Well, not really, I just took my beater binoculars down to the Seattle
waterfront...

Usually we have DC Corms, a few Pigeon Guillemots, gulls, starlings, RODOs,
House Sparrows, but the past couple of days have been fun in terms of
variety.

Yesterday there was a flock of six Common Goldeneye, 5 females, 1 male, a
couple of PIGU, and a few DCCO. It was good to get a close look at the
female COGO--head shape, bill color, all that stuff.

Today we hade more species in not huge numbers: a pair of Red-Breasted
Mergansers near the now-closed-for-construction/repair viewpoint/park near
Pier 48 (which can be a kind of scary place if you're all by yourself), 6
PIGU and 6 Western Grebes seen farther out past the ferry terminal , a loon
(too far away to distinguish w/my bins, size looked like Common, though),
and a Red-necked Grebe! from the "park" a little south of the Seattle
Aquarium. Had never seen a RNGR during my lunchtime ramblings, nor a loon,
so it was a pretty good day to have braved the lousy weather. It would've
been better w/my scope and decent bins, but what the heck.

An interesting bit of House Sparrow behavior: a male was in hot pursuit
of/hassling a female, who started objecting pretty loudly (s'cuse my
anthropomorphizing). Once the female ramped up her vocalizing, three more
males came over and started mixing it up with the first male, whereupon the
female flew away from the ruckus and perched on a nearby fence. All this
took place at the fire station, with the birds near and under the front of a
fire truck. Naturally I was peering at this w/my bins, only to look up to
see a couple of firefighters trying to figure out what I'd been looking at.
Small wonder some non-birders think birders are umm unique.

Oh, one of the DCCOs I saw sported silver bands on both legs. Seems to me
we covered this topic not too long ago but I still must ask: anybody know
of anyone doing DCCO studies locally whom I might contact re seeing the
banded bird, or should I report it to the bird band lab?? Thanks for any
info you can provide!

Good birding,
Mary

Mary Klein
Seattle WA
CelloBird at seanet.com