Swallow nursery....

Such a beautiful day we had to throw the canoe in the water and head out for a look....

normally water would be a lot higher this time of the year....I guess the good news is that there should be lots of 'shore' for shorebirds to stop at when they migrate through in another month or six weeks.

In all we saw or heard a total of 31 species but weren't able to get photos of many....here, if you look closely are Canada Geese.  Have to be a hundred or so in the area right now but they are molting so keeping a low profile.

headed over to the log jam at the edge of the Harrison River...not much activity there that we could see, mind you water levels were still high enough for there to be no place to land...

heading back down this arm of the Harrison to get over to the Chehalis

where we spotted this female Common Merganser with 2 larger young....

but the most surprising thing was this 'swallow nursery' area.  There were young swallows everywhere! and of 4 different species.  Most were Tree Swallows, but there were also Violet Green Swallows, Northern Rough Wing Swallows and even Cliff Swallows.  Didn't see any Barn Swallows but they nest later than the others...

all the trees on the other side of the river were full of baby swallows...

here are some more....think that first little guy is a baby Cliff Swallow, the next being a baby Violet Green and the rest Tree (I think)

and here is a circle of baby swallows....

further up the river another Common Merganser family - those little guys can move!

heading home but with a sad note....there appeared to be no activity at all around the Purple Martin boxes on the middle piling.  Sadly that little colony that seemed to have established itself the past few years doesn't seem to have returned....too much human pressure maybe?