Tweets - seven of us visited Foggymoor Park this morning. I think one or
two others got lost in the fog on the way. At its worst, the fog was not
quite as bad as last week, but it lasted longer, and it wasn't a nice sunny
day until noon. After the main loop, Brian Bell and I went over the the
Rowing Club, then headed back and went around the main loop one more time.

Highlights:

Green Heron One in upper slough on 2nd tour
American Wigeon Male, still mostly in eclipse, in slough
Ring-necked Duck Lone female in slough
Cooper's Hawk Prob. same juvenile as last week
NORTHERN SHRIKE Adult in birch in East Meadow
Y.-rumped Warbler ~12. Most Myrtle's but a couple Audubon's
Townsend's Warbler 1 in Mansion area. VERY active.
Western Meadowlark 3 in dog area adjacent to East Meadow
Purple Finch 20-25 in the Ash trees NE of last dog swim area

Juanita Bay park is full of ducks, but they've been thin around Marymoor so
far this fall. We did almost OK with the species count today, with Gadwall,
Am. Wigeon, Mallard, Green-winged Teal (reported by Jim & Nancy Roberts on
their way out), Ring-necked Duck, Bufflehead, and Hooded Merganser. But
there were probably less than 50 ducks total all day.

Sparrows were also fairly sparse. There were pretty good (though not high)
numbers of Song, White-crowned, and Golden-crowned Sparrows, and Dark-eyed
Juncos were notably widespread today (though never in numbers). But there
were only a couple of Fox Sparrow, and while Brian and I did manage to
scrounge up one Lincoln's Sparrow on our second pass through the compost
piles, there was not a Savannah to be found anywhere. Towhees, as always,
were scattered everywhere.

Last Friday I had around 100 Cedar Waxwing in a tree at the NE corner of the
Dog Area parking lot. There weren't that many in the tree today, but they
did give us great looks (as the sun finally came out). Some of them were
not quite finished with a tail molt, and the outer tail feathers were about
a half-inch shorter than the inner tail feathers. From the underside, this
gave them a double yellow stripe, with a thin edge of black separating the
bands. With almost an inch of striped yellow on the tail, it gave them an
unusual aspect (quite pretty though).

For those who came out today, but who didn't stick it out, Brian and I added
Western Grebe, Double-crested Cormorant, Green Heron, Ring-necked Duck,
Red-tailed Hawk, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Bushtit, Townsend's Warbler, and
Lincoln's Sparrow.

For the day, counting the Roberts' teal, we had 53 species. The shrike
brings the 2002 total up to 131 species.

For mammals, besides the ubiquitous Eastern Gray Squirrels, Brian and I had
a fabulous look at a White-tailed Deer 3-point buck near the compost piles,
and a Cottontail Rabbit.

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