Tweets - I live on Rose Hill, the ridge that separates downtown Redmond from
downtown Kirkland. It was painful this morning to drop down from clear Rose
Hill into the foggy Sammamish valley before seeing what was going to be a
beautiful sunrise. Marymoor was covered with at least 150 feet of fog when I
arrived. Although we had some clearing right at sunrise and it looked like it
would be a gorgeous morning, by about 8:30, we were socked in fully once more,
and it remained foggy until about 10:30.

When the sun was shining, the birding was great. We missed a lot during the
fog, though. There five of us were treated to some great looks, some great
surprises, and some astounding misses:

Hits:
Ring-necked Duck At least a dozen
Virginia Rail Heard at least 2 at the crook in the boardwalk
Common Snipe Had a fabulous long look at one right at the weir
SAVANNAH SPARROW At least 4 at the north end of the East Meadow
Western Meadowlark 2, East Meadow, not seen previous 3 weeks
Purple Finch 4-6, including 1 male

Misses (all have been seen at least 5 of the 7 Wednesdays of 2002, but not
today):
Gadwall
Hooded Merganser
Cooper's Hawk
Downy Woodpecker
Bushtit
Brown Creeper

The SAVANNAH SPARROW were a real surprise. My records show an unbroken string
of sightings running from March 20 through December 4. The only sightings
outside this date range are 1 on December 24, 1997, and 3 on January 2, 2002.
I decided both of those were "late" sightings. Today's 4 (or more) birds lie
halfway between the latest "late" and the earliest "early" sighting, fully FIVE
WEEKS EARLY. It's that, or call them 11 weeks late. [I have made 67 trips
between the 2nd and 11th week of the year inclusive without seeing SAVS, prior
to today]

We had 8 sparrow species today, with notably high numbers of DARK-EYED JUNCO,
WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW, and SONG SPARROW. We also had a particularly
cooperative LINCOLN'S SPARROW that provided many long looks. Tremendous
numbers of RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET and quite a few GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET were
seen as well.

All 12 of the RING-NECKED DUCK were alt. plumaged males, except 1 bird which
was female or (more probably?) an immature male. Does anyone know when RNDU
moult into 1st Alternate plumage?

After the Rowing Club, Brian and I stopped at the apartments with the cabana at
the head of the lake. When we had been at the lake platform, we could not see
any of the lake itself because of fog. We picked up GREATER SCAUP and BALD
EAGLE, to make 43 species for the day. The PURPLE FINCH were new for 2002,
making 66 species on the year list.

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