Subject: [Tweeters] Birding on the Olympic peninsula
Date: Apr 15 20:08:40 2011
From: judy mullally - judyemull at yahoo.com


As a recentr subscriber to Tweeters, I'm still trying to get a sense of what "belongs", but in addition to lots of interesting exchanges on various birding topics, I've been delighted to read about "special" birds seen in the area- and even "twitches" on a couple lately. Special thanks to Ryan M for showing me where to see the Screech owl and Juanita bay (Beach?) park. I woukld have overlooked it completely. And I got to then pass it on to several other birders who came as I was leaving.
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I've also noticed posting about people's sightings in Nisqually, eastern WA, etc, but nothing from my area. So today I decided to make a day list as I walked the dog( about 1? 1/2 hours on a 4 mile loop around the neighborhood), weeded, etc. Okay- so I added the birds I scoped out my living room window bobbing on the Straits, too, but there were also hours of errands, busy bwork etc with no birding.
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?Main highlight was my FOY Cassin's vireo-singing and flitting in a tree overhead. Savannah sparrows are just returning to our area, and the Black oystercatchers were hanging out on the beach at the mouth of?Morse creek again as our daytime low tides bring them across from Ediz Hook.
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There were the usual assortment of small to mid sized land birds and ?several raptors. Even though some of my "regulars" failed to put in an appearance today, I ended up with 50 species with no gasoline expended! But I hope to keep hearing about other birds to entice me further afield as time and circumstances permit, so thanks for all the info!