Tweets - It was not a great day Wednesday - there was mist, drizzle, and
sometimes rain. At least it wasn't too cold or windy. Six of us started
out, joined late by Brian Bell after his unsuccessful search for the Great
Black Backed Gull. There weren't many highlights at Marymoor...

Highlights:

Common Merganser 4 males at the lake
Mew Gull Perhaps 400+ on the soccer fields
Varied Thrush Heard one at south end of dog area
SAVANNAH SPARROW One, with juncos in snag row
Purple Finch 1 male east of the boardwalk

Mew gulls are not uncommon at Marymoor on winter mornings. 400+ is at the
upper limit of the flock size, but what was unusual on Wednesday was that a
sizable portion of the flock stayed around all morning. I did observe them
early having great success finding earthworms in the fields. Perhaps that
was the lure.

Savannah Sparrows are not unheard of at Marymoor in winter. This was our
4th January record, though the previous 3 had all been in very early
January. We've had 2 February records, and four December records. Their
regular spring arrival seems to be the 3rd week in March.

We also saw a SLATE-COLORED JUNCO, or more probably a Slate-colored x Oregon
intergrade. The head and back were slaty gray, and there was no hint of
buffiness or pinkness on the flanks, breast, or belly. But the head was a
touch darker than the back, the back seemed to have a hint of red in it, and
there was a touch of "notchyness" on the breast pattern - that is, the gray
did not come quite far enough down the breast, and cut a but too sharply
across at the bottom, leaving corners to the white. Slate-colored Juncos,
in my experience, always have quite limited white on the lower belly only,
and the white is in a near-perfect oval.

The other interesting sighting was a RIVER OTTER at the main pond at the
Rowing Club at Marymoor West. Needless to say, there were few ducks on that
pond (though 4 GREEN-WINGED TEAL flushed from that pond when we arrived, and
there was a pair of brave (or foolish) MALLARDS there too.

Finally, today at JUANITA BAY PARK, I had a male EURASIAN WIGEON.

Birding Juanita is quite different from birding Marymoor. I usually get
30-40 species in the first hour at Juanita. After the next 2-3 hours, I
*still* have 30-40 species.

At Marymoor, we might only get 20-30 species in the first hour (sometimes
less), but we'll pick up 5-10 more species each hour after that.

For Marymoor, we had 45 species Wednesday. For the year, adding Varied
Thrush and Savannah Sparrow makes 60 species.

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