Martin Muller recently posted his full list for Greenlake. Martin has surveyed
the birds of Greenlake on a regular, year-round basis for several years. He
was an inspiration to me to do similar surveys at Marymoor Park in Redmond,
which I have done weekly since April, 1994.

These parks, located only about 15 miles apart are surrounded by dense human
populations, are at similar elevations, see extremely heavy use by humans, and
have large bodies of water associated with them. Marymoor has considerably
more forest than Greenlake, and is somewhat larger. Greenlake is much closer
to the Sound.

My Marymoor list stands at 145, Martin's Greenlake list has about 160.

I thought it would be interesting for other Tweets to look at the DIFFERENCES
in the birds on the two lists:

37 Species Seen at Greenlake, but not at Marymoor:

Eared Grebe
Pelagic Cormorant
Cattle Egret
Trumpeter Swan
Mute Swan
Brant
American Black Duck
Eurasian Wigeon
Tufted Duck
Surf Scoter
White-winged Scoter
Red-breasted Merganser
Turkey Vulture
Sora
Greater Yellowlegs
Wandering Tattler
Dunlin
Long-billed Dowitcher
Franklin's Gull
Little Gull
Common Black-headed Gull
Heermann's Gull
Herring Gull
Western Gull
Glaucous Gull
Great-horned Owl
Barred Owl
Snowy Owl
Common Nighthawk
Purple Martin*
Black-billed Magpie
Common Raven
American Dipper
Bohemian Waxwing
Hutton's Vireo*
Vesper Sparrow*
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Red Crossbill
Evening Grosbeak

*These birds used to be present at Marymoor in the '70's, according to Gene
Hunn's book.

25 Species Seen at Marymoor, but not at Greenlake:

Ring-necked Pheasant
California Quail
Solitary Sandpiper
Mourning Dove
Long-eared Owl
Black Swift
Pileated Woodpecker
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Willow Flycatcher
Say's Phoebe
Western Kingbird
Northern Shrike
Cassin's Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Mountain Bluebird
Townsend's Solitaire
Swainson's Thrush
Hermit Thrush
Nashville Warbler
MacGillivray's Warbler
Lincoln's Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Black-headed Grosbeak
Lazuli Bunting
Western Meadowlark

The most obvious thing about the two lists is that Greenlake has a very strong
connection to Puget Sound, and the pelagic species commonly found there. At
least 15 species fall into this category. Similarly, the greater extent of
forest accounts for perhaps 10 of the Marymoor species. Marymoor also has
unmowed fields and areas of scrub, accounting for perhaps another 10.
Together, these factors explain well over half of the differences in the
species lists. I leave it to you Tweeters to ponder whether chance and/or
observer effort and skill explain the rest of the species, or whether there are
other factors to be considered here.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland WA
== hummer at isomedia.com