Michael and tweets,

We completed our half of the "Hobbs-Hunn" grudge match King County big day
yesterday, the day after Michaels run, and had the benefit of better weather
(t-shirts and shorts by mid-afternoon) but struggled to find the last thirty
species one-by-one, like pulling teeth. Our final tally last night at 9 PM
was 111, with one additional possibility, an unidentifiable
non-Pacific-slope empidonax which we wisely decided to leave off our list.
But each time we counted we got a slilghtly different number. Rather like
our recent governor's race. So we were chagrined to learn this morning that
Michael had vanquished our team by one measly bird point. However, I
recounted, and did a computerized summation this morning and came up with
112! Some will cry foul and demand an independent investigation, but so be
it.

Whatever, it was a fine day. Our tightly-knit squad of me, Dennis Adams,
Jennifer Vanderhoof (yes, she completed two back-to-back King County big
days), and George Gerdts logged 205 miles in 17 hours after a 4 AM start
with a shy western screech-owl calling in the face of a raucous barred owl
chorus just up the hill in West Seattle's Schmitz Park, closing with a pair
of marbled murrelets calling and diving ten feet off shore near Duwamish
head, then a dozen chortling purple martins at Kevin Li's gourds at
Seattle's fantastic new harbor island Jack Block park as the sun settled in
the west.

King County's first black phoebe stayed one more day for us but virtually
all the shorebirds of the previous week vanished, though we did locate four
whimbrels in a flooded field just nw of the junction of 277th and West
Valley Highway in Auburn.

By my calculations, 205 miles divided by four = 51.25 miles per person or
2.19 birds per mile, which at 27 mpg in my Subaru gives 59 birds per gallon!
Not bad.

Gene Hunn.
18476 47th Pl NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
enhunn323 at comcast.net


----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Hobbs" <birdmarymoor at verizon.net>
To: "Tweeters (E-mail)" <TWEETERS at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 9:55 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] King County Big Day quidk report


> Tweets -- today was our King County Big Day, and I won't give a full
> report right now, but despite mist and rain pretty much all day, we
> managed 112 species. Highlights included WARBLING VIREO, BLACK-HEADED
> GROSBEAK, and YELLOW WARBLER at Marymoor Park, VAUX'S SWIFTS and a
> HAMMOND'S FLYCATCHER at Tinkham Rd., a GRAY JAY at Alpental, the BLACK
> PHOEBE in Auburn, a pair of BARRED OWLS at Lake Fenwick Park, SPOTTED
> SANDPIPER at the Boeing Ponds (but no Solitary and no Yellow-headed
> Blackbird), BONAPARTE'S GULLS off Lincoln Park, and about 25 SANDERLING at
> South Beach at Alki.
>
> We managed quite a few species on Puget Sound from Lincoln Park around
> Alki.
>
> Big misses were Western Sandpiper (may have had one or two among extremely
> distant Leasts), and Pine Siskin.
>
> On behalf of myself, Brian Bell, MaryFrances Mathis, Matt Bartels, Jen
> Vanderhoof, and Kathleen Learned, I'd like to thank all those who helped
> us scout out our route.
>
> We had a lot of fun.
>
> == Michael Hobbs
> == Kirkland, WA
> == http://www.scn.org/fomp/birding.htm
> == birdmarymoor at verizon.net
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