Subject: Great Black-backed Gull at Renton
Date: Jan 24 18:44:26 2004
From: Ruth Sullivan - godwit at worldnet.att.net


Hello Tweets,

Today my mother and I spent the entire day scoping through vast gull flocks from both Cedar River Park and Gene Coulon Park in Renton,King Co. with the Great Black-backed Gull that made a short visit at the mouth of the Cedar River at Cedar River Park from 11:45am-12:05pm,which was spotted by Ken Knittle and then viewed well by other birders who were present at the location. The bird was noted bathing in the water,as well as preening and foraging with other nearby gulls before being flushed from the disturbance of fireworks being shot off at the Renton Airport,which were done to scare or deter the gull flocks away from the direct path of any coming or going airplane traffic. The Great Black-backed Gull and the gull flock it was associating with all flew up and scattered,but the Great Black-backed Gull was observed flying straight north over Lake Washington. We searched the general area,but were unable to relocate the Great Black-backed Gull along with the Slaty-backed Gull that was also thoroughly looked for and was not seen today,as far as we know. The gull flocks varied greatly today with only few gulls noted at the mouth of the Cedar River,beginning at 8:30am to increasing numbers throughout the day at this location with the largest concentrations of gulls noted from the floating logboom area at Gene Coulon Park most notably in the late afternoon and early evening until we left the location at 5pm. Upon our departure at Gene Coulon Park the large flocks of loafing and resting gulls flew up at once and scattered to nearby rooftops,but several large flocks scattered and flew out further into Lake Washington to rest more,as well as several large flocks noted flying west towards the west side of Lake Washington. It seems the gulls flocks vary widely each day,so thorough searching must be done scoping through the gull flocks.

The weather during the day was fairly good,but cool winds were noted sporadically during the day,especially in the morning in addition to brief sleet/snow showers noted during the late afternoon. Perhaps others will have additional observations from these locations that were present today,but we will add additional notable sighting that were observed during the day from both park locations:

1 Red-necked Grebe
1 Eared Grebe
500+ Western Grebes
18 Greater White-fronted Geese
21 Canvasbacks
3 Greater Scaup
4 Barrow's Goldeneyes
3 Hooded Mergansers
12+ Bald Eagles
3 Peregrine Falcons(2 adults and 1 immature bird noted from the mouth of the Cedar River,with one adult male observed banded)
3 Dunlin
7+ Barn Swallows(noted flying off Cedar River Park over Lake Washington)

Additional noteworthy observations included a single River Otter observed during our morning visit from Gene Coulon Park, and a single Merlin observed flying along I-405 at the Hwy.167 interchange en route to Renton.


Good gull watching,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
godwit at worldnet.att.net
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