I began my birding day looking for Maxine Reid's golden-plovers at Tulalip, Snohomish County. No luck. Did see 30 BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS and a couple of flyover SNOW GOOSE flocks.


Along Boe Road was a single WESTERN MEADOWLARK and an AMERICAN KESTREL.


The Skagit Game Range (Wylie Slough) was a bit slow. Between my morning visit and a later afternoon visit:
TAIGA MERLIN - my first taiga of the season; a male
PEREGRINE FALCON - immature
COOPER'S HAWK - adult female
WILSON'S SNIPE - 1
LONG-BILLED DOWITCHER - 13 10 juv & 3 in basic
GREATER YELLOWLEGS - 10
VIOLENT-GREEN SWALLOW - 2


Amazing bird activity at the Hayton Preserve more than made up for the slowness at the Game Range. Odd birds included Bob Kuntz, Gary Bletsch, Phil Wegener and Steve Giles. The 5 of us assembled without design within a short period of time, and together, we enjoyed the following:


Snow Goose
Cackling Goose
Canada Goose
Greater White-fronted Goose
Osprey
Merlin - black
Peregrine - immature different from Game Range bird
Black-bellied Plover
Wilson's Snipe
Long-billed Dowitcher
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs - 1
Sanderling - 1 juv
Western Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Dunlin - 3
Pectoral Sandpiper - 15 or more
SHARP-TAILED SANDPIPER - 1
SAGEBRUSH SPARROW - along the gravel trail; may be a Skagit County first record
LAPLAND LONGSPUR - 2 heard and seen


No doubt I have forgotten something.
Sagebrush Sparrow images and videos at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/138163614 at N02/
http://www.pbase.com/marvbreece/new_images


It was a very good day!



Marv Breece
Tukwila, WA
marvbreece at q.com

Concepts shape our world.
Concepts are not hard wired.