Towheeblog

I birded in the rain at Nisqually NWR this morning. There was only one other visible, bipedal mammal present. A young woman birder–carefully waterproofed from head to toe and even carrying a rain cover over her fine-looking camera. The ducks, swallows, robins and woodpeckers paid no attention to the precip. Food was the order of the morning.

These two does stared at me with mild interest. “I thought those critters were afraid to get wet,” one may have mumbled.

With its long boardwalk, mudflats and riparian rain forest, Nisqually offers some of the best, most accessible birding along the I-5 corridor. The edge of the refuge shoulders up to the shoulder of I-5…at a convenient exit! (WA Exit 114).
The boardwalk is over four miles round trip…going from riparian forest, across tidal flats to the southern shore of one finger of Puget Sound.

Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually NWR, Thurston, Washington, US
Apr 10, 2023
22 species

Canada Goose  6
Northern Shoveler  X
Gadwall  X
American Wigeon  X
Mallard  X
Northern Pintail  X
Green-winged Teal  X
Ring-necked Duck  3
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)  X
American Coot  X
Downy Woodpecker  1
Northern Flicker  1
American Crow  X
Tree Swallow  X
Violet-green Swallow  X
Barn Swallow  X     my first sighting this year
European Starling  X
American Robin  X
House Finch  X
Dark-eyed Junco  X
Spotted Towhee  X
Red-winged Blackbird  X