Tweets,

Yesterday 20 of us enjoyed a nice, if quiet, walk at Nisqually. It was
chilly at the start but warmed up later in the day. It got breezy out on the
dike and the new boardwalk and we saw lots of mud. There was a 1.0 low
tide at 9:33. Still it was a good day to be out.


Passerines are getting scarcer each week and the wintering waterfowl are
just beginning to trickle in so it was a bit slow.


Highlights included an AMERICAN BITTERN at the visitor center overlook a to
begin the day and lots of COMMON YELLOETHROAT there also. We walked
counter clockwise and found a GREAT HORNED OWL in the woods along the Nisqually
River trail near the first bench. It was on the outside of the boardwalk.

At the Nisqually River overlook we had a couple of RUBY-CROWNED KINGLETS in
the willows and added BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE and CEDAR WAXWING. We also
saw our first of the season PACIFIC WREN.

Out on the estuarine boardwalk we found some LEAST SANDPIPERS and a couple
of PECTORAL SANDPIPERS. There also several AMERICAN PIPETS that led us
out to the end of the boardwalk and back in again. We added BELTED
KINGFISHER, DOUBLE-DREASTED CORMORANT. RING-BILLED and OLYMPIC GULLS along
McAllister Creek.

We had no success in relocating the probable STILT SANDPIPER we saw last
week.

For the week we saw 42 species with nothing new for the year

Until next week when Shep, Eric and Matt lead......


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