I spent about 15 minutes at Herring's House Park on the Duwamish tonite
before it got too dark to see and too scary to be there alone. Alas, no
Purple Martins, but had 2 OSPREY, one perched on the nest and the other
high on a deciduous tree about midway between the park's parking lot and
Kellog Island. It made a couple of passes over the water while I was
there, but no grabs at fish. A WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW was foraging in
the grass near some shrubs for a bit, then flew into an evergreen tree
and belted out its distinctive song a couple of times. Speaking of
belting, a male BELTED KINGFISHER was perched atop one of the "dead
beaver tree"-equivalent snags, then flew over to a stump along the shore
and back to the snag again, rattling and clacking all the while. (They
are such funky-looking birds, with those long bills and squat bodies!)
The pilings in mid-river hosted many Gulls, and not just our Glaucous
Wing-Western hybrids. Alas, my bins didn't show enough detail for me to
tell what all was out there gull-wise (I suspect at least one MEW).
About six MERGANSERs were on the raft thing in mid-river, one for sure
was a male RED-BREASTED but again, getting dark, couldn't see enough to
tell if the rest were all female, juveniles, or what. Had a couple of
shorebirds fly by too but alas, my shorebird identification skills are
pretty rudimentary. They flew up from the rocks along the shore, were
Very small, light below, darker on top, no distinguishing markings on
the wings that I could see as they flew, but again, the light was
getting pretty low... Checking their sound against the Cornell software
made me think Sanderling, but is that possible here?

Next time I'll take my "A" bins and scope and visit HHP as a
destination, rather than as a sudden inspiration after another activity.
But, all in all it was 15 minutes well spent. The park is beautiful,
and evening is my favorite time to be there. A couple of enormous
salmon leaped and twisted out of the water, to return w/a loud splash!,
the bird presence and activity made it worthwhile (oh yeah, had some
SWALLOWS, too, NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED, I believe), and the drive home by
way of the viaduct, with the purple mountains' majesty etched against
the sky, ferries chugging over to Bainbridge, and sailboats heading into
port, was perfect!

Good birding,

Mary E. Klein
Seattle WA
bassclef at seanet.com