Tweets - I declared my walk to be a politics-free zone, and it helped us
enjoy a fine morning's birding.

It started out with patch fog (somewhere between very dense and somewhat
thin), but that burned off in a couple of hours. Birding was hot-and-cold,
with lots of birds early, then long dry spells, then more birds, etc. There
were a few pretty good highlights:

Green Heron 1 a bit north of the rowing club dock
TRUMPETER SWAN 7 flying moderately low, heading NE over dog meadow
Sharp-shinned Hawk Great looks at a soaring bird over mansion
Cooper's Hawk Gorgeous adult in Pea Patch, Snag Row
Bonaparte's Gull Very brief looks at one flying N with a Mew
HERMIT THRUSH 1-2 in the cottonwood forest
Varied Thrush 1-2 near mansion, 1-2 at Rowing Club
Wh.-throated Sparrow Nice looks early near the parking lot
Western Meadowlark 9 in East Meadow
Purple Finch 1 on elderberries in interior dog meadow

The TRUMPETER SWANS were nicely trumpeting, allowing easy identification.

There was a huge flock of GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROWS just south of the South
Lot (where we meet) at 7:30 a.m. The WHITE-THROATED was with them, though
it disappeared after a while. We searched through GCSP, also finding House
Finch, House Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, etc., but couldn't turn up the
WTSP for the late-arriving people.

The lake was pretty quiet, with only some distant AMERICAN COOT, BUFFLEHEAD,
1 WESTERN GREBE, and a handful of NORTHERN SHOVELER. It was not a good day
for duck species - only 3 (the other 2 being Mallard and Gadwall)

The southwest corner of the mansion area turned out to have a ton of birds.
Besides the Varied Thrush, we had Black-capped Chickadee, Chestnut-backed
Chickadee, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Bushtit, Dark-eyed
Junco, American Robin, European Starling, Northern Flicker, BROWN CREEPER,
Red-breasted Nuthatch, Yellow-rumped Warbler, and I'm probably forgetting a
few. Birds everywhere. But, alas, no Mountain Chickadee (see below).

Last Thursday, 10/28, I had 2 CACKLING GOOSE with Canadas, and the juvenile
NORTHERN SHRIKE near the compost piles.

I also had a report from Neil Zimmerman of a MOUNTAIN CHICKADEE (new for the
park list) near the south end of the dog area, I believe on Sunday, October
31.

For the day, we had 57 species. For the week, 61. For the year, 145
species. The Marymoor list now stands at 177 species since January, 1990.

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