Subject: Saturday birds by Gene Hunn
Date: Dec 2 16:08:19 2000
From: Eugene Hunn - enhunn at Home.com


Hi tweets,

I had a bit of luck today: a first winter plumaged LITTLE GULL at the Everett Sewage Ponds at 1 PM, Saturday, Dec. 2. The bird was standing with about 100 Bonapartes and 100 Mews on the concrete baffle near the center pump at the south end of the main pond, visible clearly from the road. After five minutes, however, it took off and disappeared to the east of Spencer Island and was not there about a hour later. It was noticeably smaller than the Bonapartes with a shorter, slighter bill (black), very delicate dusky-flesh feet, and seemed to stand shorter. It was white below, with a neat circular black spot on the ear and a squarish gray cap that extended from above the middle of the eye to the nape. Standing the bold black carpal bar (greater wing coverts) and black folded primaries (white on inner webs only) was striking in contrast to the pale gray mantle. In flight I could see a broad black tip to the tail and white underwing. When it took flight it called. Sounded rather like the Bonapartes but more scratchy (?). Of several dozen Little Gulls I've seen in Washington, this is the first I've seen in this plumage and the first time I've heard on call.

The RED-SHOULDERED HAWK is still at Spencer Island but seems rather more secretive now. It flew in calling from the west side of the dike trail to its usual grove but immediately lost itself in the interior. This was about 2 PM today.

I've been checking the waterfowl action on the north end of Lake Washington in Kenmore and Lake Forest Park of late. There's 2000 to 3000 water birds here regularly, 95% of which are coots. The regular species include:

Pied-billed Grebe 5
Horned Grebe 10
Western Grebe 30
Double-crested Cormorant 25
Great Blue Heron 1
Canada Goose 30
Mallard 10
Gadwall 40
Northern Shoveler 2
American Wigeon 100
Lesser Scaup 100
Greater Scaup 10
Ring-necked Duck 20
Canvasback 10
Bufflehead 30
Hooded Merganser 10
Common Merganser 2
Ruddy Duck 3
American Coot 2000+
Killdeer 5
Mew Gull 100
Ring-billed Gull 10
Glaucous-winged Gull 25

Gene Hunn