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Thursday, June 22, 2023

 

I haven't been birding for a long time, and today wasn't really a birding day, either.  My old friend, Chris, is visiting me this week, and we went for a drive out to the Snoqualmie Valley to look for American Dipper.  It wasn't really a birding day, but we did watch for birds, and our main target was American Dipper.  Mainly we were just out for a nice drive in the country on a beautiful sunny day.

 

We saw some birds and we got a couple of nice sandwiches from the deli in the Carnation Market.  We took the sandwiches to a park in Carnation, and after we ate, we drove up to Tokul Creek to look for American Dipper.  We stopped on the way at the Tolt River bridge, just south of Carnation, but there were no dippers to be seen there.

 

Up at Tokul Creek there was a dipper just downstream of the bridge, and I took pictures.  American Dipper.

 

 

Here's the dipper foraging for food under the water.

 

 

It kept getting closer, and I kept snapping pictures.

 

About that time, it flew under the bridge and disappeared.  I would guess that it has a nest under the bridge.  I went to the upstream side of the bridge and played the song of American Dipper on my phone, and it flew back out into view.  Here is one last shot of our American Dipper, the first one I have seen this year.

 

This was the fourth time I had gone looking for American Dipper this year, and my first successful hunt.

 

I don't know when another report will come out.  I still don't really feel like birding, so I am doing other things.  I may or may not ever get back to hard core birding, like I used to do.