Greetings fellow tweeters,

This morning (Wednesday) in the rain and cold I did my weekly Green Lake
count. It was about 40F/5C. Little SW wind.

Where there are two numbers following the species, the first is male, second
female.

Pied-billed Grebe 14
Double-crested Cormorant 4
Great Blue Heron 1
Greater White-fronted Goose 1
Canada Goose 70
Domesticated Goose 7
Mallard 58,32
Northern Shoveler 1,0
Gadwall 41,31
Eurasian Wigeon 2,0
American Wigeon 186,127
Bufflehead 8,7
Common Merganser 5,9
Ruddy Duck 10,13
Domesticated Duck 6
Bald Eagle 1 ad
American Coot 426
Mew Gull 276
Ring-billed Gull 29
Glaucous-winged hybrid gulls 7
Glaucous-winged Gull 39
Rock Dove 30
Downy Woodpecker 2
Northern Flicker 2
American/Northwestern Crow 49
Black-capped Chickadee 12
Bushtit 26
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 24
American Robin 16
European Starling 40
Yellow-rumped Warbler 2
Song Sparrow 3
Red-winged Blackbird 27
Brewer's Blackbird 9
American Goldfinch 36
House Sparrow 30

Pied-billed Grebes are down from the winter-high. First signs of increased
territorial behavior (two males doing their Circle Display (pivoting in
place, close together, showing their sides to one another) two weeks ago.
Signs of a mild winter.

American Coot numbers are still high, although last week I counted only 258
(half of what was on the lake two weeks ago). Their behavior has changed.
Now they spend a good deal of the day in dense rafts underneath overhanging
branches of trees along shore, sleeping. Are these migrants stopping over?

First Yellow-rumped Warblers (both Audubon race) in several weeks. Didn't
spend a whole lot of time looking for warblers, so I may have missed some
(as I'm sure I do most of the time).

Otherwise pretty much business as usual.

Good birding!

Martin Muller, Seattle
MartinMuller at email.msn.com