Fellow tweetsers,

Counted birds around Green Lake (Seattle) between 6:30 & 8:00 AM this
morning, Wednesday the 25th of August.
Started under low clouds being swept north by strong winds, ended under
mostly clear skies. Temperature 65F.

Because of the wind I'm sure I missed a fair number of smaller songbirds I
could hear on other recent mornings (while running around the lake).

Legend:
First number males, second female unless otherwise indicated. Asterisk
indicates note at end.


Pied-billed Grebe 14 ad, 7 juv*
Great Blue Heron 1
Canada Goose 233
Domesticated Goose 6
Mallard 51,35*
Gadwall 92,58
Domesticated Duck 8
Bald Eagle*
American Coot 10
Ring-billed Gull 6
California Gull 1
Glaucous-winged hybrid gulls 3
Glaucous-winged Gull 15
Caspian Tern 2 ad, 2 juv*
Rock Dove 14
Downy Woodpecker 2
Barn Swallow approx. 300*
American/Northwestern Crow 82
Black-capped Chickadee 26
Bushtit 40
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
European Starling 175
Red-winged Blackbird 11
Brewer's Blackbird 4*
House Sparrow 44

Pied-billed Grebe: adults have started moving around in the area. Last week
there were 11 adults and 17 young (in 4 broods) on the lake. Several young
have reached flying age (35-37 days) and may have left (rather than died, to
explain the drop in numbers from last week).

Mallard: Last week I counted 90 males & 31 females. We've "lost" 40, or
almost half, the male mallards on the lake since last week. Interesting.
Unusual... Don't ask me why this would happen. Maybe it happens every year
when the birds move through, I just don't catch it in my weekly censes.

Bald Eagle: As expected both the adult pair and youngster left the area
about 2 weeks ago (roughly a month after the youngster fledged).

Caspian Tern: Last month I commented on the lack of adults and their
offspring showing up at the lake. Two weeks ago two adults and two
(food-begging) juvenals showed up and they (or others) were there this
morning. I love watching these guys. The adults fish and the youngsters,
when the adults are successful, often alight on the water, waiting to be
fed. Last year I watched an adult Glaucous-winged Gull take a fish from a
young Caspian Tern. However, the attending adult tern chased the gull from
one end of the lake to the other, repeatedly nipping the gull in the tail.
Eventually the gull dropped the prized fish, the tern retrieved it and fed
it, once again, to its young. This time the youngster managed to consume the
fish. I guess that Glaucous-winged will think twice before
kleptoparasitizing a Caspian Tern again.

Barn Swallow: A single swoop across the lake with the 25 power spotting
scope (counting only birds flying in the swoop-direction) resulted in
approximately 300 birds counted. They were low over the water under
less-than-optimal light conditions and rather active. I may have
mis-identified a small number of birds, resulting in no reported other
species of swallows.

Brewer's Blackbird: Last week I counted 58 Brewer's Blackbirds at the lake.
I guess they're on the move. Or at least away from Green Lake. A similar
pattern as the Red-winged Blackbirds.

Cheers,
Martin Muller, Seattle
MartinMuller at email.msn.com