Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park Report (Redmond, King Co., WA) 2008-10-09
Date: Oct 9 19:32:19 2008
From: Michael Hobbs - birdmarymoor at verizon.net


Tweets - a very interesting day at Marymoor today. It was cool, and the fog
was above us in the morning, clearing somewhat by mid-morning.

Looking through past data, it's very clear that the peak of fall raptor
migration is this week, the 2nd week of October. While we didn't have any
falcons today (we've had falcons about half of the years during the 2nd week
in October), we made up for it with other raptors:

OSPREY One flying out over the lake
Bald Eagle At least 2 adults
Northern Harrier 1-2 (two disparate sightings)
Sharp-shinned Hawk 2+
Cooper's Hawk 3+, MANY sightings

Independently, Scott and Ed (up from Stellacomb) had sightings of single
BARN OWL early. Conceivably the same bird.

Then Scott and I walked down the path to the south end of the East Meadow,
pre-sunrise. The last two weeks we'd seen fresh feathers from American
Robin, and I was just about to alert Scott to the possibility that some
raptor might snag a Robin for breakfast when that's exactly what happened.
A large SHARP-SHINNED HAWK flew down from a tree and nailed an AMERICAN
ROBIN right next to the path about 15 yards ahead of us. It mantled over
the bird for a minute or so, then flew off with it to cover. A couple of
minutes later, we saw a Sharpie nearby again, possibly the same bird. Maybe
it lost its prey, maybe it cached its prey, or maybe it was a different
Sharpie.

We had a NORTHERN HARRIER about 7:25, flying north across the grass soccer
fields. About 9:00, we had a Harrier land in the large snags east of the
bend in the boardwalk. Could have been the same bird, but who knows. Just
before the Harrier came in to the snag, there had been a large COOPER'S HAWK
there, one of many Cooper's sightings.

We had a juvenile RED-TAILED HAWK land in a tree *right* next to our cars to
start the official walk. When we returned to our cars 4.5 hours later, the
same hawk was on a low post nearby eating a vole, and giving us great looks.

Non-raptor highlights:

Western Grebe 2-3 on lake
Hairy Woodpecker 1 on unusually small branches
Winter Wren 1 just before lake platform
Varied Thrush 1 flyover, either with
others or with AMRO
Orange-crowned Warbler 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler Ubiquitous
BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK 1, VERY late, near the weir
Pine Siskin With HOFI and AMGO at
Compost Piles

Back to accipiters, we had a broad mix of adults and immatures, with both
small and large representatives of both species, making it quite clear that
we weren't just seeing the same few over and over. Snag Row featured at
least a daring juvenile COOPER'S HAWK that was mixing it up with crows and
an adult male SHARP-SHINNED HAWK further west. In all, we had accipiter
sightings about once every 20 minutes all morning.

For the day, 57 species.

BTW - my Marymoor Bird Blog appears to be non-functional right now. I will
be trying to get it fixed tomorrow, and will post some photos then.

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