We hadn't been able to get to Dameron Marsh all week but were hoping the resident great horned owls would still be present when we checked them out last night. Alas, no owls. The last time we were there the hatchling was exercising its wings and hopping from nest to limb and back, so we're taking the optimistic view that this nesting attempt produced one fledgling. We monitored the nest from mid-January, when we noticed evidence of nesting activity, through April 8, and the owls followed the schedule in the reference books almost to the day. It was fun. With no owls to watch (though there was plenty of hooting) we turned our attention to the rest of DM and weren't disappointed. Lots of shore birds - both greater and lesser yellowlegs, short-billed dowitchers, willets, least sandpipers and black-bellied plovers - were in the middle distance lagoons. A bonaparte's gull circled over the shorebirds, looking to steal a morsel of food, no doubt. A single mute swan, several great blue herons and a small squadron of horned grebes just off shore. Male yellow-rump warblers have gotten brightly colored in the last few weeks and are singing their tuneless song almost everywhere I go. White-throated sparrows are still abundant but the juncos appear to have left. Tom Saunders Balls Neck