Took a late morning walk at Black River Riparian Forest in Renton Friday, wanted to get there before the heat got too bad. It was hot already, but saw and heard lots of birds.

Highlights:

The Great Blue Herons are starting to fledge from the colony there, even though there was heavy predation from the eagles during most of the nesting season. Two days ago (Wednesday) we saw approximately 17 fledglings. On Friday I saw 7 fledglings wading around in the pond, with two more in a heavily whitewashed nest that will likely fledge soon.

The eagles weren't home, thank goodness. How we wish they'd leave for good!

Saw two Kingfishers fishing and fighting, chasing each other in between dives for a little snack, sometimes successful, sometimes not.

A mallard mom is still swimming around with 8 babies who are almost as big as mom.

Heard a red-tail but didn't see it.

Saw lots of ducks (I'm not very proficient with ducks) bathing, preening, some with butts in the air grazing, others lounging on the logs that lay in the ponds. Noticed one log that has been heavily gnawed by the beavers.

The treat of the day, for me, was watching a green heron flying in and landing on an island in almost the exact same spot where we saw one a few years ago, then flying off again across the pond then back again to the "people side" and perching there.

Also saw a small, dark woodpecker, either a ladder-back or downy, not sure which. Only caught a glimpse, it was gone before I could get the binocs trained on it.

Heard flickers and chickadees and pied-billed grebes calling, probably other birds, too, whose calls I can't ID.

All in all a pleasant walk, in spite of the heat.

Susan

susananderegg at hotmail dot com

_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits.
http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Storage_062009