Hi Tweets,

Puget Sound was quite calm this morning (1-15-11) compared to
yesterday afternoon's winds. It was almost balmy on the Edmonds
public pier. Yesterday late afternoon there were Yellow-rumped
Warblers out along the north side of the marsh. Robins were
rocketing along with the wind at their tails. Hummingbirds were
powering through the weather. This morning we saw no warblers,
hummingbirds, or woodpeckers. One adult Bald Eagle was the only
raptor seen. We watched it pluck a fish out of the Sound and fly off
to the south. A lot of cutting is going on along the Point Edwards
property. The destruction of alders and blackberry brambles is
already having an impact on the birds seen along the public path. We
wonder whether we will be seeing Purple Finches there this coming
summer. The property owners seem bent on destroying all nesting
habitat. Snags have come down in the Hatchery, probably in the
recent wind storms. They reached the end of their natural life as
snags. I know it is the expected order of plant succession, but when
we leave such small remnant areas of natural habitat, I find even the
"natural" changes distressing.

Public Pier

Surf Scoter
Bufflehead
Red-Breasted Merganser
Loon (sp.) (fly-by)
Horned Grebe
Red-necked Grebe
Western Grebe
Brandt's Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Pelagic Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Bald Eagle (1 ad.)
Mew Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
Pigeon Guillemot
Rhinoceros Auklet
Rock Pigeon
American Crow

Marsh

Mallard
Great Blue Heron (8)
Killdeer (12)
Glaucous-winged Gull
Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
Bushtit
Bewick's Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Oregon Junco
Fox Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
House Finch

Hatchery/Point Edwards

Gadwall
Northern Shoveler
Green-winged Teal
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser (1 m.)
American Coot
Crow
Spotted Towhee (1)
American Goldfinch (6)

Carol Riddell
Edmonds