Tweets - it was a quiet overcast day with bad light and little energy. TWELVE
of us made the rounds, and found a few interesting things. But the day was
rather blah most of the time.

Highlights:

Green Heron 1 at lake, 1 near RC dock
Wood Duck F w/4 'lings at weir, F w/6 'lings at upper slough
VIRGINIA RAIL 1 seen on far side of weir
Warbling Vireo 1 or 2 heard at the southeast corner of the trail
Steller's Jay Several eating Hazelnuts
Yellow Warbler Two across from Rowing Club dock
Bullock's Oriole Female near parking lot

It was a good day for mammal sightings, with Eastern Gray Squirrel, Muskrat,
Cottontail Rabbit, Racoon, Long-tailed Weasel, plus some small furry thing
(shrew, vole, or shrew-mole [it disappeared very fast, dark brown, 5-6" long,
cylindrical-looking body]) at the Rowing Club. The RACOON appeared interested
in one of the clutches of WOOD DUCK ducklings, but they managed to gather
together in deeper water, and the racoon went back to looking for crawfish and
such.

Everyone bagged out early; only Ollie and I went over to the Rowing Club, and
even then we were done before 10:00. I went back alone, and found a few more
things: Bushtits west of the velodrome parking lot, and Chestnut-backed
Chickadee, Red-brested Nuthatch, and a PACIFIC-SLOPE FLYCATCHER near Clise
Mansion.

I also walked alongside the new "mitigation" ponds between the soccer fields.
In the second pond, I found 2 adult and 2 immatures (black fluffy ball stage)
VIRGINIA RAIL, which were all calling to each other and were very visible at
close range. I was able to watch them for at least 10 minutes.

BTW, last week's REDHEAD was just the 4th Marymoor sighting in my database. It
is curious, because there is absolutely no pattern to the occurances: a single
male on 01-Feb-96, a pair on 23-May-95, and single males on 18-Jul-02 and
27-Nov-97.

The Redhead and Pacific-slope bring the year total to 122 species, with 46
species today (counting those seen only by me afterwards).

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