Greetings fellow tweetsters,

After much absence this summer, I've returned and resumed my weekly bird
counts at Green Lake, Seattle.
This morning, August 27, under overcast skies and almost no wind, the
temperature was 60F/12C.
I walked around the lake between 7 and 8:30 AM
The lake is filled with Eurasian Milfoil, in those places where it is not
harvested by the Parks Department's mechanical harvester, the plants form
dense under water forests reaching to within a few inches of the surface. Lots
of food for gadwalls and coots, although the latter have not returned to the
lake in appreciable numbers yet. There are two immature coots on the lake, but
I haven't seen any nests on the lake this year (puzzling). I believe these
older young were raised elsewhere and flew to the lake.
Pied-billed grebes are very productive this year (again). Curently there are
six active nests. 14 young from previous nests surviving to the striped-neck
(independent) stage, 13 young following their parents around the lake (not
independent yet, still occasionally using the nest), 7 young hatched this past
week (most activity confined to the nest and immediate surroundings) and
another 12 eggs are being incubated and should hatch within the next ten days.

A few years ago I watched one pair produce a second clutch of eggs while the
young from the first brood were only two weeks old. Due to travel/absence my
data were rather incomplete. This year, however, I got some great data on
brood overlap, with three pairs initiating production of second clutches of
eggs while young from the first brood were still in the nest (two weeks after
hatching). I witnessed three-week-old young apparently deliberately turning
eggs! In two broods the first-brood young became independent (due in part to
increased aggression by especially the adult male) at the time of hatching of
the second brood. In one nest (just south of the crosswalk on Aurora Avenue),
as of this morning, two young of the first brood (about six weeks old now) are
still being fed, while three young of the second brood (less than a week old)
are also being fed.
These birds keep amazing me.
Anyway, here are the results of this morning's count:

Pied-billed grebe 25 adult, 34 young, 12 eggs
Horned grebe 1
Great blue heron 1
Canada goose 168
domesticated duck 17
Mallard 124
Northern shoveler 4
Gadwall 145 adult, 3 young (1brood)
American wigeon 1
domesticated duck 1
Cooper's hawk 1 (large immature; female?)
American coot 22
Killdeer 1
Ring-billed gull 29
California gull 5
Glaucous-winged gull 22
Caspian tern 7 adult, 3 fledglings
Rock dove 16
Downy woodpecker 1
Northern flicker 2
Barn swallow 200
American crow 12
Black-capped chickadee 18
Bushtit 35
Red-breasted nuthatch 1
Cedar waxwing 6
European starling 120
Yellow-rumped warbler 8
Song sparrow 2
Red-winged blackbird 62
Brewer's blackbird 10
House finch 8
House sparrow 110

It's good to be back. Happy birding!
Martin Muller, Seattle, Washington
martinmuller at msn.com