I headed down to the Kent Ponds this morning, and found the immature
red-shouldered hawk previously reported. It flew in to the Ponds area
from the other side of 64th Ave along the power line trail. A very
flighty bird - it moved from pylon to pylon, always staying well ahead
of me as I walked the trail, until finally it circled back overhead,
giving me a good long look at its pale underside, and crossed the road
again.

The western scrub jay (coastal variant) was on the designated section of
power line trail across 64th from the Ponds. It was in the tall trees
behind the blackberries near the end of that short eastward section of
trail.

Over on the trails on the western side of the Ponds, I found 7 western
meadowlark. No sign of the rough-legged hawk reported from the weekend,
but there were a couple of red-tailed, and a very obliging female
northern harrier gave me my best ever look at the species by sitting on
a log thirty feet from the path near the north observation tower. I had
five minutes for pictures before she got bored of me and left.

A fly-by of the Boeing ponds revealed nothing of real note (though it's
not the first place I would have expected to find pintails!).

I got to the Cedar River mouth at 2pm, to find few gulls and two birders
who'd been there since noon with no success. I walked the Cedar River
path back to 6th St hoping for the palm warbler, but saw only
yellow-rumped.

Back to the gulls at 2.45pm, and the slaty-backed put in an appearance
along with increased numbers of other gulls at 3pm. (Many thanks for the
help with the spotting, Keith!) They all sat out on the furthest of the
sandbars/driftwood piles beyond the river mouth, and the slaty-backed
was distinctly darker in the back and wings than any of the other large
gulls I've seen, with the yellow eye surrounded by smudge and streaked
neck exactly as described by previous Tweeters - very useful detail to
have, thanks guys!

We got to watch for about 20 minutes before the bird-scarers shifted the
entire collection of gulls again, and I left at 3.50 to beat the
traffic. No sign of the glaucous gull for any of the day's watchers to
that time, but I feel privileged to have had the slaty-backed show to
order, especially hearing that was Keith's seventh try at it!

Louise Rutter
Kirkland

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.17.24/668 - Release Date:
04/02/2007 01:30