Dear Tweeters,
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Today (8 September 2012) I visited the?Marblemount area?and the Sauk River Valley, mainly in Skagit County. One place I visited was Fortner Road, which is just barely in Skagit County, north of Darrington along SR 530. The place I ended up birding was actually in Snohomish County. I drove to the end of Fortner, then made a left (going south), parking along the power-line road. I walked a ways down this road, crossed a small wooden bridge, and stopped to bird the brushy roadside here. That's where the House Wren was. Fortner Road takes off from SR 530 only about a tenth of a mile north of the Skagit-Snohomish line, and I had driven and walked more than a tenth south from the end of Fortner, so this bird must've been in Snohomish. A short ways beyond the bridge, a gate spans the power-line road.
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Other good birds seen in various spots included two Common Nighthawks,?a singing Dusky Flycatcher, several Vesper?Sparrows,?and a singing Cassin's Vireo. I didn't have a good thermometer, but I think it was well above ninety degrees Fahrenheit in the area today.

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!"