Hi Tweeters,

Yesterday was time for my own routine maintenance
appointments, no fun, but I got to squeeze in some
birding (after discovering I am shorter than I used to
be, I knew this happens but it sucks nonetheless). I
did not see anything out of the ordinary birdwise but
it was fun get out on a weekday and find out what the
birds are looking at.

At the mouth of the Cedar River finally saw my first
Common Goldeneyes of the fall and only found one
Barrow's up the river a little ways. The Commons were
fairly numerous. Both Greater and Lesser Scaup were
around, I have a tough time with them so always nice
to see them nearby to each other. All of the regular
possible gulls were around including Herring and
Thayer's and a few California's along with the
Glaucous -wings, Mew, Ring-billed and hybrids.
Mallards were munching on dead salmon. It was almost
bitter cold with the wind, I even put on my gloves.


Gene Coulon Park on the other side of the lake is much
more sheltered. At duck island I got to see the
Greater White-fronted Geese that overwinter. They are
interesting to pick through because of different
variations in their facial patterns. One has
yellowish ring in the white portion. I also saw the
fattest Eastern Gray Squirrel I have ever seen there.
An Anna's Hummingbird was singing nearby.

Over in the main part of the park scoping the gulls I
saw a couple of Mew Gulls tilt their heads up to the
sky noticing something, and way up there was a
Cooper's Hawk flying towards the west over the lake.
At the sailboat place a crow was doing what I think of
as a harassing call to something below that it was
watching. I thought it would be a feral cat but it
turned out to be a mink. My first look was brief and
I wasn't sure about mink because the white chin
splotch wasn't very big. Later I got a better look
and the splotch was mostly on the right side of the
chin and was speckled, it did show it's entire self
too and I could see the shorter bottle-brushy tail as
compared to an otter. Also the mink ears are tiny.
That was probably the best study of a mink I have had,
especially since I can count my mink sightings on one
hand. Have to thank the crow for that one. It pays
to see what the birds are looking at.

Kathy
Roosting in S King County


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