Hey Tweets!

Had a lovely if ridiculously cold day with some stops in Mason, Kitsap and Jefferson Counties. The big bird of the day was at my first stop - a Sora at Theler Wetlands in Mason County. This was a life bird for me, and I didn't have my Sibley with me... and it's February... and it was in Mason County... but I got some really good looks at the bird, and a few pictures, as it poked around the reeds (in the first such reedy area on the right, heading up the River Estuary Trail). It wasn't calling for me, and I wasn't calling for it, so it was in nearly every possible way (mode, location, time of year) a very unusual first encounter with a Sora!

Theler was lovely, but cold first thing in the morning. The cold reallly brought out the Varied Thrushes - four of them didn't try to hide all that well at the beginning of the walk - very unusual. (This was topped later by at least six in Kitsap County east of Hansville... may have been more that fled from the road to the trees). Ducks, sparrows, herons, wrens, and a lot of Red-winged Blackbirds. A Turkey Vulture flew overhead at the end of the boardwalk - my first of the year.

Point no Point was lovelier and somehow colder. I think they call that "windchill". Windchill left me a bit unwilling to set up scope too far out on the beach, but from the safe haven next to the lighthouse, I enjoyed all three species of cormorant, 1/2 bazillion Mew Gulls, and a whole bazillion Bonaparte's Gulls, some Rhinoceros Auklets and Sanderling.

In Jefferson County, I made a beeline for Fort Flagler, zooming right by peep (sp?), gull (sp?) and crow (sp?). A wrong turn into the Oak Bay Marina gave me my first Hermit Thrush of the year, mixed in with Robins, Song Sparrows, Juncos and Golden-crowned Sparrows. Stopping in Nordland, I found Northern Pintails and three Greater Yellowlegs, and at Fort Flagler, I found the lifers that I actually expected to find - three Black-bellied Plovers on the beach with a flock of Sanderling. Loooots of Brant and a pair of Harlequin Ducks were there at the beach as well. Some Varied Thrush on the way out of Fort Flagler made it a three county Varied Thrush day - a good day with my favorite bird. :)

-Tim Brennan
Renton
39counties.blogspot.com