Subject: [Tweeters]: Discovery Park this morning- Eastern Kingbird
Date: Jun 29 22:13:34 2009
From: Kevin Mack - kevin_mack at comcast.net


Hi All,

My wife and I took a walk at Discovery Park this morning at around 6:30 am.
We didn?t have a lot of time, so we made a fairly quick tour of the loop
trail starting and ending at the south parking lot. There were a number of
passerines (CB Chickadees, Bushtits, Song and White-crowned Sparrows,
Spotted Towhees, Cedar Waxwings, etc.) along the short stretch of trail
between the parking lot and the south meadow. When we arrived at the
meadow, it was full of Rufous and Anna?s Hummingbirds fighting over the
first of the fireweed blooms. We had to pause for a moment in the meadow
just to take it all in. While we were watching the tiny combatants, three
Great Blue Herons cruised by heading west. We continued on down to the
beach spotting Brown-headed Cowbirds, House Finches, European Starlings and
more along the way. Both Pacific-slope and Willow Flycatchers were heard
calling in the trees. The beach north of the lighthouse was crawling with
juvenile starlings, but as a small flock of them took flight I caught sight
of a slightly larger bird with a white terminal band on the tail mixed in
with all of the plain brownish-gray starlings. It landed briefly in a tree
by the pond near the beach and both my wife and I exclaimed together,
?Eastern Kingbird!? The kingbird then took flight once more and disappeared
to the north. We continued along the beach spotting a couple River Otters
just offshore and a Great Blue Heron hunting in the shallows. We quickly
finished our loop adding a couple more species to the days list and wishing
that we had more time to spend at the park. The complete list from today is
below.

I have uploaded 9 photos from this mornings trip (including flight shots of
Rufous Hummingbirds) to my website. They can be found in the ?*NEW*?
gallery on my galleries page here:
http://www.goatislandimages.com/photogalleries/photogalleries.html

Also, if you are up for a little levity, I have added two new species to the
?Imaginary? gallery. The ?Blird? you are likely already familiar with, but
you may have never heard of the ?Rufous-sided Crowhee.? :o)

Discovery Park- 06/29/09

American Crow
American Robin
Swainson?s Thrush
Black-capped Chickadee
Bushtit
Wilson?s Warbler
Song Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Spotted Towhee
Cedar Waxwing
Willow Flycatcher
Pacific-slope Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Brown-headed Cowbird
European Starling
Rufous Hummingbird
Anna?s Hummingbird
Great Blue Heron
Western Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull

Happy Birding!

Kevin Mack
Edmonds, WA
www.goatislandimages.com