Subject: [Tweeters] the last few days
Date: Dec 17 22:45:17 2005
From: carenp - carenp at totalise.co.uk


no one expects the spanish inquisition... oh, wrong place... nevermind...

wandered out to discovery park's snowy owl exhibition, only to find our star
attraction had not been viewed all morning... so, having a few spare hours
for the first time in too long, i stopped at a few local spots to see what
else might be found...

at the ballard locks, a very friendly belted kingfisher female showed me her
technique for knocking the [expletive deleted by the author; add your own
sound effects here] out of several small fishes... a few of the great blue
herons were in evidence high in the trees north of the administration
building for the locks, and on the water were the normal denizens, including
a small pod of barrow's goldeneyes... the surprise sighting was of an
accipiter following the southern shoreline from east to west...
flapflapflap - glide, long tail appeared squared off (from my angle on the
other side of the canal) -- go ahead, pick one... :)

at marsh island, a large number of male common mergansers were about, mostly
between the island and the montlake cut itself... bufflehead, gadwall, and
ring-necked ducks were also quite popular...

at day street park, directly underneath interstate 90 at mount baker, a
number of common goldeneyes were in evidence, as was a single red-necked
grebe... along the road towards seward park saw hundreds of american coots,
dozens of buffs, and a few common mergansers, unspecific goldeneyes,
mallards and gadwalls...

finally, about 10 days ago, i was at a ranger meeting in kirkland and among
the topics of discussion was a rather unusual mallard pair sighted at marina
park (in kirkland)... it seems one male and what was probably his consort
had what appeared to be pompoms on their heads... so, last week i took up
the challenge of relocating these individuals; i was only able to find the
male... upon close examination of the photos, it doesn't appear to be a
matte or a tumour; it appears to be an unusual ball of feathers emanating
from his head, somewhat asymmetric (more on the left than the right side)...

photos of the pompom duck, the kingfisher, a few canines out and about, a
crow eating chicken, trumpeter and snowy shots from the last few weeks, all
are available on the website under Photos of the Month...

enjoy your birding!

00 caren
http://www.parkgallery.org
from discovery park to seward park
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