We’re off our normal pace on outings, but here’s a few shots

03 Feb We’re off our normal pace on outings, but here’s a few shots

Posted From Seattle Feb 3 2026

We spent a long day in the cold out at the Piano Ranch in the Snoqualmie Valley looking for a Palm Warbler that we never found. Another Birder found it 20 minutes after we left, but it led to a magical side trip up past Sykes Lake to end the day.

Not a minute out of the Piano Ranch we found this American Kestrel. This is not a rare Bird in rural Western Washington (THANKFULLY) but it’s a Bird that is close to my heart for many reasons. We moved into a new very old house in 1962 and the former owners had left a taxidermied pair of Kestrels. I felt bad for them, they had been shot after all, but I spent hours admiring that mantlepiece and the taxidermy artist had done an amazing job. Later they disappeared from Southeast Pennsylvania before my eyes.

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Up past Sykes Lake we found our first-ever King County Rough-legged Hawk. I couldn’t get a good picture but this shot was plenty good to satisfy the E-bird cops

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Looking out the other car window was the Snoqualmie River where 18 Common Mergansers were working back and forth against the current fishing. This Bird got up and immediately won the best-dressed award for the day.

Then he posed for a nice side-view.

We had a good day on Jan 25 up in the Skagit and Samish Flats. Here is a Short-eared Owl that landed close to the car. In my flusteration I missed getting the entire Bird in the shot.

This is a Raptor-heavy blog. Don’t like to do that but Raptors do lend themselves at times to shots. This is a Red-shouldered Hawk in Kent from Jan 29. This Bird is moving North ever-so-slowly but it is getting slightly easier to find than it used to be in the 70s as it expands its territory north from California and Oregon.

This photo is a first for us–a decent shot of a Swamp Sparrow in Washington state. But this shot, if I don’t say so myself, is even better than decent. This Bird was at Crescent Lake WMU near Monroe. Another Birder told us: “Stand on the footbridge and look west.” That strategy worked within 10 minutes.

Now here’s a shot we didn’t get: A very large heavily-muscled Tom Bobcat loped across the road/trail in Juanita. Our brains were losing charge and it took us a while to realize it wasn’t a Dog. I console myself that it was such a low-light situation and a quick-crossing-anything usually doesn’t make a great shot but I still wish I had something to put up here, I’ve only seen them on the East side of the state and in New Mexico in spite of a lot of day trips in W WA.