Tweeters,
I've always noticed Spotted Sandpipers along the railroad tracks and along the beaches at Lake Keechelus and assumed that they were nesting there but have never been able to spy the young until Sunday. The lake is filled to the brim and it seems that the pipers have resorted to nesting in the gravel along the old tracks this year near Roaring Creek and at the damn near the outlet of Meadow creek. I was finally able to follow a young cotton ball with legs along a portion of the tracks while the parents desperately tried to distract me. Obviously, I moved on quickly but it was such a treat to finally see one of the little ones!
Other birds of the day were signing Hermit and Swainson's Thrushes, Western Tanagers, Townsend's Warblers, nesting MacGillivray's Warblers, Yellow Warblers, nesting White-crowned Sparrows, and a couple of Hermit Warblers along a forest service road near our property.

Cheers,
Amy SchillingerRenton, WAschillingera at hotmail.com