September Pierce County Big Day

A female red-shafted race of Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus seen today at Swan Creek County Park.

I'll make this post brief as Steemit is having all sorts of difficulty since an update. Bruce Labar and I did a Pierce County Big Day (light!) today. We met at 5 AM and headed out to find a nemesis bird for both of us in 2018, Great Horned Owl. First we tried at Chambers Creek Trail with no luck, then headed to Fort Steilacoom Park where after a bit of looking and playing of GHOW recorded hooting we got a pair to respond near the corner of the pond. We also got looks as they flew up onto the hillside.

Juvenile Ruff Philomachus pugnax that remained today at the "Gog"

The other cool sightings there were a flock of about 130 Cackling Geese flying and calling overhead, and a single male Wood Duck on the pond. It was the only duck we saw in the lifting fog among the Canada Geese.
Stops at Sunnyside Beach (Red-necked Grebe, Common Loon, Surf Scoter, Horned Grebe), Chamber’s Creek (American Wigeon), Chamber’s Bay Beach Access (Rhinoceros Auklet, Red-necked Phalarope, and American Goldfinch), Titlow Park (Mew and California Gulls, Pelagic and Double-crested Cormorants, Western Grebe), and Point Defiance (3 Parasitic Jaegers, Bonaparte’s Gull, Bald Eagle, white-caps and wind) brought us back to the Tacoma Tide Flats.
Here we made stops at Middle Waterway (not much), the 11th Street Bridge (no Slaty-backed Gull and tide not really optimally low), and once again the Gog-li-hi-ti Mitigated Marsh where the very obliging Ruff remained for a fourth straight day.

We then headed for the new park in Fife called Brookville Gardens Community Park where shorebirds have been seen recently in the small shallow pond there. Today nothing, but a cool new place to know about. A sweep through the Puyallup Valley at the Freeman Road Mitigation (a single Pectoral Sandpiper flew just as we got brief looks, about 40 American Pipits, and a calling Common Yellowthroat which was our only warbler of the day), Levee Pond (Green Heron, Pied-billed Grebe, Hooded Merganser, and California Scrub Jay), and 56th Street Ponds (surprising late Long-billed Dowitchers, the expected Gadwall, Ruddy Duck and American Coot, and again awe and sadness at the large housing development going in right beside the ponds) led us to our last stop of the day at upper Swan Creek County Park. There we added just a few passerines, including Fox Sparrow, Chestnut-sided Chickadee, Brown Creeper and Common Raven.
We decided to wrap up early, about 3:15 PM, hence saying we had a big-day light.

Today a total of 71 species on a sunny, warm and overall glorious day.

Good birding. Steem on!