Tweets - we are in the summer doldrums - breeding birds only, with really
very little chance of anything else. It was also cloudy, for the most part,
and quite breezy, which made for a quiet day. We did have some things worth
noting, though:

An OSPREY made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to grab a twig from trees
in Snag Row. Then it spied a clump of dead grass that someone had pulled up
and discarded at the edge of the Community Gardens. The Osprey came down
and snatched that off the ground and carried it back towards the nest on the
cell phone tower near the velodrome. I went by later, but didn't see any
activity at the nest; I'm not sure of the status of the nesting there at the
moment, except to say that we usually see an adult or two over there.

Megan saw a bird that she couldn't quite place immediately. Turned out to
be the first juvenile BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD that we've seen at Marymoor this
summer. It was being fed by a male COMMON YELLOWTHROAT, who very diligently
was bringing insects at a great rate. In the same elderberry we found a
juvenile yellowthroat, and it was being fed by an adult female. While we
watched, a LONG-TAILED WEASEL came scurrying up the elderberry - we were
hoping it would get the cowbird, but it quickly retreated when all the birds
flitted out of the way with much chattering.

We did see one black-wing-tipped gull, and about 5 other gulls too distant
to see. The one we saw fairly well looked to be probably a RING-BILLED
GULL.

We saw a downy-but-fledged BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK being fed by an adult male
a bit below the weir. Contrary to the picture in the big Sibley, the very
young BHGR appeared to have white wing-bars, not buffy. Later we saw what
looked to us to be an adult female, as well as several more males.

The CEDAR WAXWING nest that we found last week, just east of the boardwalk,
had 3 quite large young on it. We also found another pair building a nest
in the apple tree near the first bench along the trail south of the weir.

We had one unaccompanied, full-sized, but clearly juvenile (no crest) HOODED
MERGANSER at the weir.

We found at least 3 female WOOD DUCKS with babies, as well as at least 1
male in eclipse plumage.

There were two GREEN HERON at the lake. We also found the PIED-BILLED GREBE
nest there that MaryFrances Mathis had mentioned to me last week. One adult
was sitting on the nest. The other adult came up and tapped the first on
the side (asking to switch places?), but then sank back down. The first
adult left the nest a minute later, showing us 3 eggs. We moved on, afraid
we were scaring them off the eggs.

We heard a few of the harder-to-see nesters, including RED-EYED VIREO,
WARBLING VIREO (no activity at the nest; they may have fledged), and PURPLE
FINCH.

We saw a juvenile RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER, a silent WESTERN WOOD-PEWEE, 2-3
BROWN CREEPER, a RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH, and we had a good look at a
SWAINSON'S THRUSH eating snowberries.

Not bad for early July - 53 species. We're at 127 species for the year.

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