Hello Everyone,
I went out to Ridgefield yesterday with Jill Ward, and we had a couple of
fun sightings amongst the usual suspects.
First at the Carty Unit, we walked around the right side of the longhouse
to follow a hawk that flew over the pond into a tree. It was a
RED-SHOULDERED and was joined by a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK, and then chased away
by a RED-TAILED HAWK. My picture of the two in the tree definitely ID's
the red shouldered by color but is too distant and out of focus for any
real detail. We also saw a handful of swans across the first duckpond to
the right of the longhouse. It was too far to be sure about ID, so not sure
if Trumpeter or early Tundra? Has anyone else reported any swans yet in
this area?
After lunch at the Pioneer St Cafe in downtown, (which incidentally is
closing it's doors for good this weekend?!) we headed up to the River S
unit and saw a few cool birds which I will list, but towards the end just
before the last jog in Lower River Road, right before the only two trees
you drive through, Jill saw a WHITE-THROATED SPARROW scratching in the
leaves along the left side of the road. It was really dark outside and
sadly my pictures were very poor. What we saw through the binocs looked
much more like a TAN-STRIPED morph but the photos picked up more white in
the head, so now we're unsure. I've attached the two best pics from flickr
for ID purposes. If anyone spots this little one up close, let us know what
you think.
Here's the rundown of all seen:
Red-shouldered hawk
Rough-legged hawk
Red-tailed hawk
Swans, Trumpeter or Tundra?
Ruby Crowned and Golden Crowned Kinglets
Bushtit
Spotted Towhee
Brown Creeper
Black-capped Chickadee
American Robin
Oregon Junco
Starling
Red-Winged Blackbird
Red breasted Sapsucker
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
Great Egret
Song sparrow
Stellar's Jay
Scrub Jay
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Sandhill Cranes
Great Blue Heron
American Coot
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
American Widgeon-quite a few males with the early fall plumage
Greater Yellow-legs
Killdeer
Anna's hummingbird
Cedar Wax-wing
Red-breasted Merganser -3 female
Common Snipe -roughly 20 in second mad flats on left at River S unit; they
blend in!
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Pied-billed Grebe
Northern Harrier
Cackling Geese on the ground
Canada Geese overhead
White-Throated sparrow
Bald Eagle
Altogether a good day, especially with the hawk and the sparrow.. If anyone
else sees the White- throated or the Swans and can get a better ID, we
would love to hear what you think.
Good birding!
Nikki Chapman
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132973942@N05/22534582615/in/datetaken-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132973942@N05/22508595636/in/datetaken-public/
