The pair of Mute Swans that has been seen around the Olympia area has been on Long Lake, Lacey, off and on, and they're here right now. As far as I know, there's only the one pair, which keeps moving around.

Among the 20 or so Mallards that hang around our part of the lake--and come up the feeder to share sunflower seeds with the squirrels--there is one very odd duck, apparently a hybrid. It's a male with the greenish head of a Mallard, though rather muted with darker tones, and it has a large white patch on the front of the neck and upper breast. The body is very dark brownish. The head, and the Mallard associations, imply that one parent was a Mallard; the white area suggests either a Shoveler or a Pintail as the other parent, though I don't remember seeing either of those species hanging around our area. Of course, it could have flown in from anywhere.

Burt Guttman
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu <mailto:guttmanb at evergreen.edu>
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S. E., Olympia, 98503