Yesterday was warm and windless until later in the afternoon. A fine fall day for birding.
I began the day near the intersection of Green & Kelleher Roads in Skagit County, where I have seen a light morph HARLAN'S in the past. But not yesterday. A bit farther east on Kelleher I did see a dark morph HARLAN'S, likely the same bird I saw at the exact location on 2.19.17 & 11.29.17. That's 3 fall/winters in a row for this bird, if indeed it is the same bird. A NORTHERN SHRIKE scooted across the road. At the gravel pit on Kelleher, I watched 2 BALD EAGLES take a duck on the pond. It took but a few minutes for the pair to tire the hapless duck. It dove repeatedly and the final time it came up for air, one of the eagles timed its swoop perfectly and landed in the water with the duck submerged in its talons. After a minute or so the eagle lifted off the water with the small duck and took it so shore. Don't let anyone tell you that an eagle cannot lift off of the water. It may "row" with a heavy load, but this bird took flight w/ the duck with no problem at all. This gravel pit is closed to the public. I watched from outside the gate.
At the West 90 on the Samish Flats was a pair of AMERICAN KESTRELS, a few AMERICAN PIPITS and an immature dark morph HARLAN'S. There was a dark morph ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK on Sullivan Rd as well as another AMERICAN KESTREL (7 kestrels for the day). Along Bayview/Edison Road near D'Arcy was a large flock of SNOW GEESE.
During a brief stop at Hayton Reserve on Fir Island on the incoming tide, I saw 3 BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS, 4 late SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS, 7 LONG-BILLED DOWITCHERS and 2 GREATER YELLOWLEGS.
Finally, at the end of Boe Road, south of Stanwood in Snohomish County, there was a large flock of SNOW GEESE. The flock included an adult and juv BLUE GOOSE & an adult and juv GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE, as well as a few minima CACKLING GEESE. Also, my 3rd HARLAN'S RED-TAILED HAWK of the day.
It was a good day.
--
Marv Breece
Tukwila, WA
marvbreece at q.com
"what are the costs to a society of an entire population conditioned to spend so much of their waking lives not in concentration and focus but rather in fragmentary awareness and subject to constant interruption?" - The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <
http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20181028/c9ece5e3/attachment.html>