I was treated to a lovely day-after-solstice present on Henderson Inlet in
Olympia. All fall and winter I've been watching the ducks on the open inlet
in front of our house - mostly surf scoters and horned grebes, with the
occasional goldeneye or hooded merganser floating about. On this day, I
looked out to see a huge raft of ducks nearshore, and quickly trained my
(new, yay!) Swarovski scope on them. Hundreds of common mergansers in full
breeding plumage, staging (I assume) in front of my house. At one point they
all flew off in unison toward Puget Sound, leaving the usual denizens
behind. What a sight to see! One has to be curious about where they all came
from and where they're going next. And that makes yard bird #45 since
August. Not bad.



Teresa Michelsen

Olympia WA