Subject: Marymoor Park Report (Redmond, King Co., WA) 9/3/2003
Date: Sep 4 16:16:11 2003
From: Michael Hobbs - hummer at isomedia.com


Tweets - yesterday was another gorgeous morning. All told, 9 of us
ventured out, though the day proved quiet for birds. There were very few
"highlights", though the sunrise a few minutes after our 6:30 start
certainly counted as one.

For migrants, we had pretty good numbers of YELLOW WARBLER, including some
very brown juvenile birds. WARBLING VIREOS also were common, chasing each
other through the leaves and almost never letting us see their faces. We
might have had a Red-eyed, but we'll never be sure. We had at least 2
ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLERS as well, but that's really about it. Today, while
there picking blackberries, I saw 1 male BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER.

Still quite a few BARN SWALLOWS, at least a couple VAUX'S SWIFTS, and 1
VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOW. Ollie and Jim had a SWAINSON'S THRUSH, and there
were a handful of WILLOW FLYCATCHERS.

Common resident birds, esp. BEWICK'S WREN, MARSH WREN, BLACK-CAPPED
CHICKADEE, SONG SPARROW, STELLER'S JAY, and RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH, were
making notably more vocalizations than during the previous few weeks.

MALLARD males are almost out of eclipse plumage, with most of their gray
body feathers in, and the green starting to come back on their heads.
HOODED MERGANSER males are not so far along, though they are beginning to
get white shafts visible on the folded wing. We also saw a WOOD DUCK, but
it was probably a juvenile (backlit, hard to tell).

We had many sightings of GREEN HERON. There were 7 or 8 AMERICAN COOT at
the lake, the BARN OWL was at the day roost tree, and we had a male HAIRY
WOODPECKER in the cottonwood snag row.

We've been having fun pointing out the ROCK PIGEONS (boy does that sound
strange) or just "ROPIs" (which sounds even stranger).

For the day yesterday, 49 species. 50 for the week. Still at 122 for the
year.

STARTING NEXT WEEK, WE'LL BE STARTING AT 7:00 A.M.

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