Hi Connie and Tweeters,

If you can't get enough of those gorgeous Hooded
Mergansers go to Portage Bay off of NE Boat Street at
Sakuma Viewpoint Park near Aqua Verde restaurant
(which is very good, by the way). The location is at
coordinate 15G on the University of Washington
map found at the UW webpage.

Earlier this week just after dawn I have seen up to 6
males and 5 females at one time in this location.
What a great way to start the day!

Happy Birding New Year!

Kathy

Kathy Andrich
Roosting in Kent
chukarbird at yahoo.com


--- Connie Sidles <csidles at isomedia.com> wrote:
> Hey tweets, The Finns have a saying: There is no bad
> weather, only bad
> clothing. My husband and I put that adage to the
> test yesterday at the Fill,
> where we found few passerines (except for crows), a
> lot of cold wind and
> eventually sleet. It was glorious.
>
> There's nothing like foul weather to make you
> appreciate how well adapted
> birds are, able to stay outside all the time and
> thrive. Bud Anderson was
> the first one to point this out to me in one of his
> classes. He asked us if
> we could do what a raptor does: stay outdoors in all
> weathers, find food at
> least every other day, never put your feet up by a
> cozy fire, never pick up
> the phone to order out. I have a feeling that the
> only thing that kept my
> husband and me going yesterday, aside from our
> unrelenting optimism that we
> will see a rarity (I'm putting my money on a smew),
> was the thought that we
> were going home to a warm house and hot coffee.
>
> In the end, we saw a few terrific birds, including
> one male and three female
> HOODED MERGANSERS in full breeding plumage, a
> REDHEAD duck (also coming into
> full bloom), and a magnificent GREAT BLUE HERON
> standing by his dining room
> table (a little mud pile and pool near shore, where
> he brings fish to kill
> and eat).
>
> If you do brave the weather today, keep your eyes
> peeled for a Cooper's hawk
> who has settled in for the winter I think, two
> Lincoln's sparrows who like
> to hang out down by the point, and a Eurasian wigeon
> I was pretty sure I saw
> the other day, but the backlighting was horrible and
> I could not relocate
> it. Maybe you can?
>
> Here's a list of everything we found yesterday:
>
> pied-billed grebe
> double-crested cormorant
> great blue heron
> Canada goose (including some near-cacklers)
> mallard
> gadwall
> green-winged teal
> American wigeon
> northern shoveler
> ruddy duck
> redhead
> ring-necked duck
> greater scaup
> lesser scaup
> bufflehead
> hooded merganser
> ring-billed gull
> glaucous-winged gull
> American coot
> rock pigeon
> northern flicker (red-shafted only)
> Steller's jay (heard, not seen)
> American crow
> black-capped chickadee (heard, not seen)
> European starling
> spotted towhee (heard, not seen)
> song sparrow
> golden-crowned sparrow - Connie, Seattle
>
> csidles at isomedia.com
>
>


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