Subject: [Tweeters] Jaegers Walla Walla County
Date: Mon Sep 9 17:23:41 PDT 2019
From: Mike & MerryLynn - m.denny at charter.net

Hello all from MerryLynn,

Weather change FINALLY happened so I headed out to the Columbia River.
Water level recently dropped so lots of mud - I hiked through the
bullrushes and spiders at 2Rivers HMU and was rewarded with a PARASITIC
JAEGER which flushed hundreds of birds up off the mud - gulls, crows,
egrets and ducks. At one point the Jaeger chased a gull within 30 ft of
me - amazing to watch. Only one Common Tern was present - but later at
Peninsula HMU I had many Forster's Terns with a few more Common - and
another or possibly the same PARASITIC JAEGER. This one chased the terns
around then landed on the water.

Very windy day - choppy water - but the WESTERN GREBES were doing
courtship displays - "running" on the waves. Always a treat to see and
not usually in Sept.! Last Friday we found 5 young grebes out there - a
first ever in the county for us.

MERLINS have arrived - had 3 yesterday and 2 today - one up 9 Mile
Canyon after juncos and wcrowns.

Hopefully the river will be low for a few days so the shorebirds will
stop - used to have thousands of them on the delta but since the wind
turbines went in we have very little mud - and usually only for a day or
two. There were 10 Pectoral Sandpipers on the "blood pond" up Dodd rd
yesterday.

Enjoy vagrant hunting/fall birding, ML

--
Mike & MerryLynn Denny
Birding the Beautiful Walla Walla Valley
"If you haven't gone birding, you haven't lived"

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