12:08pm start - water level low and dropping; all mudflats visible
12:47pm end - slack tide

Tweeters,
Mild air, with mostly sunny skies and a north breeze at Turning Basin #3. After yesterday's shorebird incursion, with two new species for TB3, I thought the highlights for the week were over. That is, until I spotted a rather smallish duck sleeping next to 8 COMMON MERGANSERS on the mudbank peninsula on the east side of the restoration area. From my usual vantage point, I could only see a bit of "funny" blue, not the usual "Mallard" blue, in the feathers. I looked at it a couple of more times between river scans, but couldn't make out much more. I grabbed my gear and trotted (well, that's an exaggeration) upriver a hundred yards to another vantage point. Still not positive: some sort of teal (head was hidden in the feathers, but the blue wasn't speculum)? Escaped exotic? Finally, it lifted up its head: WOOD DUCK!

It may be a juv male, but I'm not familiar with the molting pattern. It looked more like the females with which I'm familiar, but it had too much blue in the feathers on the back, but not enough coloration on the head to be a molting (i.e., eclipse-plumaged) adult male. Nonetheless, another first for the Turning Basin!

The Wood Duck rested for most of the time I was scanning, but when a loose flock of feeding Mallards swam by, it woke up and walked down the mud to join its cousins, paddling and snacking on some vegetation. What a treat....

Two LEAST SANDPIPERS were feeding on the mudbank just north of the pier directly west of my position. This is the first time I've seen them feed there. Could it be that they were attracted by the 300 or so European Starlings that were feeding there? Donno.

Birds seen during this scan include the following:
Canada Goose (12)
Wood Duck
Mallard (25, including the adult and growing "Fuzzy" late hatchling)
Common Merganser (8)
Great Blue Heron (3)
Osprey (2; one adult and one juv on the west power tower - Hamm Creek)
Killdeer (15; all on the mudflat to the east of the stormwater runoff channel)
Least Sandpiper (2)
Glaucous-winged Gull (9)
Rock Pigeon (9)
Belted Kingfisher
American Crow (5)
Barn Swallow (4)
American Robin
House Finch
House Sparrow (2)

May all your birds be identified,

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