Dear Tweeters,

Thanks to Michael Willison for letting birders know about the return of SNOW BUNTINGS to March Point. Today (28 January 2012) there were four of them, putting on a very nice show for a handful of birders out there at Tank 136. We all noticed that two of the birds were quite white, and the other two quite brown. Is there any generalization that could be made as to age and sex, in wintertime?

This part of my birding day was after a very low-key Skagit Audubon field trip to Northern State Recreation Area. Thirteen birders bundled up against gale winds, sleet, and rain, and managed to find barely over 20 species. It was so windy that we never laid eyes on a Song Sparrow!

After the field trip, I also followed up on a report by Mitch Blanton about some Wilson's Snipe. These were at a place that I persist in calling Gear Road, although that road barely exists any more. This site is now an industrial park with a retention pond, just north of Burlington Hill, on the east side of the railroad tracks. This is off Old Highway 99. When I got there, Pam Pritzl and John Edison were looking at the snipe, but soon left. I saw only one Wilson's Snipe there, but one of the ducks turned out to be a Eurasian Green-winged or "Common Teal."

It is well to note that the cattails were recently whacked down at this site, so it might not be as reliable for Sora this spring. However, the ducks were certainly easier to see today, among the cattail stubble.

There is often a nice flock of blackbirds and starlings at the dairy next to this site. In fact, sometimes, in fall, there are even shorebirds in the mud of the pastures here. Today, the "stackbird" flock was flying to the retention pond, then feeding in a grassy verge of a gravel lot due east of the retention pond, then to the property of a stone dealer, and then to the dairy again. As I scoped this flock, a male RUSTY BLACKBIRD popped up! Just as I was admiring it, along came an officious policeman with all sorts of information for my safety (not blocking traffic on a road where about one car every fifteen minutes goes by at ten miles per hour). Thanks, officer--I never did see the Rusty again after the black-and-white intervened between me and the bird.

Anyway, another surprising thing about this flock was the number of Brown-headed Cowbirds--at least a hundred of them stayed together in a little subset of the flock. That is one of the biggest winter flocks of BHCO I can remember seeing in this woodsy neck.

Good birding!

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch


Gary Bletsch Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA garybletsch at yahoo.com "Nun," sagte ich, "wenn ich ein Taugenichts bin, so ist's gut, so will ich in die Welt gehen, und mein Glueck machen." Und eigentlich war mir das recht lieb, denn es war mir kurz vorher selber eingefallen, auf Reisen zu gehen, da ich die Goldammer, welche im Herbst und Winter immer betruebt an unserm Fenster sang: "Bauer, miet' mich, Bauer, miet' mich!" nun in der schoenen Fruehlingszeit wieder ganz stolz und lustig vom Baume rufen hoerte: "Bauer, behalt' deinen Dienst!"