[Tweeters] Bainbridge Island Birding

[Daniel Lipinski]

Not sure if it's been a slow week or there's an issue with the list serve, but I haven't gotten an email in 2-days.  It's been a while since I added something, so I thought I would. Today 2/7 I did some scope/sea watching on the west side of Bainbridge looking towards Suquamish and into Liberty Bay inlet from Agate pass (Hidden Cove road end) and saw an enormous number of surf scoters. I estimated 400+ surf scoters and couldn't pull a black or white winged scoter out of the bunch. I've sporadically seen those two species off Bainbridge but only have a few years of scoping under my belt so it's a small data set. All three expected cormorants were moving around and a few of the pelagic were showing their white rump breeding colors. Pigeon guillemot was the only Alcid seen and some were in breeding colors, some still in their winter plumage. No murres, or murrelets about. Bufflehead and horned grebes were scattered as were common goldeneye, a few red breasted mergansers and a single red-necked grebe. No western grebes seen.  All three expected loons were present with a single common loon, a small grouping (6) pacific loons and two red throated loons. Gulls were minimal with a short billed gull fly by - a few "Olympic gulls" one dark mantled one that looked really close to being a western gull - but didn't "feel" right. Highlight and reason I went was a small flock of long tailed ducks. One male flew by and I followed him in my scope until he went really far north landing with a group of females. First sighting of these from land (i.e. not from the ferry) off Bainbridge. Oh, and the Hutton's vireos started singing again today! Spring is coming and our winter waterbirds will be departing soon trading places with our summer nesters. Happy Birding!

Dan
dano135 at hotmail.com
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