed a very productive walk at Nisqually under cloudy and
cool conditions. But it was a lot better than last week. No rain, no
snow, very little wind. Could have used more sun but what the heck.

Spring is definitely here...finally! We had several firsts of the year
including 3 swallow species, and 2 warblers. We saw BARN, CLIFF, and
NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOWS today in addition to TREE and VIOLET-GREEN
SWALLOWS that we had seen in the past couple of weeks. All the swallows were over
the ponds except the CLIFF SWALLOW which we saw on the back side of the
twin barns.

COMMON YELLOWTHROAT were everywhere you might expect to find them and there
were plenty of ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLERS about also. We also saw several
YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS some chasing each other about.

Keith Brady showed us a RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD nest and we saw a couple of
BUSHTIT nests and a ROBINN'S nest. There are also a couple of BLACK-CAPPED
CHICKADEE nest holes along the Nisqually River trail. I hope they can
complete the breeding cycle before their habitat is torn down with the removal of
the outer dike.

We found an adult GREAT HORNED OWL but the young have eluded us again.
they are getting harder and harder to find.

There was a go variety of waterfowl about with several hundred CACKLING
GEESE flying onto the refuge about 10:00 and we found the small flock of 20+
GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GEESE out behind the pond outside the new dike seen
from the twin barns.

All told we had 56 species for the day with the 5 new species giving us 99
species for the year.

The only mammal of note was a RIVER OTTER out past the ring dike area in
the Nisqually River.

Until next week......

Phil Kelley
scrubjay323 at aol.com
Lacey, WA
360-459-1499

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