11:31am start - water level low - most mudflats exposed
12:04pm end

Tweeters,
The Monday morning "blahs" extended to a visit to "my" spot on the river: I just couldn't get excited. Usually, I can overlook all the refuse--tire carcasses, dead cans, a basketball, netting, decrepit pieces of downed piers, a beached barge, wire cable, huge chunks of concrete, among other things--along the river, but today it just weighed me down. Everywhere you look along the mudflats shows the disregard some have for this resource. If it weren't for the folks like those in People for Puget Sound and others committed to restoration along the lower Duwamish, it seems as if all we'd have is refuse. Fortunately, and this is more of a cheering thought, such people are here. More power to them.

I keep looking for shorebirds, but haven't seen so much as a Killdeer since December 1. I thought I heard one (Killdeer) calling from across Turning Basin #3, but without visual confirmation it may well have been a starling imitation. The Hamm Creek OSPREYS are ensconced, but the female hasn't laid any eggs, as far as I can determine. And it appears as if the MEW GULLS have left for sure, even though today there might have been a subadult bird flying by as I took the scope out of the truck (brief glimpse: seemed smaller than a Glaucous-winged Gull, but not enough of a view to verify). Blah.

Birds seen during this scan include the following:
Canada Goose (3)
Gadwall (4)
Bufflehead (2)
Double-crested Cormorant (4)
Osprey (2)
Red-tailed Hawk
Glaucous-winged Gull (10)
Rock Pigeon (8)
American Crow (7)
Black-capped Chickadee
Bewick's Wren
American Robin (2)
European Starling (14)
Song Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
House Finch (6; 4 across the river)
House Sparrow (2)

May all your birds be identified,

Denis DeSilvis
Seattle, WA
mailto:denis.j.desilvis at boeing.com