Hi Everybody,

Yesterday and today I drove home from Redmond to Snoqualmie through Marymoor Park, then over Novelty Hill Road and through the Snoqualmie Valley. Nothing unusual was seen, but perhaps a few things might be of interest to folks. First, today in Marymoor, I counted 22 KILLDEER just driving through - feeding in several of the open fields. Additionally, the largest gravel parking lot had RING-BILLED GULL (about a dozen) and a similar number of MALLARD. The geese are also starting to be regular now, but I saw no Cackling Geese today, just Canada Geese.

In the Snoqualmie Valley, the rains are starting to top off the ponds, and are beginning to flood the typically wetter fields, encouraging more movement of ducks. Sykes Lake has had a lone WESTERN GREBE the last two days, in addition to the normal complement of PIED-BILLED GREBE, DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT and various duck species. Raptors are also starting to be more apparent in the valley - today yielded at least five RED-TAILED HAWKS without leaving the car. Yesterday and today, two full adult BALD EAGLES were perched in the large snags along the Snoqualmie River to the east of Carnation Farm. Yesterday near Fall City there were two COMMON RAVEN and a NORTHERN HARRIER.

The field to the south of NE 60th west of Highway 203 that hosted both varieties of Swans last winter has been converted into turf (from corn) so we'll see where the swans show up this year. There are several very large fields of corn planted south of Tall Chief golf course on West Snoqualmie River Road that should attract a lot of birds after harvest. The Snoqualmie sewage plant settling pond had NORTHEN SHOVELER, MALLARD and a dozen or so GREEN-WINGED TEAL. Few WOOD DUCK were seen today - perhaps most have moved out with the weather systems of the last couple of days. The pond behind the IGA store in Snoqualmie Ridge had two HOODED MERGANSER females this morning.

In the home backyard (currently being completely revamped to eliminate almost all the lawn and converted to a woodland garden), my winter-regular WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW have been joined the last two days by a nice tan-striped WHITE-THROATED SPARROW and a couple of GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROW.

John Tubbs
Snoqualmie, WA
johntubbs at comcast.net
www.tubbsphoto.com