Birder PapaRrazi
An Amateur Birdwatcher's tally
ItA lot of my birdwatching is done by car. Also, I do a lot of birdwatching while dog walking. On weekends I can combine the two past times at a park or rural area.. One of my favorite spots to look for avian and give my girls exercise is Flaming Geyser Park. Lot's of dogs walk there on the weekends so my girls have buddies to meet up with. Meanwhile, I can steal some glimpses for birds. Of course the fun begins before we leave the driveway. I fill the feeders, put out suet, get the dogs in the car and rest while watching the breakfast queue at the feeder. It was in the 40s and chilly but not freezing in January. Clouds rolled around a bit but not too much at the time. A family of scrub jays reside in our area and really like our yard. This guy is a bossy one but we like him. He saw us off and we headed for highway 18. We saw crows, seagulls, and sparrows before we got on the highway. A hawk was watching for dinner along the way.
When we took the black diamond exit and travelled down Green River Road the excitement rose. This is farm country. We saw 2 blue herons, a kestrel, two more hawks (red tails), Canada geese, and mallards along the way. I also saw a dove. At the park I took Maggie and Katie went with her other person. We saw a kingfisher on a snag over the swamp, also red-winged blackbirds and widgeons in the swamp. Over this year I plan to fully explore the park for the purpose of this blog. It's one of my favorite go-to places. We only walked about a mile all total, much of it though the meadow near the swamp. Maggie checked out Facebook pages on poles and boulders and I checked out trees and watched the sky. On the way home we saw our only robin - an odd circumstance here in King County. It's also notable that we saw no starlings - very rare. But we saw a total of 5 hawks (beside the kestrel) and 5 blue herons. This is a good time of year for them. On Green Valley road some fog rolled in and covered some of the low places. It was a short list, and fairly common birds this week. But I put together a slide show of a star this week - a good looking red- wing blackbird. Check out the birding gallery as I build it up. I didn't land in any mud or puddles, didn't trip over any branches, didn't drop my camera in the swamp. It was, all in all a good birding week.
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AuthorI love birdwatching. It's relaxing and fun. Even though I've been birding for over 10 years I classify myself as an amateur birder. I plan to write a blog each month about my experiences. Hope you enjoy them! Categories |
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