Hi Tweets

I was joined by 6 others for a very nice morning's birding yesterday. It was
somewhat hazy and glary, but the birding was quite good. Highlights:

Warbling Vireo ~20 mostly in 2 groups
Western Wood-pewee 1 seen, 1 heard (same bird?)
Pacific-slope Flycatcher 1
Orange-crowned Warbler 2
Yellow Warbler Perhaps 3 males
Wilson's Warbler Abundant. 30? More?
Western Tanager MF, perhaps 20!
Bullock's Oriole Heard one
Black-headed Grosbeak About 10 males

It was a pretty good day for raptors, with nesting RED-TAILED HAWK, adult and
subadult BALD EAGLE, and one each - OSPREY and COOPER'S HAWK.

Good day for woodpeckers as well, with DOWNY, female HAIRY, nesting NORTHERN
FLICKER, and a RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER.

And a good day for somewhat easy-to-miss-but-not-unexpected species - GREEN
HERON, CALIFORNIA QUAIL (heard only - h), CEDAR WAXWING, BELTED KINGFISHER (h),
a nice drake WOOD DUCK, VIRGINIA RAIL (h), BROWN CREEPER, and CHESTNUT-BACKED
CHICKADEE (notable because it was in cottonwoods far from any conifers).

We had only 1 or 2 YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER - they appear to have mostly moved on.

I had put up a nest box across from the Rowing Club early this spring, but the
hole was too small for Tree Swallows (we observed them checking it out over the
last several weeks, but it went unused), so last Thursday I enlarged the hole
to 1.5". Yesterday, it was clear that a Tree Swallow pair have already moved
in.

We dipped on Gadwall, Vaux's Swift, Cliff Swallow, White-crowned Sparrow, Pine
Siskin and House Sparrow, and had neither Hermit nor Swainson's Thrush, but we
still ended up with 57 species.

And a final note, last night after the opera, my wife and I checked out the
BARN OWLS and we were able to see one young one at the base of the nest tree.
It sounded like there was another baby near the top, and and adult two trees
over. Jim McCoy had reported two downy young there on Sunday; the young one we
saw last night seemed to be mostly feathered.

OH - And at Kelsey Creek Park in Bellevue yesterday afternoon I found a barely
fledged SONG SPARROW - my first juvenile passerine of the year. Boy was that
one klutzy tail-less youngster.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland WA
== Hummer at isomedia.com
== http://www.scn.org/fomp/birding.htm