Tweets - even when it rains, it pours. Eleven of us slogged through some
soaking rain at times this morning while making our way around the park. It
wasn't terribly pleasant, I must say. Nor were there a lot of birds to see.
However, there were some good highlights, and our species count was
excellent.

Highlights:

Gr. White-fronted Goose 10 in the grass/gravel parking lot C
Cackling Goose 2 large flocks overhead + 3 in lot C
Northern Pintail Flock of 20+, some wigeon???
Greater Scaup 1 at lake, First Of Fall
Bufflehead 2 males at lake, FOF
Ring-necked Pheasant Male at Compost Piles
Green Heron One at Rowing Club
Sharp-shinned Hawk One at Rowing Club
Cooper's Hawk One in Oregon Ash along slough
MERLIN Again one seen (3 times)
Barn Owl Brian had one early
Short-eared Owl One in East Meadow about 7:40
Hairy Woodpecker One west of mansion
Northern Shrike 1, East Meadow and north of soccer fields
Winter Wren 1 heard near east end of boardwalk, FOF
American Pipit Heard some over grass soccer fields
AM. TREE SPARROW One at Compost Piles
Pine Siskin First large flocks of fall

Rain makes birding difficult, what with wet optics and cold hands. We were
a bit reluctant to bring binocs up to the eyes, especially if looking
upwards. Using them often didn't do much good anyway, due to water droplets
and fog. So the flock of ducks flying by might not have gotten the best
scrutiny possible. One of the ducks was clearly a drake pintail. The others
went unidentified. In my experience, Northern Pintail and American Wigeon
will often fly together and are hard to tell apart in flight, so it could
well have been a mixed flock, though only pintail made the list.

The AMERICAN TREE SPARROW was hanging out with White-crowned and
Golden-crowned Sparrows at the Compost Piles (east of Lot G). This is the
same location where we had one for six weeks back in Jan/Feb.

For the day, 64 species!!! Admittedly, the owls were before the start of
the walk, and six were heard-only, but still...

We also had a couple of deer, and a dead Opossum at the Pea Patch.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
== http://www.marymoor.org/BirdBlog.htm
== New cell # 425-301-1032
== birdmarymoor at verizon.net