Subject: Marymoor Park Report (Redmond, King Co., WA) 12/5/2002
Date: Dec 5 17:48:20 2002
From: Michael Hobbs - hummer at isomedia.com


Tweets - Eight of us set out this morning on one of those high-overcast days
with NO wind and basically no fog. It was pretty cold. Birding was rather
hot-and-cold, with patches of activity and long stretches of silence. The
best highlights came from the Rowing Club, though only 3 of us were still
around for that post-noon extension of the day.

Highlights:

American Wigeon Single drake at Rowing Club ponds
Northern Pintail 4 or 5 flew downslough early on
Gr.-winged Teal Single female at RC south pond
Sharp-shinned Hawk Great view near compost piles, imm.
Killdeer 1 - rather uncommon this time of year
Wilson's Snipe 1-2 below weir, 1 in East Meadow
R.-breasted Sapsucker Beauty at Rowing Club
Hairy Woodpecker Male at Rowing Club
Downy Woodpecker Only 1, female at Rowing Club
Brown Creeper Great looks at 2 at Rowing Club
Winter Wren Two south of East Meadow
Yellow-rumped Warbler 1-3 near Winter Wrens
Savannah Sparrow 1-2 in East Meadow & compost piles
Purple Finch Saw a half dozen in a couple of places

Mammal highlight - a Long-Tailed Weasel just south of Dog Central.

On the grass fields just north of the Interpretive Lot were 200-300 CANADA
GOOSE. We could see a few CACKLERS in with them, but before we could check
them out, two separate parties let their dogs loose to chase the geese.
These fields are NOT part of the dog area, and the dogs were apparently
encouraged to chase the geese. I'm afraid our tempers got out of hand
(something we will try to restrain in the future). One of the dogs spent
about 5 minutes chasing every goose off the 15 acres of grass where they
were resting and feeding, while the owner ineffectively whistled for it.
The dog only returned when there were no geese to chase. While they were
flying out, we did see dozens of Cacklers. Ten minutes later, many of the
geese had resettled near the east baseball fields. Sometime after that, a
flock of 40 CACKLERS joined them, so at least the birds weren't chased out
of the park. Several of them were notably orange on their cheeks and/or
their undertails. Unclear if this might be staining, or whether the
feathers were colored.

FOX SPARROWS were still present, but numbers were down from previous weeks.
We did have 2 LINCOLN'S SPARROWS at the compost piles, and about 3 more near
the windmill. Twice, we witnessed SPOTTED TOWHEES doing their towhee dance
*inside* old robin's nests.

Amazingly, we still haven't had Common Goldeneye this winter, though I did
see several about 6 miles north of Marymoor on the slough two Sundays ago.
Common Merganser are also scarce.

For the day, 54 species. Still at 134 for the year.

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