Hi all,

It was a beautiful fall morning, and my 8yr old daughter Emily wanted to go
birding (the same Emily who was very excited to find a scrub-jay in our
yard recently that we posted about- thank you so much to those of you who
reached out after that post with such kindness and generosity). We live
fairly close to Juanita Bay Park, so spent a couple hours walking around
there. It turned out to be a very birdy morning! We saw a number of other
birders and photographers enjoying the day, too.

Highlights for Emily included bufflehead (she was happy to see them
return), lesser scaup, Wilson's snipe foraging in the mud, a hermit thrush
who hopped onto the boardwalk rail right in front of us, huge rafts of what
must have been thousands of coots, a belted kingfisher repeatedly hovering,
pairs of wood ducks, ring-necked ducks, a gull eating a rather large fish
(catfish?), handfuls of very active and busy ruby- and golden-crowned
kinglets, and a very closeup downy woodpecker excavating a cavity from a
snag right next to the trail. A small group of us had gathered to watch,
and were all wondering why it was excavating in the fall. Emily would be
interested if anyone knows!

Thanks so much!
Megan & Emily