I spent part of the gorgeous but somewhat chilled
morning Saturday at Greenlake. The first bird I
saw as I got down to the lake was a beautiful male
hooded merganser. This set a pattern for the day
as there were more mergansers on the lake than I
have ever seen before - literally at almost every
nook and cranny around the entire lake. There may
have been some double counting for movement and I
probably missed some as well, but my fairly
careful count was 82 Hooded Mergansers. I did not
pay as much attention to the numerous common
mergansers , particularly as many of them (but not
all) were further from the shore, but I counted at
least 35 of them as well. A surprise was how very
few (relatively speaking) bufflehead were on the
lake. And as in years past, careful attention to
the wigeons yielded a beautiful Eurasian Male -
easily photographed on the water as well as on the
grass.

This morning I stopped at both Nisqually and
Ridgefield on the way to Portland. It was VERY
cold and gray at Nisqually but there were quality
birds including a very beautiful leucistic robin,
a great egret, numerous bald eagles, a few varied
thrushes, and a highly photogenic American
Bittern. There was a report of a peregrine but I
did not see the bird. At the South 90 at
Ridgefield some hours later, the conditions were
beautiful, clear and crisp and not TOO chilly.
Nothing unusual but great looks at the diverse
waterfowl and far more swans than I expected or
had seen there before. I kept trying to make one
into a Tundra swan but was unsuccessful. I did
not count them but expect there were at least 200
trumpeters. Missed the great horned owl that was
seen 30 minutes before I arrived. Whereas at
Nisqually there was only a single hawk with the
eagles, at Ridgefield there was only a single
eagle with many red tails and harriers. May come
up with another species after more careful
consideration of a couple of pictures taken. Also
always nice to see and particularly to hear the
Sandhill cranes. Many golden crowned kinglets at
both refuges - still no good pictures...