Tweets - yesterday was a special day for me - it marked the 10-year
anniversary of the start of weekly walks, and coincidentally it marked the
7-year anniversary of my retirement from Microsoft.

My morning at the park took an unusual turn right after I got there when I
saw a (really scruffy looking) COYOTE right at the side of the main road eat
a rabbit. From this, I concluded that the expression could just as easily
be "coyote down your food" as "wolf down your food" - it was about 3 bites,
barely chewed, and gone. I had not seen a coyote at Marymoor for quite a
while.

Brian and Penn Bell made a celebratory cake, a the gang presented me with a
nice card - thanks!

There were 8 of us, and the morning was great. We had mostly sunny skies
all day, though there were clouds all around us. It wasn't too cold, and
there wasn't much wind. And there were birds galore:

Wood Duck Pair in slough
Wilson's Snipe 3 below weir
California Gull 5 on grass fields early
Great Horned Owl Pair at nest
SHORT-EARED OWL Flushed from East Meadow - nice looks, then it settled east
Belted Kingfisher Only 3rd sighting so far this year
Red-breasted Sapsucker Quick view south of mansion
Rufous Hummingbird First female of the year, many males
Northern Shrike Immature still around - south of velodrome lot
Brown Creeper 1-2 NE of mansion. Found a nest. 1 along ELS
trail
Winter Wren 1 still around, heard at east end of boardwalk
HERMIT THRUSH 1 seen very well at south end of dog area
Common Yellowthroat Lots of males back, saw 5+, heard more
Lincoln's Sparrow Rather high count - 5 or 6 birds seen.
Western Meadowlark 1 near compost piles
Brown-headed Cowbird Male seen/heard below weir

Afterwards, Brian, Ollie, Bruce and I went out to lunch, then walked the
newly-opened section of the East Lake Sammamish Trail along the old rail
line. This northern segment, within the city limits of Redmond, runs mostly
through the eastern part of Marymoor Park, and ends at the first place where
you can see the lake. We saw about 35 species along the trail. Visible
from the trail before the leaves come in are both a RED-TAILED HAWK nest and
the BALD EAGLE nest (both occupied). At the lake, we added three good
surprises:

Common Loon 1 in breeding plumage
Horned Grebe 1 molting into breeding plumage
Red-necked Grebe 1, pretty far out on the lake, but unmistakable

Last night, I got a late email from Hugh Jennings, who had to leave us
early. While he was walking through the East Meadow, he spotted a female
MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD. She either was not there when we went by, or went
unnoticed.

We saw a LOT of BALD EAGLES yesterday. There was an adult on the nest, seen
from the ELS Trail. We saw an adult and a subadult bird (with a yellow
bill) land very close together in a large cottonwood west of the slough. At
the same time, we saw 2 or 3 other subadults circling overhead. We saw
eagles on many occasions, so it's pretty hard to count accurately (can't
tell how many repeats), but I think we saw 2-3 adults, and 3+ subadults.

We found a BEWICK'S WREN bringing nesting material to a nest box near the
east end of the boardwalk. A male RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD didn't like having the
wren around, and buzzed it severely. The hummer appeared to spread it's
gorget to twice its normal width - flared out like a Caliope gorget or even
bigger. It actually looked like two spread hands. The sun was behind us,
and the hummer was behind the wren, so we were in line to see the full
effect. The wren must have seen it all before, for it didn't seem fazed by
the rather dramatic display.

Joyce Meyer co-led two trips to Marymoor last weekend as part of an ELWAS
birding by ear class. They had a few birds we didn't have yesterday:

OSPREY
Cooper's Hawk
Merlin
Virginia Rail (heard. I heard one on Monday as well)
Orange-crowned Warbler (heard)

Lots of nesting activity:

American Crow with nest materials
American Robin ditto
Red-tailed Hawk on nests
Bewick's Wren bringing nest materials to nest box
Downy Woodpecker excavating hole
Brown Creeper bringing nest materials to likely nest location
Great Horned Owl on nest
Bald Eagle on nest

For the day, 64 species on our regular loop, + 3 from the East Lake Samm
Trail lake viewing spot. For the week, adding the Horned Grebe, Red-necked
Grebe, Short-eared Owl, Mountain Bluebird, Hermit Thrush, Common
Yellowthroat, and Brown-headed Cowbird, plus Joyce's Osprey and
Orange-crowned Warbler, bring the year list to 94 species.

We're averaging 50 species a trip, 52 species a week, and 8 birders a trip
so far in 2004.

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