Today, at Ridgefield NWR in Clark Co., several of us witnessed a Great Blue
Heron stalk, capture and devour what was a "vole" I'm told. OK, it wasn't
one of the nutrias that are around there, this much I do know! Lol. My
quest there was for a Black Phoebe, recently reported by Josh Adams and
others. No love with the BLPH. However, I was told by some of the refuge
volunteers that Black Phoebes successfully raised a clutch earlier in the
year near the hunter's checkpoint. (Yes, the hunters were out in force
today). I was told that several of the young phoebes were banded and they
can stay around until the end of December at this location. Can anyone
confirm the aforementioned? My consolation prize(s) were a nice dark morph
Rough-legged Hawk, 3 Red-shouldered Hawks (two adults and a juvenile) --
looking completely different than the very pale B.l. estimus race I'm used
to seeing in South Florida. Anyone know what the WA subspecies is at this
locale? Other good birds there: Common Goldeneye, Pileated Woodpecker,
Lincoln's Sparrow, two Sandhill Cranes, several American Kestrels, Western
Scrub-Jays (outside the entrance to the refuge), quite a few Bald Eagles,
Northern Harriers and (Western) Red-tailed Hawks, plus multiple Great
Egrets, hundreds of both swan species, Wilson's Snipe, Marsh & Bewick's
Wren, the "usual" expected sparrows, blackbirds and other dickey birds. It
was a good day of birding in an area of the state that I had never
frequented prior to this outing. I'm SO TIRED of all this rain already.
Someone turn it off, please!

--
Vincent Lucas
Sequim, WA
vincentlucas5 at gmail.com
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