Tweets - nice weather brings out the crowds. There were an even dozen of us
this morning, on a day with fog above us, but clear below, and the fog
burned off quite early. We were rewarded with some pretty good birds:

Western Grebe 1 on lake, after noon
Wood Duck 6 on lake
Bald Eagle 1 over lake, after noon
American Kestrel 1 at north end of park
PEREGRINE FALCON Immature in Snag Row
Wilson's Snipe 1 flying over Dog Meadow
Anna's Hummingbird 2 dueling over Dog Meadow
R.-breasted Sapsucker MaryFrances had one near mansion
Hairy Woodpecker 1-2 south of Dog Central
NORTHERN SHRIKE Immature moving east north of Dog Central
Brown Creeper 1 at south end of Dog Area
Varied Thrush 1 heard, plus MaryFrances saw one
WH.-THR. SPARROW Tan-stripe bird at parking lot early
Western Meadowlark 3-4, East Meadow and north
Pine Siskin Perhaps 100 - 2 sightings of big flocks

There were tons of YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS all over the place. They were
often mixed with chickadees, which we were trying to search through for
Mountains, unsuccessfully.

The PEREGRINE was spotted sitting in the top of a snag in snag-row. We were
a long way off, and made our way somewhat back towards it, when it took off,
flew around for a half a minute or so, and landed again in a snag. Very
cooperative of it, as it allowed us to see it pretty well.

The NORTHERN SHRIKE was first seen divebombing a perched RED-TAILED HAWK
west of the slough. It then flew across the river, landing in the top of a
large cottonwood where most of us got a decent back view of the bird. Very
ruddy-buff, with no actual black feathers visible; typical of juveniles. It
then flew further east and disappeared. Twice before (10/9/1997, and
10/11/2000) we've had shrike this week of the year. These are our earliest
fall sightings.

The WHITE-THROATED SPARROW very cooperatively sat up on the top of the mound
of blackberries in front of our cars when we arrived. It was up there for
about a minute, giving great views as it faced us. Previously, our only
October sighting were 10/1/2003 and 10/15/1998. These are our earliest fall
sightings.

There was one (or maybe more than one) large black-tipped gull that caused
us no end of problems with ID. Possibly Herring, possibly Western, maybe
something else.

At the time got late, people started leaving early. We also, at one point,
split into two groups. So there were several scattered reports of birds
which were not seen by the whole group, but which I counted as part of the
morning's count. These include the KESTREL, the SAPSUCKER, and some
BUSHTITS.

Between all of us, we managed 60 species this morning. The Peregrine was
new for the year; that list is now at 140.

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