Hi Tweets,

Saturday morning at 8 am, nine stalwarts from Seattle Audubon joined Barbara and me at West Seattle's Don Armeni Park. The weather was overcast with a light wind blowing from the east, temperature about 32 degrees. We spent three hours covering the waterfront from the boat launch to Me Kwa Mooks Park and finished up with a stop at the Alki Cafe to warm up and refuel. We had good views of many of the usual suspects, but the weather kept some of the species we expected under cover. Thanks to Matt Bartels who alerted us to the location of the rockpipers that had left their usual haunt east of Duwamish Head, and had moved southwest toward Alki Point. Later we saw the Surfbirds foraging in the seaweed on the seawall across from the Alki Cafe, while the Black Turnstones briefly lined up on the top of the wall above them. 31 species seen:

Horned Grebe -- 50
Red-necked Grebe -- 8
Western Grebe -- 30
Double-crested Cormorant -- 20
Pelagic Cormorant -- 1
Great Blue Heron -- 1
Canada Goose -- 20
Brant -- 6
American Wigeon -- 3
Harlequin Duck -- 8
Surf Scoter -- 30
Black Scoter -- 2
Bufflehead -- 10
Common Goldeneye -- 18
Barrow's Goldeneye -- 30
Red-breasted Merganser -- 10
Bald Eagle -- 4
Black Turnstone -- 40
Surfbird -- 30
Sanderling -- 20
Glaucous-winged Gull -- 20
Rock Dove -- 120
Northern Flicker -- 1
American Crow -- 20
Black-capped Chickadee -- 4
Bushtit -- 6
Ruby-crowned Kinglet -- 3
American Robin -- 1
European Starling -- 20
Golden-crowned Sparrow -- 12
House Sparrow -- 10

Paul Webster
Seattle
paul.websterATcomcast.net