Tweets,

The King County Big Day competition continues! May 4 a team including Michael Hobbs, Matt Bartels, MaryFrancis Mathis, Matt Dufort, Tom Mansfield and several others set a new King County Big Day record of 126, breaking our record of 124 set last year. So the gauntlet was thrown down.

Yesterday Matt Dufort joined me in an attempt to reclaim the record. The other volunteers thought better of it. The weather started out a bit nasty with wind and drizzle until dawn, but was nice though cloudy and cool the rest of the day, apparently optimal for a late influx of migrants. No such luck. It was decidedly slower than Saturday, though we nevertheless managed to tie the record at 126. Two years ago our teams also tied, but at the old standard of 112.

Our route begins in West Seattle owling (the Western Screech responded despite the wind), then the Montlake Fill, Discovery Park, Kenmore, Duvall to Carnation, Snoqualmie, Auburn to Kent, and Fauntleroy to Duwamish Head (220 miles total). Having missed Pileated Woodpecker everywhere else we returned to Discovery Park just before sunset to check the nest site and had one call and fly over. At this point our total stood at 126 so we thought we had a chance to pull ahead if we could spot the Discovery Park Barn Owl after dark. So with a burger and a beer under our belts we returned, but gave up the chase at 10 PM, still at 126.

As is usual with these efforts we miss birds that should have been there but which refused to reveal themselves (e.g., Bullock's Oriole, Yellow-breasted Chat), but also stumble on birds quite by chance that had one looked briefly the other way would have been missed. By my count, 23 of our 126 species were such "gifts of the bird gods." An additional 16 were single sightings, several staked out.

Surprises included Varied Thrush and Western Kingbird at Discovery Park (which we learned about from Penny Rose's Big Day birding group), Barred Owl (at DP), a flock of Sanderlings with a single Western Sandpiper off West Point, a Cassin's Vireo and a Ring-billed Gull at Kenmore, and a female Black Scoter off Lincoln Park. Particularly enjoyable were the Sora at Montlake Fill, Lazuli Bunting at the Green River NRA in Kent, the Peregrine with two chicks at Snoqualmie Falls, two American Bitterns, a clean sweep of swallows, a silent Olive-sided Flycatcher at Discovery Park, the staked out American Kestrel along Willow Road south of Woodinville, a single Red-necked Grebe off Lincoln Park, and great looks at Rhinoceros Auklets close off the West Point light.

Gene Hunn
18476 47th Pl. NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
enhunn323 at comcast.net