Tweets - six of us braved the rain this morning, hoping it would let up. It
didn't. It rained steadily, with a light but cold breeze, and over the
course of 4 hours the rain strengthened if anything, as did the wind. We
ended up cold and wet. There weren't a whole lot of bird highlights either.
Good thing for me that I spent yesterday afternoon at Marymoor cleaning out
the first 31 birdboxes (8 to go, if I counted right). In yesterday's warmer
weather and sunshine, I saw several good birds:

Highlights from T(uesday) 3/3 and W(ednesday) 3/4:

Bald Eagle T - pair of adults circling over the
mansion
Red-breasted Sapsucker T - west of mansion, near windmill
Northern Shrike T - seen several times in East Meadow
Yellow-rumped Warbler W - breeding plumage male Audubons
Lincoln's Sparrow W - one seen briefly from W end of snag
row
Western Meadowlark T - at least THIRTEEN in East Meadow

Very few birds were singing today. I did hear a WINTER WREN singing
yesterday (they are soon to move upslope from Marymoor, probably).

The Indian Plum/Oso Berry is in full bloom, and at this time of year you can
really see that it's everywhere. The Salmonberry hasn't progressed in this
last week - still only one individual plant with blossoms, and only 5 open
at that. The planted Tall Oregon Grape is poised to bloom soon. Several of
the flowering ornamental fruit trees are blooming, too, and more of the
willows are flowering.

Yesterday, I did see a Garter Snake, the first of the spring. Both days we
saw Cottontail Rabbit at the compost piles.

In cleaning out the birdboxes, almost 2/3 had been used last year. A few
nests had failed, leaving full clutches of unhatched eggs, and in two Tree
Swallow nests, there was a dead young (one featherless, one fully
feathered).

The strangest finding was the skull (only) of a merganser inside an
otherwise unused box intended for flickers? or ducks? [the dimensions of the
se boxes don't fit any suggested boxes for any particular species, and the
boxes have never been used for nesting]. I'm very uncertain how a merganser
skull could end up where it did...

I also found the wing of an American Coot near one of the boxes. Something
fairly recently ate a coot there, leaving the wing. It might have sat on
the box post to eat.

I was pleased to see the NORTHERN SHRIKE use several of the perch posts I
installed a few years ago in the East Meadow.

Next week, 7:00 a.m., the week after, 6:30.

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