Hi Tweets

We had a lovely day today - warm, overcast but clearing, little wind. The
birds were fairly active and plentiful. Our pace was leisurely - we didn't
leave until nearly 1:00. It was so warm that we had a sunning Painted Turtle
at the Rowing Club ponds. In early January!

Highlights:

Horned Grebe 1 well out on lake late
Green Heron MaryFrances saw one near Dog Central
Dunlin Flock of 25-30 swirling around NE shore of
lake
Barn Owl Brian Bell had one around 7:15 over access road
Brown Creeper 1 near first footbridge among kinglets
Orange-crowned Warbler One near east end of boardwalk
Western Meadowlark 1 in East Meadow

The RED-TAILED HAWKS gave us quite a show. All told, I believe we had 7
individuals; we had 5 at one time.

We saw 2 interesting sets of behavior among Red-tails. I will give my
interpretations of them:

First, a bit south of the windmill we saw a juvenile RTHA being harassed by two
adults. The juvie was sitting on one of the birdhouse posts. I believe the
two adults were from the southern nest (just west of West Lake Sammamish
Parkway near the Rowing Club). Almost as soon as the adults had swiped at the
juvenile, they in turn were harassed by two adults, possibly the birds from the
northern nest atop the odd snag just west of the main park entrance. I think
we were witnessing territorial disputes at the border of the two ranges. The
second pair of adults did not seem to mind the juvenile's presence - possibly
one of their young? The southern pair returned to the south.

Later, we saw the southern pair near the boathouse at the Rowing Club. The
were circling close together, calling, and one had a rodent in its talons.
After about a minute, that bird ("he?") flew west and landed on the nest. He
appeared to start eating. After another minute, "she" flew to the nest,
amicably displacing the first, and she took over eating the kill. It appeared
to be pair/nest reinforcement behavior. ("See - I'm a good provider and I know
where to bring food"). I now have no doubt that they will attempt nesting at
the same nest site as last year.

We also had a large flock of siskin-like finches land in the tall cottonwoods
just north of the west end of the boardwalk. The flew away before we could get
close enough to ID them. They seemed very noisy, and sounded a bit wrong for
siskin. Redpoll is a tantalizing possibility...

We ended up with 53 species.