Subject: [Tweeters] Yellow-bellied Sapsucker yes
Date: Apr 15 16:17:45 2013
From: Hank Karen - karenhank at yahoo.com
Yesterday we took 4 hours and 20 minutes to?NOT find the Darrington Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.? Today we found it in about 4 minutes, arriving at 8:02 a.m.? We wish to thank everyone along the way who found the bird and described its location.? Particularly helpful was an eBird post by Chuck Jensen that I read last night.? It caused us to look lower for the bird and to look on the other side of the wetland.? We got out of our car, crossed the road, raised our binoculars and there it was (spotted by my wife, as is most often the case with us).? Obviously a lot of luck was involved, but we wouldn't have looked in the right place without Chuck's post.? Here is what he wrote that proved so helpful.
"Ongoing immature female. A patient photographer could take a great flight picture as the bird would make an infrequent circuit from the 2 main well trees across swamp to back NE corner and then twice across highway to well trees on west side. It would fly slowly 3-7 feet above highway 3 of 4 individual crossings."
Here are links to three photos.? A video will follow.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ljcouple/8653800680/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ljcouple/8653808038/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ljcouple/8653812140/
The photos aren't great, but they do the job.
Hank Heiberg
Lake Joy
Carnation, WA
karenhankatyahoodotcom