Tweets - what a glorious day to be out. Even an hour before sunrise, the
full moon, shining through thin overcast onto frosty fields, made it bright
enough to read. And it was frosty - 28 degrees at 7:30. We had to deal
with some fog from 7:30 until about 8:00, but then it cleared off nicely,
leaving us with a mostly windless day with some sun, and crisp, clear air.
It wasn't very birdy early, but with a large group of birders (18), we
managed to find quite a bit by the end. Along the way, we had some nice
looks at a few birds as well.

Highlights:

We had a flock of about 500 CACKLING GEESE, comprised of several subspecies,
*inside* one of the baseball diamonds in the NE corner of the park. Amongst
them were two GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GEESE, and probably the same BRANT I saw
yesterday.

Matt, Natalie, and Mark saw three (presumed) TRUMPETER SWANS fly overhead.

We had good (for this winter) duck diversity, if not high numbers, with 1
WOOD DUCK, a few AMERICAN WIGEON, MALLARDS, a single female GREEN-WINGED
TEAL, four BUFFLEHEAD, three COMMON GOLDENEYE flying, three HOODED
MERGANSER, one or more male COMMON MERGANSER flying, Still, pathetically
low numbers.

The GREEN HERON was again tucked in along the east edge of the Rowing Club
pond.

We had three different COOPER'S HAWKS, two adults and one juvenile.

A MERLIN streaked across the river at Dog Central and flew though trees
loaded with robins. Later we saw it fly across the Dog Meadow heading east.

We had one HAIRY WOODPECKER in an ash tree.

We had a not-terribly-cooperative NORTHERN SHRIKE in the East Meadow, which
gave us a few views.

A COMMON RAVEN was being harassed by crows NE of the mansion.

We also had a RIVER OTTER well out on the lake.

For the day, 59 species, though that number is somewhat inflated by birds
seen only by one or two of the 18 of us.

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