Subject: [Tweeters] Skagit big day, resending
Date: Apr 21 06:51:26 2014
From: Gary Bletsch - garybletsch at yahoo.com
Dear Tweeters,
If my?arithmetic is right, I think I just found 104 species of birds in Skagit County today, 4-20-2014.
Big misses included Belted Kingfisher, Mourning Dove, R-B Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, and Pelagic Cormorant. A flock of fifty or sixty Calidris sandpipers tormented me on the Samish Flats, too--I was pretty sure there were Westerns among them, but I could never get an ID. They would not settle down!
Good birds today included these:
Blue-winged Teal, one on Minkler Flats;
Cinnamon Teal, three on Minkler Flats;
Sora, birds heard on Minkler Flats and Butler Flats;
Black-bellied Plover, upwards of 150 on Samish Flats;
Lesser Yellowlegs, one at West Edison;
S-B Dowitcher, one on Samish Flats;
Bonaparte's Gull, a goodly flock off Samish Island;
Caspian Tern, one off Samish Island;
Short-eared Owl, four on Samish Flats, after a long time when I'd not seen any there;
Townsend's Solitaire, one at Corkindale, three at Marblemount Boat Launch;
Mt Bluebird, seven at Corkindale;
It was very pleasant seeing the shorebirds in breeding plumage out on Samish Flats. There are huge puddles in many fields--who knows what might turn up out there in the coming days!
Yours truly,
Gary Bletsch