Michael you said
<Purple Finch 1 seen, maybe heard more>

That is a brave thing to say and I trust your judgment, identifying the
sound of a purple finch! I had to see the bird while recording it to make
sure I positively identified it as a purple finch call because as you know,
the purple finch is so similar to the house finch call, sometimes I have had
to make a sonogram of the sound to see the slight difference in pitch, it is
not always evident to the human ear. Incidentally, I have posted the two
sounds for your information; ironically, the purple finch recording was made
at Marymoor Park, April, 2001

Purple finch call
http://www.naturesound.org/Sound%20Files/Purple%20Finch.mp3


House finch call
http://www.naturesound.org/Sound%20Files/House%20Finch.mp3



Regards
Martyn

http://www.naturesound.org


-----Original Message-----
From: TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu
[mailto:TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Hobbs
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 10:07 PM
To: Tweeters (E-mail)
Subject: Marymoor Park Report (Redmond, King Co., WA) 2004/03/17

Tweets - there were only 5 of us at our new 6:30 a.m. start time this
morning. The weather may have contributed to the small showing, with dark
skies and some wind. It ranged from dry to mist to drizzle to maybe some
rain during the morning - no real trend, just changeable. It remained
rather dark with a brightish sky - making for tough viewing.

The day featured some pretty good birds, but almost no good looks at
anything.

Highlights:

Wood Duck 1-2 pair, including a good look at Rowing Club
Cooper's Hawk 1 bird, briefly seen near 1st dog swim area
MERLIN Flyby over boardwalk
Wilson's Snipe Andy spotted one lurking on the far slough
shore
Rufous Hummingbird 1 male east of boardwalk - 1st of spring
R.-breasted Sapsucker 1 N of windmill
Northern Shrike Imm. at compost piles
Violet-green Swallow 100-200. Foraging at a wide range of heights
Townsend's Warbler 1 NE of mansion
Fox Sparrow 1 "slate-colored" - maybe "altivagans" - good
looks

Still very few Salmonberry in bloom, but there's a pretty good clump in
bloom north of the east end of the boardwalk, and that's where we had the
male RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD. This is nearly as early as we've ever had RUHU -
only beaten by 1995 (March 16).

The VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOWS were seen moving around a lot, and estimating
numbers was difficult. Several times we could see ~100 at one time, but
they were ranging over the whole park, so it was hard to know when we were
seeing ones we'd already seen. Despite searching long and hard, we did not
see any Tree Swallows.

There were several "sooty" FOX SPARROWS, but we got a good look at a
"slate-colored" type near the dog area porta-potties. It had a notably gray
head, a rather white throat, and many fewer spots on the breast than the
"sooty" types. The spots were not all run-together as much either. The
gray of the head continued onto the nape of the neck, but the back was
brownish, not gray. We've almost certainly seen "slate-colored" types
before, but this was the first time I really paid attention. We've now seen
all 3 types of FOSP at Marymoor (Brian Bell and I had a "red" form on Oct.
11, 2000).

For the day, 55 species. Rachel Lawson had a White-throated Sparrow on
Friday, Jim McCoy had a Say's Phoebe on Saturday, and Martyn Stewart had an
American Kestrel on Sunday, so the week count is 58.

New for the year are the phoebe, the kestrel, the Rufous Hummingbird, and
the Violet-green Swallow, for a year total of 82.

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