18 September

 eBird data: https://ebird.org/checklist/S94834625

Weather:  8 am 12 C, wind SSE 2, 12:30 m, 16C, wind NNW 10  Cloudy

Tide:  10 am 1m, turning

Morning after the first real storm of the season.  Yesterday was a day of 80 km per hour wind gusts and heavy rain.  Today looked threatening, but the morning stayed dry.  There were trees down, and branches and leaves scattered.

The morning light looked like storm light.


I'd expected to see more birds, but most of what appeared were big flocks of purple finches.


This is just a small sample.  There are also starting to be smallish groups of siskins, but so far not in the numbers of last season.

There was a splendid peregrine falcon, chowing down on what looked to have been a yellowlegs.  From the remains, it would have been hard to know whether it had been greater or lesser. 



Peregrines are impressive looking birds and great flyers, but they always strike me as somewhat scary.  Most of their victims are birds and small mammals, but they do look somehow lethal.

The tide was very low.



Despite the low tide, the river was higher than I've seen it in months, and muddy.


We've all been hoping for good rain to bring up the river and encourage the salmon migration.  Now I guess we need to hope that the turbidity clears, to enable successful spawning.

It looks as though we're facing a wet start to the week.



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