Hiya tweets!

While Charlie mentioned a couple of the better birds seen yesterday at Kent Ponds, I was more impressed with the fact that we saw 66 species on such a cool, wet day (67 when the Bobolink is counted, but Charlie was the only one of 6 birders who threw an ID out there on it - none of the rest of us got it. We saw the bird, but could not ID due to poor light and the fact that all we could see was it's butt flying away!).

We had 14 total duck species: Green-winged Teal; Mallard; Northern Pintail; Gadwall; American Wigeon; Eurasian Wigeon; Northern Shoveler; Wood Duck; Canvasback; Redhead; Ring-necked Duck; Ruddy Duck; Hooded Merganser; Bufflehead. Pretty sure one bird was a Blue-winged Teal, but Charlie claimed the bird with the odd face crescent was an aberrant Wigeon (??).

We also had good sparrow representation with 5 species: Song Sparrow; Savannah Sparrow; Lincoln's Sparrow; Fox Sparrow; Golden-crowned Sparrow (the lack of White-crowns was noted by more than one of us).

In addition, we also had 3 Violet-green Swallows that made numerous passes over us at the east end of the ponds. But the two birds that got the most excitement were the American Bittern and the Green Heron, both of which were nice sightings. All in all, a good day at the Kent Ponds!

Brett A. Wolfe
Seattle, WA
m_lincolnii at yahoo.com


Charlie Wright <c.wright7 at comcast.net> wrote:
Greetings All:
Today on a Kent Ponds census I flushed a Bobolink. This bird is not
chaseable, as it was simply flushed from the site and kept flying as far as
the eye could see (which, given the mist, was not all that far). The shape
in flight is distinctive, as is the call which it gave one time. This is a
slightly late record as well as a very rare migrant on the westside.
Other good birds included 3 Redheads, 2 Canvasback, a Eurasian Wigeon, a
late Common Yellowthroat, and a Merlin. Waterfowl were indeed well
represented with 15 species.
At the Boeing Ponds was a color-banded adult Cooper's Hawk (left leg, blue,
2 over C). In south Auburn at a tiny flood control pond along Ellingston
Ave, a Snow Goose was hanging out with some Mallards.
Charlie Wright
Bonney Lake, Washington

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