Subject: [Tweeters] ELWAS Marymoor first friday walk 1 Dec 2006
Date: Dec 1 16:00:04 2006
From: B & P Bell - bellasoc at isomedia.com


Hi Tweets

We had a good morning out at Marymoor on the ELWAS First Friday walk today with a number of good sightings. 45 species total seen.

Marymoor Park, 1 Dec 2006; overcast to start, broken clouds later; 37F-43F

The day started out overcast and cool but with some bird activity. We had a variety of sparrows along the river including Song, Golden-crowned and White-throated. The river had Ring-necked Ducks, Mallards, a Gadwall, Bufflehead, and Hooded Mergansers with a flyover Common Goldeneye. There was an incredibly vocal Bewick's Wren who never came out into sight. A male Downy Woodpecker gave us nice looks along the way, and Black-capped Chickadees and Ruby-crowned Kinglets were numerous. Just after we entered the cottonwood forest we had a small group of Purple Finches feeding on one of the Ash trees. The trail was still under water so we had to walk around and come in from the east side. Out at the lake platform we had a couple hundred American Coots out in the lake, several Double-crested Cormorants, a single Pied-billed Grebe, a couple of Common Goldeneyes, a distant Common Loon, and a perched adult Bald Eagle. Another Bald Eagle flew in and proceed to work on constructing a nest in the conttonwood forest.

A Northern Shrike was perched on the east side of the east meadow, and at the sparrow piles we had many House Finches, plus Song, White-crowned and Golden Sparrows. Across the road the grass fields had many Canada Geese, some Cackling Geese and at least two Greater White-fronted Geese. A coupld of Red-tailed Hawks could be seen perched in large trees in the distance. In the Pea Patch we had many of the previously seen sparrows as well as Dark-eyed Junco and Lincoln's Sparrow. Several Great Blue Herons were prominent at a number of locations during the walk.

Early on the grassy fields held Mew, Ring-billed and Glaucous-winged Gulls, American Crows were all over, a couple of Rock Pigeons flew over,

A special treat was two River Otters in the canal just across the small bridge along the interpretive trail leading out to the lake.

We didn't do the Mansion loop, but wound up with 45 species total.

Brian H. Bell
Woodinville WA
bellasoc at isomedia.com