My wife and I are expecting our first child, who was due Jan 10th. My wife started experiencing frequent but mild contractions at the end of last week, and we thought this is finally it! Alas, by Saturday contractions were still happening but had no signs of going anywhere. So what do you do when you want to get things going? We grabbed our binoculars and headed for the arboretum.

Well, four hours and eight miles later it looked like our plan wasn't working - but we saw 34 species and had a great afternoon.

Saturday, January 15th, 1:00pm to 5:00pm
Montlake Cut, Marsh and Foster Islands, and portions of Washington Arboretum
Birds seen:

Pied-billed Grebe
Horned Grebe
Double-crested Cormorants
Great Blue Heron
Canada Goose
Green Winged Teal
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Ring-necked Duck
Greater Scaup
Lesser Scaup
Common Goldeneye 1 juvenile male and 1 adult female at Foster Island
Bufflehead
Merganser sp (probably Hooded, but too far away to swear by)
American Coot
Mew Gull
Ringed-billed Gull
Glaucous Wing Gull (and hybrids of)
Belted Kingfisher
Downy Woodpecker
Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
Bushtits
Brown Creeper
Bewick's Wren
Golden Crowned Kinglet
Ruby Crowned Kinglet (female)
American Robin
European Starling
Dark-eyed Junco
Red-Winged Blackbird
House Sparrow


John Chapman
Seattle, WA
Ragweed at igc.org