Hi Everyone,

Penny Rose, Scott Hoskin and I spent the (five star weather!) morning at Gene Coulon Park and the mouth of the Cedar River in Renton (and later at Bellefields Nature Preserve), primarily pondering gulls. There was a good assortment of species and age classes in reasonable numbers by the park and the river mouth, but nothing beyond the usual suspects. I got some good images of a number of birds, but will be posting them later, as my website is currently down.

Perhaps the most interesting situation in the morning was a lengthy and apparently quite serious chase of a Common Goldeneye male by a Herring Gull. We did not see what precipitated the incident, but suddenly here came the Goldeneye, with the Herring Gull in hot pursuit, several times apparently coming very close to (or succeeding at) picking at the duck with its bill during the chase. The chase made a large loop around the area and then a partial second circuit. I got several good shots of this, which I will also post later.

There were plenty of ducks around, including a few Canvasbacks, plus Horned and Western Grebes and one nice Red-necked Grebe. When we first arrived at Coulon, there were at least 32 Great Blue Herons (!) roosting on some lakeside structure between the park and the Cedar River mouth.

We were also treated to an entirely different sort of birding experience at the Cedar River mouth, courtesy of Boeing. The movable gates that normally define the walkway from the parking lot to the observation area and prevent people from straying onto Boeing property were taken down by two very serious-looking security guards who then took up positions nearby. They moved their bird - a 737 (destined for Southwest, based on the start of the paint job) - with a tow vehicle out of the factory and over the bridge connecting to the airport. There isn't a lot of room to spare during this operation, even for that relatively small plane - the right wing passed over our heads and extended beyond the observation deck fence.

At Bellefields, the highlights were two river otters in the slough, and a very nice White-throated Sparrow that Scott found in the center 'meadow' area, vigorously foraging around a thicket along with multiple Spotted Towhees and Song Sparrows. I got some passable images of this bird as well.

What a spectacular day after all the recent monsoons!


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