Tweets - it was a dismal day at Marymoor. Cloudy, windy, and with a few
rain showers. The birds were mostly absent. Even the residents were scarce
and quiet. The sometimes-fabulous "Compost Piles" featured two or three
Song Sparrows and that was it.

Highlights: None really, but here are a few things of mild interest.

Just above the weir, a RIVER OTTER ran down the bank and into the water,
swimming towards the weir and disappearing into the cattails.

A bit further upstream we got pretty good looks at a 1st-winter male COMMON
GOLDENEYE who was still mostly gray, like a female, but was getting his
white spots on his face and back.

A male RING-NECKED DUCK in the slough at Dog Central was showing his
burgundy neck ring.

A VIRGINIA RAIL responded to clapping at the boardwalk. It was distant.

Two RED-TAILED HAWKS sat side-by-side in a cottonwood east of the East
Meadow. There is a nest within sight of that location, in the cottonwood
row that separates the park from the property with the self-storage
business.

A flock of about 25 WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS, all appearing to be Gambelii
subspecies, and being about half adults and half juveniles, was found just
south of Snag Row just west of the Interpretive Lot in the dog area. We had
a couple of flocks of GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROW as well.

We had some notable misses, most notably Northern Flicker.

Still, the ten of us managed 47 species. Nothing new for the year, except
the River Otter (which brings our 2008 mammal count to 3).

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
== birdmarymoor at verizon.net