Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park Report (Redmond, King Co., WA) 2005-02-09
Date: Feb 9 21:05:50 2005
From: Michael Hobbs - birdmarymoor at verizon.net


Tweets - it was a frosty morning, but mostly sunny and not too windy. The
frozen ground may have kept the gulls away (they're usually after worms in
the grass soccer fields, but the worms may not come out if it's frozen).
The day proved somewhat quiet, actually, despite the temperature slowly
climbing to the high 40's over the course of the morning. This IS, however,
the slowest week of the year historically as measured by the cumulative
number of species seen.

We did have a few highlights:

The RED-TAILED HAWKS are feeling frisky. The two that nest west of the
Rowing Club were circling together above the nest tree. Earlier we saw one
of the northern pair that nest on the odd-snag west of the main entrance
make a visit to the nest.

We had a distant view of a PEREGRINE FALCON that flew east over the slough
and landed at the east end of Snag Row. We tried to approach, but it flew
off when we were still a quarter of a mile away, so we never got to see it
well.

Matt Bartels had a BARN OWL near the windmill at about 6:50 a.m.

The MARSH WRENS were much more visible than in past months, and were
singing.

The NORTHERN SHRIKE was along the east edge of the East Meadow.

We had two groups of WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS, including one quartet (1 adult,
3 juv.) that looked to be of the pugetensis race, and at the compost piles
later we had 4 gorgeous gambeli race adults that were simply stunning.

And we had 3 WESTERN MEADOWLARK close by the trail along the East Meadow.

The Indian Plum (aka Oso Berry) and some of the willows are blooming.

For the day, an even 50 species. The Peregrine Falcon brings our 2005 list
to 78 species.

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