Subject: Green Lake count (long)
Date: Feb 24 09:39:48 1999
From: Martin J. Muller - martinmuller at email.msn.com


Greetings tweetsters,

Did my weekly Green Lake (Seattle) count this morning. Wet, wet, wet.
48F/9C.

Legend: when applicable males before comma, female after, asterisk indicates
note at end.

Pied-billed Grebe 3
Horned Grebe 1
Double-crested Cormorant 11
Great Blue Heron 2
Canada Goose 63*
Domesticated Goose 9
Mallard 18,14
Gadwall 31,20
Eurasian Wigeon 2,0
American Wigeon 189,130
Ring-necked Duck 1,1
Greater Scaup 1,0
Lesser Scaup 1,0
Common Goldeneye 1,0
Bufflehead 21,23
Common Merganser 5,3*
Ruddy Duck 46,69
Domesticated Duck 11
Bald Eagle 3*
American Coot 335
Bonaparte's Gull 2
Mew Gull 200
Ring-billed Gull 54
Western Gull 1
Glaucous-winged hybrid gulls 15
Glaucous-winged Gull 66
Rock Dove 24
Downy Woodpecker 4
Northern Flicker 3
American/Northwestern Crow 185
Black-capped Chickadee 11
Bushtit 30
Red-breasted Nuthatch 4
Brown Creeper 2
Winter Wren 2
Golden-crowned Kinglet 30
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2
American Robin 18*
European Starling 60
Yellow-rumped Warbler 3
Song Sparrow 5
Red-winged Blackbird 31
Brewer's Blackbird 9
Pine Siskin 20
American Goldfinch 20
House Sparrow 18

Canada Goose: Three pairs are staking out the island. Between 3 and 4 pairs
usually manage to hatch some eggs there.

Common Merganser: A few mergansers are still hanging out outside the
"Red-winged Blackbird reeds" (west side, south end strip parallel to Aurora
Avenue), joined by Double-crested Cormorants. Cattail stands are too dense
for me to see, but based on their behavior (patrolling just outside the
reeds, birds entering the reeds and coming up with fish) I assume a large
number of fish have been driven into the reeds (by the mergansers).

Bald Eagle: The pair in Lower Woodland Park, the female making a hunt out
over the lake, going after the one American Coot that didn't flee towards
shore with all the others. Watched a similar hunt last Saturday.
Unsuccessful. A first-year bird later flew in to the island. I've seen a
similar-looking bird at the lake a couple of times these past few weeks.
Haven't seen interaction with the pair, yet.

American Robin: In the past ten years I've come to expect very few robins
inside the park, excepty during migration, when flocks of up to 200 robins
would pass through. Usually the robins are across the street in people's
front or back yards. However, these past few weeks I've consistently found
up to two dozen robins on the lawns and among the (native) vegetation
planted around the snag areas at the north end of the lake. Wonder if we're
seeing the first effects of habitat enhancement or something else. Robins
may not be all that exciting, but it's a start...

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