Hi Tweets -

My wife and I took advantage of the wonderful weather on Sunday and visited Magnuson Park and the Samish Flats. At Magnuson, we located the Bohemian Waxwing in the group of trees to the right of the trail near the maintenance entrance adjacent to the P & R lot. If you follow Carol Stoner's directions, you'll find a heavy concentration of hawthorns directly off the trail and I've located the flock in this spot on my previous three visits. The Bohemian is clearly larger than the Cedars and has rufous markings near the eye and undertail.

A photograph of the Bohemian Waxwing is available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rparsons/2191250553/

Additional photographs of the Cedar Waxwings that were present can be found off the link above.

In the afternoon, we drove to the Samish Flats and stuck to the Samish T (where Samish Island Rd meets Bayview-Edison Rd.) While we saw several Red-tailed Hawks, multiple Bald Eagles, Northern Harriers (male and female), a Cooper's Hawk (at the WDFW parking area around sunset), several Great Blue Herron, the highlight for the day was the 9 Short-eared Owls that were having a dispute with the Northern Harriers in the large field opposite of Bent-Needle Ln as the sun was setting. Some Trumpeter Swans were also present in the nearby fields along Field Rd.

Hopefully many folks were able to enjoy the nice weather today and here's looking forward to next weekend. :-)

Raymond
rayshome1 at hotmail.com