Tweets - today was a glorious day. It started a frosty 28 degrees, but it
was sunny (except for some thin high clouds) and not windy. During the day,
we had a total of 14 people, though there was quite a bit of joining late
and leaving early. Some of the early birding was a bit slow, probably
because the birds were waiting for it to warm up a bit. But things
enlivened quickly, and we had a lot of great stuff:

Gr. Wh-fronted Goose 1 adult, 2 juv. with Canadas
Cackling Goose 3+ minimas, maybe some other subspecies
Bufflehead First of fall, I think.
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1 north of the Rowing Club late
Mourning Dove 1 at Compost Piles
SHORT-EARED OWL SEE BELOW
Northern Shrike Juvenile in Snag Row
COMMON RAVEN 1 harassing a Ring-billed Gull over the geese
HORNED LARK SEE BELOW
Winter Wren First Marymoor *sighting* of Fall
Varied Thrush Ditto
American Pipit About 2 flying around the NE part of the
park
Dark-eyed Junco Female SLATE-COLORED in Pea Patch
Townsend's Warbler Male and female north of windmill

So Matt got to Marymoor at 6:00 a.m. - a bit odd considering the rest of us
weren't getting there until 7:30. He did, though, enjoy great looks at a
SHORT-EARED OWL over the East Meadow. We were all a bit jealous, but then,
we'd gotten to sleep in a bit more than Matt...

Fast-forward to just before 10:30 a.m. - we were walking along the East
Meadow when I spotted a SHORT-EARED OWL doing its butterfly-like hunting
flight over the extreme south end of the meadow. WOW - great daytime looks.
For the next five minutes or so, we watched it hunt. Then it took off after
some crows; 2-3 crows and the owl rose higher and higher into the sky, with
the owl repeatedly diving down at the crows. It managed to get back to
hunting for another minute before crows again arrived, and again the owl and
crows rose up high into the sky. At one point, the owl seemed to be chasing
a small bird, whose call I could hear even though they were over the Dog
Meadow and I was at the far edge of the East Meadow. It sounded like an
American Pipit or maybe a Horned Lark... More on that below. After maybe
10-15 minutes, we lost sight of the owl high up and far to the south.

MaryFrances Mathis arrived; Brian Bell had called her to alert her of the
owl, and she'd raced over from Kirkland. Matt was about to run down to tell
her the owl was gone, when I did one quick scan of the sky just to be sure.
Voila - the owl was high to the east of the East Meadow, and it proceeded to
fly across the East Meadow one more time, so MF got to see it.

Matt and MaryFrances were down by her car, when he suddenly called to me. I
ran over to them. He'd heard that maybe-a-pipit-maybe-a-lark again.
Moments later he directed us to a bird flying straight towards me. It
nearly hit me, swirled around and made another pass, and then again.
Finally, it landed about 20 feet away, right at the start of the
Interpretive Trail. It was, indeed, a HORNED LARK - probably a female and
maybe a "Pallid". It was very, very washed out, although the chin was quite
yellow. The back was very faded gray and there were no orange or rufous
tones at all on the bird.

(I won't bore you with the excitement we had chasing what turned out to be a
rather long-tailed juvenile RTHA.)

Matt, MaryFrances, and I are all doing King County Big Years. Matt had, of
course, seen both those species already this year, but the SEOW was new for
MF (#217) and the HOLA was new for me (#216). Matt's at an astounding 230.

Also, throughout the day, we had some just beautiful scenes, like the
Bewick's Wren posed in the early morning light on frost-edged blackberries;
the Great Blue Heron at the edge of the slough, with the wisps fog; the
flock of American Goldfinch that landed in an alder right next to the trail,
which were replaced a few minutes later by a flock of Pine Siskin; the
gorgeous views of the Short-eared Owl.

At one point, Matt spotted what seemed to be a VARIED THRUSH at the far edge
of the East Meadow. It was facing away and obscured by leaves, but after a
minute or two, we'd managed to convince ourselves that we were probably
right with the ID. Then it took off - and flew right towards us! That
never happens. The sun was behind us, and it gave us all a great
opportunity to see the complex patterns on the bird, including the orangey
wing stripe. It was a nice male bird.

It was all excellent.

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

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so
certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts" - Bertrand
Russell