It
was a 48° morning and clouding up when I made myself a quick breakfast of
leftover pancake and drove up to Fort Steilacoom Park for the monthly bird
walk, where 21 of us were led by Russ Smith.
The day turned out to be much better than we had anticipated, or that
the weather service had predicted.
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| Ken Brown and Russ Smith on a pleasant morning at Fort Steilacoom |
And, I appreciate the other poems
there.
This month’s walk took us into
the white oak woods, half-way around Waughop Lake, up onto the hill in the fir
timber, then back down to the oaks whence we returned to the parking lot. In the oaks and the adjacent meadow, we found
Savannah Sparrows and the first of our Hutton’s Vireos.
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| Birding the oaks |
In the Douglas Fir uplands, the
group got “warbler neck” looking for warblers and vireos.
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| There it is . . . |
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| . . . and there it goes! |
I have always loved this time of
year in the Pacific Northwest, when the Trilliums welcome the Spring.
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| Trillium ovatum |
As Russ noted, we had a good
group of birders with lots of nice finds.
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| Richard gets scope on an April arrival |
The Southeast Meadow had lots of Savannah
Sparrows, where he had found none 2 days before. But even the 'usual' birds gave us good views.
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| This Song Sparrow was people-watching |
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| Bright red eye and a black hood indicates a Male Spotted Towhee |
At the end of the morning, Russ collaborates with us to ensure that we have all of the birds seen on our checklist, and that the numbers are correct.
The best thing about this group is that we have fun!
Fort Steilacoom eBird checklist is Here
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