Hi Tweets -

Michael was out of town in Arizona today, so Ollie and Jim and Grace
joined me on our weekly walk. The day dawned clear and cold, about 26 F.
The river is down considerably from last week (5.01 instead of about 6)
so we were able to walk the usual route to the boardwalk. Small bird
activity was slow to start the day with everything frozen up, but we had
a fairly good number of ducks. Both of the ponds at the rowing club area
were frozen. The most interesting birds we saw were a male Sharp-shinned
Hawk being harassed by a crow, without responding (probably because a
large number of other crows were flying into the area). At the end of
the boardwalk, just at the platform we had a Hermit Thrush, extremely
late. While we were standing on the platform a Green Heron flew over our
heads and perched briefly in the willows about twenty feet away. We had
stunning views of a male Hairy Woodpecker along the trail. Near the east
meadow we had two Western Meadowlarks, the first in about a month. By
the end of the morning, we discovered that we had seen 50 species, quite
nice for a cold December morning.

Sharp-shinned Hawk, male near weir
American Wigeon, pair near weir
Hooded Merganser, two pairs, one near rowing club, one on lake
Hairy Woodpecker, male and female along path
Brown Creeper, on tree about 15 feet away
Hermit Thrush, on boardwalk, late individual
Green Heron, flew over platform
Western Meadowlark, near east meadow
7 sparrow species including Junco

Brian H. Bell
Woodinville WA
bellasoc at isomedia.com