Tweets - 10 of us birded Marymoor this morning under pretty heavy overcast,
but otherwise nice weather. There was little wind, really, and it was a
pleasant temperature. The birds were active, though not exactly posing for
pictures. The experience level was pretty high today, so we had lots of
heard-only birds; we detected more than we saw, and several birds were seen
only by a few.

The most notable sighting had to be seeing Wayne Weber, who drove down from
Vancouver B.C. this morning to meet us shortly after our 6:00 a.m. start
time. This seemed to us to be an unsually long-distance springtime
exploratory dispersal, though perhaps such movements are more common among
the britishcolumbiana subspecies of H. sapiens.

Oh yeah - bird highlights:

Green Heron At least 3 (seen simultaneously)
Wood Duck 2 M, 1 F, 8 babies at Rowing Club
Blue-winged Teal Pair along shore at lake
Bald Eagle 5 seen simultaneously, probably 6+ total
Cooper's Hawk Immature at east end of boardwalk
Virginia Rail Tok didok didok heard south of the weir
Willow Flycatcher 2 seen, more heard
Western Kingbird 2 in East Meadow
Swainson's Thrush First singing of the season, 1 seen
Bk-headed Grosbeak Ubiquitous, noisy
Bullock's Oriole 1st year male, adult, both seen briefly
Purple Finch 2 heard

The WESTERN KINGBIRDS were acting like a pair - wouldn't it be a kick if
they nested in the park! At around 12:30, one was seen again in the East
Meadow, but it then flew west towards the slough.

We also saw a Raccoon on the far side of the slough below the weir.

For the day, we had 65 species. It was a good day. For the year,
BLUE-WINGED TEAL and WILLOW FLYCATCHER were new, for a total of 121 species.

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