After Phil Kelley and the group left, I walked the estuary boardwalk all the way out to the end, which is 700 feet before the covered overlook during waterfowl hunting season.

Species seen included 15+ Greater Yellow Legs, a Spotted Sandpiper, 1 Eurasian Widgeon, 10 Hooded Mergansers, more Common Goldeneye and Buffleheads, 2 Belted Kingfisher, a flock of about 30 Least Sandpipers, 20 Double Crested Cormorants, Great Blue Heron, Mew Gulls, Ring-billed Gulls, Glaucus Winged Gulls, and some hybrid "Olympic Gulls." Scoping out on the Nisqually Reach, there were good numbers of Red Breasted Mergansers, some Common Loons, Surf Scoters, and lots of hard-to-identify (for me) waterfowl and gulls. On the Nisqually Channel Marker were 8 Brant's Cormorants, and 1 smaller bird that may have been a Pelagic Cormorant. Numbers of Green Wing Teal and American Widgeon increased as the tide came in.

When I got back to the dike I spotted the Red Shouldered Hawk in a distant tree toward the freeway, same spot we saw it last week. I couldn't find any owls, but saw a Pileated Woodpecker, 2 Downy Woodpeckers, and a Brown Creeper on the River Boardwalk.

Tom Bowden
Lacey, WA

Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2019 15:51:22 -0800
From: Phil Kelley < scrubjay323 at gmail.com mailto:scrubjay323 at gmail.com >
Subject: [Tweeters] NIsqually NWR 12/24/19
Message-ID:
< CADwGeZ+hogeO8C567VBrf+1fw12jFZmmxOmHo5vkt_hh9WwSfw at mail.gmail.com mailto:CADwGeZ+hogeO8C567VBrf+1fw12jFZmmxOmHo5vkt_hh9WwSfw at mail.gmail.com >
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Tweets,

Today a dozen of us endured a cold, breezy walk at Nisqually. We had a
14.3 high tide at 3:23 PM, so there was lots of mud outside the
estuary dike. We were with out many regulars due to the season and
change of day so Tom was the only one who headed out the estuary
boardwalk.

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