greetings:

after meeting somewhere between one-third and one-half of the birders in
king county at tokul creek this morning, where everyone had good looks at
the american dippers, a deer, a couple mergansers and a belted kingfisher,
we stopped by the falls and braved the holiday crowds. the two peregrine
chicks are adult size and showing a lot of feather through the remnants of
their natal fuzz. they appear to be a male and a female, the male a bit
more developmentally advanced than his clutchmate (all this assuming i know
what i'm talking about gender-wise). those of you with good reflexes and
long lenses might want to hang around the falls toward the end of the week.
my guess is the smaller bird will fledge thursday or friday and the other
one two or three days later. i stress guess. others more knowledgeable
than i may have other thoughts, and reliance on me is seldom warranted.

at any rate, that's the news from the falls for now.

as an aside, the pied-billed grebe babies (greblings???) at stillwater are
starting to dive, and the occasional bullfrog is visible floating in the
lilypads on the other side of the trail.

i'm told there's a belted kingfisher nest at the end of the road that heads
to the river from the main access parking lot. go to the end of the
road/trail and bear to the right to get to the river bank and look back to
the left (southeast) to see the nest in a snag by the river. we didn't have
time to go there, but the informant had pics, so it must be true.

regards,

t

--
dave templeton
fall city, wa

crazydave65atgmaildaughtcom

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today; it's already tomorrow
in Australia." Charles Schultz
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