Tweets,

On Wednesday 27 of us walked Nisqually on a very pleasant day. Warm, with
a light breeze and lots of sunshine. There was a -1.7 tide at 11:05 so we
didn't walk the boardwalk.

Highlights included spotting a juvenile GREAT HORNED OWL, a SORA, and 3
VIRGINIA RAILS.

Water levels are way down and thus waterfowl numbers are down as well. We
did see a few late AMERICAN WIGEON and CANADA GEESE with goslings.
MALLARDS, BLUE-WINGED TEAL and GADWALL made up the bulk of what waterfowl we did
see.

The juvenile GREAT HORNED OWL was seen inside the boardwalk between the
twin barns and the Nisqually side, but it flushed and dropped down into the
brush and didn't reappear, at least not for us. We never did relocate it.

The RAILS and SORA were seen out in the new pond inside the new dike. We
heard SNIPE calling and Matt located them in the marsh. We also had SORA
calling in the same area. As we scoped the SNIPE 2 juvenile VIRGINIA RAIL
appears in the vicinity followed by and adult VIRGINIA RAIL. After some
brief views they disappeared back into the marsh. A bit later the SORA made
an appearance closed to the start of the new boardwalk.

There is still some passerine activity with many young birds being fed by
their parents. Things are pretty quiet as parents try to keep from alerting
predators as to the whereabouts of their young.

For the day we had 49 species with nothing new for the year. Mammals seen
were gray squirrel and black-tailed deer.

Until next week when the tides should be better for walking the new
boardwalk and Shep and Eric will lead in my absence....

Phil Kelley
scrubjay323 at aol.com
Lacey, WA
360-459-1499