Hey Tweets!

Cara Borre and I had a long but fun day of birding in Mason County today. Despite pouring some time into some... Interesting efforts to find some birds, and despite being in the doldrums of summer, we still came up with 78 species, according to the corn dog wrapper that held the official tally.

Highlights of the day

Virginia Rail - found in two marshy locations new to both of us- one tucked behind the George Adams Hatchery, and one on Arcadia Drive. None of the marshy places we investigated held bittern or sora, sadly.

House Wren - found in three different locations along FR 23, making it feel less and less like a code 4 bird in the county.

Common Nighthawk - at day's end, about a dozen all along FR 23, doing the "vroom" thing. I had not seen that before.

Owls - Barred on FR 23 past the High Steel Bridge, and Barn on Skokomish Valley Road.

The hospitality of strangers - more on that in the blog, but we had more than one person invite us onto their property for better looks for birds, and... It's difficult to write the sentence; I'm tired so it doubt it actually happened, but I think we were offered (and oh hell yes accepted) the use of a golf cart by the employees of a tractor dealership to assist us in our search for California Quail.

Only Common Nighthawk was new for the year, so the total is up to 161.

Tim Brennan
Renton
Www.masoncountybirding.blogspot.com