Cloudy and windy today (though no rain), which made for spotty viewing.
However, we had a good mammal day and several interesting bird sightings.

Species Highlights:

Green Heron 1 flying down the slough
Bald Eagle Distant sightings of 1 or 2 adults
Band-tailed Pigeon Several sightings
Black Swift About 5 over slough and boardwalk
Western Wood-Pewee More than I remember ever before
Bushtit One group of 8-10, more later.
Swainson's Thrush *Saw* several
Bullock's Oriole 1 first spring male

Mammals:

Long-tailed Weasel Near where we saw one two weeks ago
Possum On the path near w. end of boardwalk
Muskrat In slough near Rowing Club

We watched VAUX'S SWIFTS take food and/or water from the surface of the slough
just above the weir. Swallows will hold their wings up in a vee, sometimes
fluttering them a bit. The swifts would just keep flying normally, with their
wingtips splashingly hitting the surface with each wingbeat. After they lifted
off from the surface, the swifts would give their wings a bit of a shake to dry
them.

Adult RED-TAILED HAWKS were hunting very actively, including a lot of hovering.
At one point we watched as a male RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD repeatedly *landed* on
the back of the Red-tail. The blackbird would sit for less than half a second,
probably, before being forced to take wing again by the twitching and
undulations of the hawk's flight.

The pair of AMERICAN KESTRELS was seen again on (and in?) the cottonwood snag
just NE of the pea patch. I didn't see them last week, and I was afraid they
had been driven away by crows. Today, they were not being harassed while we
watched.

An AMERICAN CROW was observed which had greatly extended (maybe as much as 3"
long), very thin, curved and crossed mandibles. There was a big gap between the
mandibles when they were "closed". This made it very hard for the crow to eat.
It had found a chunk of hot-dog roll, and it was trying to soften the roll in a
puddle. It then was able to get bites off the softened bread, but it had a
terrible time swallowing. When we later walked past the puddle, we could see
that it had managed to lose most of the bread. Poor thing.

All told, just over 40 species, but interesting stuff. "Missing" species
included Canada Goose, Gadwall, Downy,

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland WA
== hummer at isomedia.com
== See the Friends of Marymoor Park website with birding information at:
== http://www.scn.org/rec/fomp