I visited Discovery Park today After an accidental detour through a wedding, and almost walking off the washed-out cliff, I was lucky enough to find myself engulfed in warbler song. The list for this spot:
2 Warbling Vireos
2 Black-throated Gray Warblers
1 Townsends Warbler
1 Orange-crowned Warbler
1 Pacific-slope Flycatcher
1 Brown Creeper
Black-capped Chickadees
Chestnut-backed Chickadees
many, many Common Bushtits

Other highlights:
an Osprey, fishing off the south beach
a Bald Eagle did a fly-over
a Peregrine Falcon circled briefly, and took a dive behind a hill.

The other highlight of the day was from my yard this morning. As I sat waiting for the usual half-ton of cedar waxwings to invade my berry-bearing trees (which they haven't yet - three flew overhead without stopping), I started hearing several different calls from the bushes. One was a Bewick's Wren, scratching around in the dead tree where flickers had nested earlier this year. Another was a towhee - a juvenile popped out of a bush, examined the feeder, thought better of it, and flew off. The last sounds belonged to two birds that kept in the shady bushes in back. I did notice that one was bigger and darker than the other. The smaller one was following the other around, doing exactly what he did, as though he were copying his big brother. When they came out into the open, it turned out that the larger bird was a Fox Sparrow, and the smaller, a juvenile male House Sparrow, just starting to get russet on the crown. He may be a non-native parasite (ahem), but I still thought that was adorable...

Regards,
Christine Vadai
christinevadai at sprynet.com
Mill Creek, WA