Tweets - Once again, my fears about the weather proved unfounded. There
was about 1.5" of snow on the ground, and it was cold. But it was mostly a
very pleasant, sunny, windless morning. My fingers and toes got cold for a
bit, but warmed up after about 9:00. We had a few snow flakes drifting down
lazily, but no real precipitation (i.e no rain). Really, it was gorgeous,
with nice light. And birdy. We had a more-manageable group size of eight
people today.

Highlights:

The morning began with Ryan spotting a MERLIN flying to a tall, slender snag
near the mansion. After posing for over a minute (*just* long enough for
Louise to get her scope set up) it then flew quickly low across the parking
lot and down a trail, snagging a sparrow off of the path in front of us,
before carrying its breakfast back to the trees around the mansion. We've
seen this Merlin four times already this year. It is not a black Pacific
Merlin, but probably a Taiga - quite pale breasted.

We had good looks at a male HAIRY WOODPECKER just a bit south of Dog
Central, but across the slough. We've seen a male Hairy 7 weeks out of 9 so
far in 2007. I think it's been all this same bird, as he's been hanging out
in the same general area.

>From the lake platform, we had two distant and unidentifiable SWALLOWS,
probably TREE, but who knows. In any case, our first swallows of the year.

Not too far north of the east end of the boardwalk, I spotted a NORTHERN
SHRIKE - further south than I've ever seen one at Marymoor. Later, probably
the same adult shrike was in the East Meadow.

At the Compost Piles, Matt spotted 3 AMERICAN PIPITS. This is NOT the
normal season for them. This is just our second pipit sighting outside the
late-April to early May spring pulse and the September-November fall push.
We had one sighting January 7, 2004, and now today's.

Northeast of the mansion, we had a RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER that gave us
quick-but-good looks as it moved through the trees.

Also in those conifers was a GREAT HORNED OWL - we could find only one. In
the last couple of weeks there have been 1-2 seen in those trees quite
often, including one sitting atop a possible nest. Today the owl was in the
tree next to the potential nest - about the same spot as it was last week.
The "nest" was empty.

Lots of birds were singing today, including AMERICAN ROBIN, RED-WINGED
BLACKBIRD, DARK-EYED JUNCO, MARSH WREN, SONG SPARROW, PURPLE FINCH, BEWICK'S
WREN, BROWN CREEPER, GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET, and HOUSE FINCH.

Today was our first day over 60 species this year - 62 to be specific, and
the swallows and American Pipit were new for the year.

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