Tweets -

The sun seemed reluctant to rise this morning. Instead it waited below the
Cascades, brewing itself up for the coming fight to warm the day. First it
flared purple and pink. The Cascade ridge waited, the snow on the tips of
the mountains highlighting their stony ridges. Mt. Rainier waited, too, for
the first rays of the sun. I watched Rainier through the Issaquah gap, with
Cougar Mountain to the right and Tiger Mountain to the left, both with
blinking lights on their prickly tiaras of antennas. The sun's fire blazed
in orange, lighting the southeast, but still, the sun's rays didn't reach
over the horizon. Looking at the face of Mt. Rainier, as the first fingers
of orange finally reached out, I could see the Mew Gulls, hundreds of them,
swirling over Lake Sammamish, and then, as if those fingers were the signal,
heading towards the green grass of the soccer fields at Marymoor for their
morning worms. Just when I was sure I would catch a glimpse of the sun's
face, the light show faded. Clouds obscured the sky, and we never saw more
than a glowing disk through the haze. We never got warm.

Seven-thirty was too early to start birding; next week we'll have to meet at
eight - there's no point in starting before it's light. Eventually, seven
of us gathered for what turned out to be a pretty enjoyable day. Though
cold, it wasn't particularly windy, and it didn't rain or even mist.

Highlights:

Trumpeter? Swan 4 silent swans flew east over slough
Mourning Dove 1 in Snag Row, later at Compost Piles
Barn Owl Matt had one early over East Meadow
R.-breasted Sapsucker 2 in Rowing Club parking lot
American Robin 1 with strikingly white wing patches
Townsend's Warbler At least 1 east of the mansion
Savannah Sparrow At least 2 at Compost Piles

We had 8 species of sparrow, all present at the Compost Piles, where there
were a LOT of birds. Try as we might, we could not get anything more
unusual than the Mourning Dove and the Savannahs.

We had 8 species of duck: Gadwall, American Wigeon (1 in the slough, though
there were also a couple of large distant flocks of ducks that may have been
wigeon), Mallard, Green-winged Teal (at the Rowing Club), Ring-necked Duck,
Greater and Lesser Scaup (a mixed pair near the weir), Bufflehead, and
Common Merganser.

For the day, 59 species.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.scn.org/fomp/birding.htm
== birdmarymoor at verizon.net