[Tweeters] Wahkiakum Birds, 1/2

[Tim Brennan]

Hey Tweets!

New Year, new focus - in 2023, I'm trying to find 150 species in Wahkiakum County. And . . . Cowlitz, and Clark, and Skamania. I'm just back from a three-day swing, including a pretty productive day in Wahkiakum County. Highlights:

Julia Butler Hansen - I birded Steamboat Slough Road, and then the White-tail Trail. There are still dozens and dozens of Trumpeter and Tundra Swans at the White-tail Trail, as well as Canvasback, Black Phoebe, and some very vocal Red-shouldered Hawks. At the very end of the trail, I also heard a puzzling call, which another birder discovered (right after I left) was a Swamp Sparrow! Great time to poke around the refuge.

I drove the roads in the Gray's River Valley, where there were many flooded fields, including one with 100 or so American Wigeon, and a single male Eurasian Wigeon.

On Altoona-Pigeon Point Road, there is some good mud at one of the first breaks in the trees. Shorebirds here included Least Sandpiper, Greater Yellowlegs, and a single Long-billed Dowitcher. A Red-throated Loon was close in, and I suspect the big mass of black blobs included Surf Scoters, but lighting and distance made it hard for me to ID them.

I finished the day on Puget Island, where a flock of Short-billed Gulls included an Iceland Gull, and (at a reasonable distance, apparently), a Peregrine Falcon.

72 species for the day in fairly nice weather!

Thanks to Cindy McCormack, Les Carlson for the birding company at Steigerwald today, (where an east wind kept things brisk to say the least.) and thanks to Russ Koppendrayer, Wilson Cady, and Kevin Black for help in planning out this trip! There will be blogging at www.southwestwashingtonbirding.blogspot.com<http://www.southwestwashingtonbirding.blogspot.com>, although I've done no more than update my tallies, and introduce the idea for the year. This'll take a little time to update!


Cheers,

Tim Brennan
Renton
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