Post by b1schmor on Apr 15, 2007 11:48:17 GMT -8
Hello birders,
a few weeks ago a Tweeter's member (This is the Washington birding email group) put out an invitation to come view Mountain Quail that show up to her yard during April and May. Hundreds of birders from across North America have seen their life Mountain Quail in this yard as these birds are extremely hard to find. Well, on Friday Carolynn and I decided to take her up on her invitation and drive down to Belfair. We arrived at the house, on Saturday, at about 6:45 am. Already there, was a birder from Finland and one from Olympia, Washington. We waited for another birder, from Washington D.C., but he did not arrive for another 45 minutes. At 7 am the owner put out feed and within 3 minutes , both a beautiful male and female Mountain Quail showed up to feed. They gave us great views for about 10 minutes, until a flock of about 40 Band-tailed Pigeons landed and scared the birds away. If anybody is interested in going to see the quail, let me know and I will give you the owner's email address.
Fortunately for us, Belfair is on the west side of the Hood Canal, so we weren't far from Point-No-Point, where an Arctic Loon has been seen for the last week. We reached Hansville in about an hour and a number of birders had their scopes trained on the Arctic Loon. We watched the bird for about 20 minutes and then were off to our next stop, the Tulip Festival in La Conner. If you have never seen the Tulip fields just west of Mount Vernon, they are just beautiful. If you do go , I recommend you go on a week day, as the crowds were huge.
Anyway, a nice weekend of birding and flowers,
Brent Schmor
Abbotsford
a few weeks ago a Tweeter's member (This is the Washington birding email group) put out an invitation to come view Mountain Quail that show up to her yard during April and May. Hundreds of birders from across North America have seen their life Mountain Quail in this yard as these birds are extremely hard to find. Well, on Friday Carolynn and I decided to take her up on her invitation and drive down to Belfair. We arrived at the house, on Saturday, at about 6:45 am. Already there, was a birder from Finland and one from Olympia, Washington. We waited for another birder, from Washington D.C., but he did not arrive for another 45 minutes. At 7 am the owner put out feed and within 3 minutes , both a beautiful male and female Mountain Quail showed up to feed. They gave us great views for about 10 minutes, until a flock of about 40 Band-tailed Pigeons landed and scared the birds away. If anybody is interested in going to see the quail, let me know and I will give you the owner's email address.
Fortunately for us, Belfair is on the west side of the Hood Canal, so we weren't far from Point-No-Point, where an Arctic Loon has been seen for the last week. We reached Hansville in about an hour and a number of birders had their scopes trained on the Arctic Loon. We watched the bird for about 20 minutes and then were off to our next stop, the Tulip Festival in La Conner. If you have never seen the Tulip fields just west of Mount Vernon, they are just beautiful. If you do go , I recommend you go on a week day, as the crowds were huge.
Anyway, a nice weekend of birding and flowers,
Brent Schmor
Abbotsford