Tweets - a Townsend's Solitaire has been flycatching in my front yard on
and off for the last hour or so. Very cool yard bird to pick up!

Also, I checked 32 nest boxes at Marymoor Park in Redmond yesterday, and
had some cool things:

First, in the nest box on the east shore of the slough a bit south of the
Rowing Club dock, there is a WOOD DUCK on a nest in the box. I did not
check, but I presume she is on eggs. She and I were both quite surprised
when I took off the roof to peek in. Not wanting to disturb her, I
quickly closed the lid. (She told me to in emphatic language).

Second, there appeared to be 3 OSPREY in the park, as I saw two actively
building the nest on the cell phone tower near the velodrome, and just a
couple of minutes later, spotted an Osprey with a fish trying to gain
altitude over the East Meadow before heading out to the east.

Third, Osprey were actively fishing over the weir area of the slough all
afternoon. At one point, one came up with a fish. Immediately, an adult
BALD EAGLE gave chase very low over and even among the willows just below
the weir. It didn't take more than three or four circles before the
Osprey realized the futility of escape and dropped the fish.
Unfortunately, it landed where the Eagle couldn't get it either, so the
fish was lost. Several dog-walkers were very impressed by the chase, as
was I.

Fourth, there were several TREE SWALLOW pairs building nests or showing
interest in nest boxes along the slough. No eggs in any of them yet. At
least one nestbox had a complete-looking nest with a BLACK-CAPPED
CHICKADEE coming out as I approached. Again, though, no eggs.

In all, 11 of the 32 nest boxes had at least had some nest material
brought in (I cleaned them all out a few weeks ago), with complete-looking
nests in 6 of them.

On box contained a deceased Tree Swallow, badly decomposed.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, (King Co.) WA
== http://www.scn.org/fomp/birding.htm
== hummer at isomedia.com