Tweets - Nine of us were out birding today. The fog filled the valley until
about 9:45, when it had all cleared enough that we could see our shadows.
At that point, we worshipped the sun for a while like true Solarians, trying
to warm our fingers and toes. It was *cold* (29 degrees at the start).

It was pretty birdy, but there weren't too many surprises. And several good
birds were seen before the official start by one or the other of us, and not
seen again later.

Matt had 3 owl sightings before 7:30 in the East Meadow, including a close
encounter. But it was too dark and foggy (both outside and within his brain
at that hour) for him to identify any of them. Barn Owl, he thinks, and
maybe a Short-eared, and possibly a Barred, but that's a stretch.

I had 2 WESTERN MEADOWLARK at the model airplane field at 7:30. Some
BUSHTITS were nearby, the only ones of the day.

Beyond those:

Gr. Wh-fr. Goose 2 with CANGs and CACGs
Cackling Goose At least 100, mostly not the smallest subspecies
10 species of Duck Which helped our species total
Cooper's Hawk? Carrying prey away from the Compost Piles
Pileated Woodpecker Flew right over everyone's cars as we left
(But I was the only one who noticed)
Savannah Sparrow Matt had 1 early in the Compost Piles
Lincoln's Sparrow 4-6 in the Compost Piles

We ended up with 57 species, which seems high considering the things we
*didn't* see, such as Ring-billed Gull and Red-winged Blackbird.

A nice morning, all in all.

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