Subject: [Tweeters] A little Sunday morning Skagit birding,
Date: May 3 20:17:41 2009
From: William Boyington - wrboyington at msn.com


Hello Tweeters,

Gary Bletch's Friday post of 52 Whimbrels in Skagit County had me greatly motivated to run up there this morning, with visions of Whimbrels galore awaiting me. I guess it's a good thing, in hindsight, that I did not read his Saturday post about their disappearance on that day from those dirt fields along Dahlstedt Road. I located this road north of Burlington, and drove it eastward. Scanning the dirt fields with my binoculars, I saw Gulls, including Glaucous-winged and Mew, Robins, Savannah Sparrows, Brewer's Blackbirds and Starlings, but no Whimbrels. On my return trip westward, I stopped for a closer look at the last freshly-plowed field before reaching Green Road. There, among the Gulls, success - a lone Whimbrel!

On my way back south, I decided to stop at the Fir Island Game Range, where, as reported, the road to the boat launch was closed off. My hope was to find a few migrant passerines in the trees and bushes along the trail west from the Headquarters parking lot. Besides a number of expected Yellow-rumped Warblers, more Myrtles than Audubons, best bird was a Cassin's Vireo. In the shallow pools of the first field to the south of the new dike trail foraged a Blue-winged Teal drake. Three Greater Yellowlegs and one Lesser Yellowlegs were seen briefly near the sluice gates. A male Rufous Hummingbird right by the trail was good to see, as was a Marsh Wren at a quite visible nest, low in a small tree on the other side of the slough next to the trail.

It was a beautiful day to be birding.

Good birding to all,

Bill Boyington
Shoreline, WA