My mother (Olive) and I birded from 8:30A.M. to 3:30P.M. at Ridgefield. We joined Carol Ledford 11A.M. onward on the River "S" Unit at Ridgefield NWR (~4mi W of I-5 at Exit 14 in SW Washington; http://www.fws.gov/ridgefieldrefuges/ ).

Highlights:

TREE & BARN SWALLOWS: Bravo for Northward position holding SWALLOWS! Carol and I counted a combined minimum of six. Both BARN & TREE were first of the year for both of us. We saw these early SWALLOWS over the road between Rest Lake and S Big Lake. We watched them over both wetlands and while they crossed the road in front of us several times.

DUNLIN: While we were on the E side of Rest Lake, Carol was scoping the shallow S end, where she spotted and counted 51 DUNLIN. They were a pretty surprising find for us on this bright and cold winter day.

HOARFROST: When Olive and I arrived on the River "S" Unit at 8:30A.M. it was quite foggy and 27 degrees, with hoarfrost on Cattails, Teasels, spider webs, grasses, and nearly everything else -- Beautiful!

Will Clemons
SW of Portland
willclemons AT Yahoo dot com

Birding:
The best excuse for getting outdoors
And avoiding chores

Complete list of 51 species seen / heard:

Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Cackling Goose
Canada Goose (~ 20 Dusky CGs, 4 with collars )
Tundra Swan
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Ring-necked Duck
LESSER SCAUP
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Bald Eagle
Northern Harrier (females, juveniles and one prime plumed male)
COOPER'S HAWK (100 yds W of entrance booth)
Red-tailed Hawk
HARLAN'S RED-TAILED HAWK
DARK MORPH RED-TAILED HAWK
ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK
American Kestrel
American Coot
Sandhill Crane
Killdeer
DUNLIN (51 counted on Rest Lake)
Ring-billed Gull
Belted Kingfisher
Downy Woodpecker
Steller's Jay
Western Scrub-Jay
American Crow
TREE SWALLOW
BARN SWALLOW
Black-capped Chickadee
Bushtit
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Bewick's Wren
Winter Wren
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
American Robin
European Starling
Spotted Towhee
Song Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird