Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park Report (Redmond, King Co., WA) 2008-11-06
Date: Nov 6 17:32:18 2008
From: Michael Hobbs - birdmarymoor at verizon.net


Tweets - it was rainy and windy and dark this morning, though not as bad as
it might have been. There were several hours where it wasn't raining much,
and it wasn't too, too cold, and the wind and the rain tended to stay away
from each other somewhat. So while my hat was soaked through, the rest of
me did pretty well. The water level in the lake is up about 5 inches since
last week.

We were joined by a nice couple, the Gurka's from Massachusetts, who stuck
it out through the whole loop, and managed to add to their Washington State
lists. With them, I think we were about 10 people.

The birds seemed to be hoping the weather would blow over and the day would
revert to yesterday's perfection. If so, they were disappointed. But the
result was a whole lot of not much, especially early on. Not much flying,
not much chirping, not much hopping around, not much sitting on exposed
perches. We had a grand total of 7 geese, all Canadas. We did manage 5
species of duck, but 3 of those were seen only in flight. No surprises all
day.

Highlights:

Bufflehead First of Fall, flyby
Common Merganser 2 flying over Dog Meadow
Wilson's Snipe Pea Patch and Rowing Club
Barn Owl Matt and Scott keep finding these early
Townsend's Warbler One near the windmill
Fox Sparrows More ubiquitous than usual
Western Meadowlark 2-3 with starlings in NE corner of the park
Purple Finch In hard-to-see ash trees south of Dog Meadow

The best highlight were the three RIVER OTTERS at the Rowing Club main pond,
giving us outstanding looks. It appeared to be an adult and 2 young.

We managed 51 species.

Next week we start at 7:30.

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