Dear Tweeters,
Today, the eleventh of April, has been a good day for birding so far. I have not left my rural yard today, but so far I have ticked 32 species, by far my best day of yard-birding this year (near Cockreham Island, Skagit County).
I was watching the juvenile Northern Shrike as it made sallies from a favored fencepost, when a very blue-looking Merlin zipped by and tried to nail the shrike! The attack failed, but the shrike flew off for safer parts.
A big movement of swallows included my first Northern Rough-winged Swallow of the year, plus a few Barn Swallows and lots of Tree and Violet-green.
I can hear a singing Common Yellowthroat and a singing Yellow-rumped Warbler. Two Greater Yellowlegs are still hanging around the ever-shrinking field puddles north of our place. A female Varied Thrush made an unobtrusive visit to my birch tree.
Finest of all today was a flying foursome of Rock Pigeons! This used to be a pretty easy species to find in this area, but since the last two dairies shut down--converted to habitat-erasing berry farms--the pigeons are gone as well. Rock Pigeons are still doing okay in Sedro-Woolley, ten miles west of here, and are thriving in Concrete, fifteen miles east, where they use the enormous abandoned concrete silos--but they are hard to find anywhere in between.\Okay, I have to get back to the windows, in case a Black-capped Chickadee or a Common Raven shows up!
Yours truly,
Gary Bletsch
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