A Greater White-fronted Goose was walking around our back yard this morning
around 9:00. We live in upland Medina, about a third of a mile from Medina
Park--a big, grassy place with a couple of ponds. This immature bird has
been hanging out with the ducks down there for the last two or three weeks.
It is small and unusually pale. Some of the resident park mallards have
got into the habit of flying up here during the day to scrounge for spilled
seed around our feeders. It looks like the white-front decided to tag
along. I expect we'll be seeing more of it.

Despite being overrun by dogs, and children throwing things, Medina Park
has been a good spot to find water birds over the years. The large
wintering wigeon flock that divides its time between the park and Overlake
golf course across the street can be counted on the have one or two
Eurasians in it every year, and often a hybrid drake. One winter there was
a bonded pair of Eurasian Wigeons there. I've counted over 20 species of
waterfowl at the ponds, plus Sora, Green Heron, and American Bittern. Not
bad, considering the total habitat is two small willows and about fifteen
cattails. A patch of woods, sometimes flooded, also can have interesting
birds, especially in migration. A pair of Bullock's Orioles has nested in
the park for the last several years. And an Osprey shows up annually in
the last week of July. It stays for about a week, which I suspect is all
the time it takes to clean the keepers out of the ponds. If you come this
way from time to time, Medina Park is worth checking out; you can cover
the whole thing in 15 minutes, unless you find something good and have to
stop and write it up. Location is the corner of 84th Avenue NE and NE 12th
Street, about a mile west of Bellevue Square.

Our Medina list has grown to well over 120 species, and that's without
pushing. No hoopoes (but there was a budgie once), no Smews (yet), but
hey, it's the neighborhood....

Hal Opperman
Medina, WA