Hello Tweets,



Nancy and I are back from our two month Grand Tour of the western
Mediterranean: Spain, Morocco, southern France, Italy, and with a week's
vacation from the vacation at Oxford, England. Total tally of bird species
ca. 225 with about 80 of those new for me. Very much a challenge to see and
sort out those European warblers!



In any case, to reacquaint myself with my home territory avifauna this
morning I cruised the Snoqualmie Valley from Duvall to Stillwater with an
extended hike in the Marquardt State Forest off Stossel Creek Rd. southeast
of Duvall. A fine day for a homecoming.



First off I ran up the dead-end spur of the West Snoqualmie River Rd. north
from the Woodinville-Duvall Rd. At 0.9 miles up this spur I spotted a young
male YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD on the phone wires and at 1.1 miles up a pair
of WESTERN KINGBIRDS precisely where they nested last summer. Lots of the
usual suspects singing away here, at McCormick Park in Duvall, and at
Stillwater north of Carnation.



Best find of the day was a female LESSER GOLDFINCH at the culvert on the
track west from the Snoqualmie Valley Trail off SR 203 (the track that leads
down to the Bank Swallow colony on the Snoqualmie River (well populated
today with 40+ Bank Swallows and a nesting Belted Kingfisher). At ca. 10 AM
the Lesser Goldfinch was associating with a few male American Goldfinches in
the riparian vegetation just southwest of the culvert (newly elaborated last
summer). It responded to pishing, flying in to perch about 15 feet over my
head, then flying off about 50 feet. It repeated this about three times. It
was a bit smaller and not so chunky as the American Goldfinches, a greenish
yellow on the throat and breast shading to a paler shade of yellowish under
the tail. The crown and back were greenish; the folded wings sported a
narrow whitish wing bar or two and a square white patch at the base of the
inner primaries. The bill was finchy, black to gray or horn, decidedly dark.
It made a very soft mewing sound while perched. I tried to relocate it a
half-hour later without success.



A pair of MACGILLIVRAY'S WARBLERS was along the west side of the Snoqualmie
River Trail about 100 feet past the first of the three bridges (that is,
just past the "Chat Bridge" of previous summers - no chats heard this time
however) south from the parking lot just north of the Stillwater Store.



Gene Hunn

18476 47th Pl NE

Lake Forest Park, WA

enhunn323 at comcast.net