Subject: [Tweeters] Ridgefield NWR...SW Wash.
Date: Feb 15 20:49:16 2010
From: geraldham at comcast.net - geraldham at comcast.net


..........Being a holiday, lots of visitors today. Day started foggy, turned partly cloudy, then cloudy again with light rain at gate-closing time at 5:30 pm.
...........Birds of note( not necessarily seen by me personally) were: NORTHERN SHRIKE; COMMON TEAL ( Eurasian form of Blue-winged teal); 2 SHORT-EARED OWLS: RED-SHOULDERED HAWKS(2);immature and mature BALD EAGLES; COMMON GOLDENEYE; HOODED MERGANSERS ; TRUMPETER SWANS and 2 RAVENS; PILEATED WOODPECKER, WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH, and several SANDHILL CRANES (...flyovers), along with mydrids of the more commonly-seen wintering ducks, hawks, Tundra Swans, Horned Owls, Bitterns and Soras, and songbirds. A Golden Eagle and 2 Barrows Goldeneyes werereported in the last several days, but due to the extreme rarity of these 2 species in *this* area,probably would have to be verified by other viewers before becoming official sightings of note. ....a fact noted to me by other birders.
............Cheers to all.........Gerald Hamilton
Brush Prairie. Wash.
geraldham at comcast.net