Subject: [Tweeters] Great success chasing Skagit birds today
Date: Feb 9 19:43:18 2011
From: Michael Hobbs - BirdMarymoor at frontier.com


Tweets - having sat at my desk during yesterday's sunshine, I just couldn't
do it again today, especially since there have been several good birds
reported from Skagit County during 2011. So today, I chased.

The BLACK PHOEBE was easy to find at the Skagit WMA, in the trees just south
from the west end of the boat launch parking area.

Next, I went in search of ANNA'S HUMMINGBIRD. There had been a few
sightings on eBird, but nothing that sounded too chaseable. Still, I was
going to try at Bay View State Park. But on my way there, I saw the sign
for Valentine Rd., and though that maybe the family with the great birding
yard there (they hosted a Blue Jay a couple of winters ago) might have a
feeder and a hummer. The woman who lives there saw me and came out to chat.
She said they'd had their first Anna's ever just three days ago, and had
seen one yesterday. As we talked, a female ANNA'S landed on the willow tree
right across the street from her house. Anna's appear to be rapidly
spreading into Skagit County - the northward march continues. She said her
friend has several Anna's coming to her feeders in Anacortes, and eBird
listed recent sightings from Bay View, Samish Flats, and Samish Island.

I tried the Samish Flats to see if there was anything of note. I found 3
PEREGRINE FALCONS, and the MERLIN at Edison, but no other falcons. Perhaps
there was no place for them to perch, with BALD EAGLES seemingly taking
every tree and post in sight. I saw well over 100 up there. There was at
least one ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK at the West 90, along with several NORTHERN
HARRIERS and a ton of RED-TAILED HAWKS scattered about.

The ROCK WREN popped up when I played my iPod just south of the intersection
of North Hill Blvd and Hillcrest Dr. in Burlington. Actually, two birds
flew in, seemingly together. Both had pale breasts, reddish tails, and
grayish-brown backs, but the second bird was a HERMIT THRUSH.

Having gone 3-for-3, and not really believing it could continue, I headed
over to Big Lake, east of Mount Vernon. In the Nookachamp development, I
was able to find a male WESTERN BLUEBIRD at the cul-de-sac at the southeast
end of their little "lake".

Next, I headed down to Snohomish County, where I'd noticed a couple of eBird
reports of WESTERN SCRUB-JAY near Lake Stevens. That's a species I'd never
seen in Snohomish County. So I headed to 15th St. NE off Lundeen Parkway,
on the west side of the lake (just west of SR-9). There's a large powerline
corridor that crosses 15th, and I parked there. A couple of times through
the iPod track lured in a jay. Yay.

My luck kind of petered out then; I went down to the Monroe Reformatory
site, and failed to find the Sandhill Crane, nor Matt Bartell's Swamp
Sparrow, nor Marv Breece's Rusty Blackbird.

Still, getting all of my top-5 targets for the day was awesome. Heck, just
driving around in the sunshine in February was awesome.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
== http://www.marymoor.org/BirdBlog.htm
== birdmarymoor at frontier.com