Hi Everyone:
This is an embarrassingly late thank you to the Seattle folks that wrote or told about the Bohemian Waxwings, Franklin's Gull, Tufted Duck and other great birds in Seattle and on the Eastside the last couple of weeks.
After reading the wonderful Tweeters reports, and talking to Woody Wheeler re The Fill, and to Scott Ramos re Magnuson Park, 9 of us from Rainier Audubon (south King Cnty) headed north to several NE Seattle sites on a field trip last Sat, Nov 27. Our first stop was at the back of MOHAI, the Museum of History and Industry. We viewed the "rookery" of DC Cormorants perching in the tall deciduous trees across the Montlake Cut. I counted 20 of them in two trees, and they were constantly flying in and out. They are there in the mornings. We walked out a ways onto Marsh Island and saw Wood Ducks, Common Mergansers, and other waterfowl. Two Yellow-rumped Warblers were fly-catching close to us below eye level. I guess there were insects flying, although the temp was only 40 deg. We missed a probable tan-striped White-throated Sparrow that I had seen behind MOHAI by the cannon the week before.
>From there we headed north to Magnuson Park, stopping in the park to view the trails up to the "Promentory". Earlier, Scott Ramos had said that the Promentory is a great place to get passerines in the mornings at Maggie. After you enter the park on 65th St, drive straight out to the boat launch parking lot, turn right, and park at the far end of the lot on the right. Walk back in toward the hill, and find the trails. Our group got to see a nice juv Cooper's Hawk there. Then we headed north to the beaches, and the parking lot at Kite Hill. BOHEMIAN WAXWINGS had been reported by John Puschock the day before. BOWA's are extremely rare in King Cnty. Until John's find, they were listed as abundance code 5 (less than 5 records). When our group got there, John was there w/ other birders. The birds were flying around in a tight flock. We decided to eat lunch at a picnic table by the lake, and wait for the birds to return. John waved wildly at us and we rushed up to the Kite Hill parking lot where our group got to see 15 BOWA's perched right above us in a tree. They would occasionally fly out to the small bushes w/ red berries, that I call Hawthorns but everyone else calls crab apples. The bushes have berries and thorns. Wow, those birds were life birds for a number of our participants! Thanks so much, John!
We walked down to the bath house and stood in the walk-through to get out of the wind. We were observing the birds on the swim dock, and in the water. On the dock we saw 1 Mew Gull, several California and Ring-billed Gulls, and one Herring Gull. We heard from other birders that the Franklin's Gull and Tufted Duck had been seen lately at Marymoor and Juanita Beach. But they might be seen back at Magnuson again, I think.
>From Magnuson, we drove the approx. 2 miles over to Montlake Fill. I had copied a map of the fill from Connie Sidle's book, In My Nature. What a great book. Connie also posted a website w/ a smaller map of the fill at http://www.constancypress.com/publications/inmynature/fill/ . Thanks, Connie! On an earlier scouting trip, Woody Wheeler had marked all the places on the map where we should look for Virginia Rail (we heard two on Saturday), and for various other birds. We made a quick loop thru the fill to orient folks to the area that late afternoon, and as we returned we saw 6-8 Golden-crowned Kinglets, at least 3 Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and other songbirds that Blair Bernson had described the day before on Tweets. The sun was shining, and the birds were flitting all about right down near the ground very close to us. We were within 50 feet of the kiosk, close to CUH. Wow! Temps were still cold, but there was no rain, and the birds were super-active.
Despite the cold, we made a quick trip to the Arboretum, and viewed areas around the visitor's center, and the trailhead to Foster Island where we saw and heard a couple of more species. It was a great day, and our people really enjoyed the trip. Thanks to all of you who wrote about the birds, helped with scouting, and to John who led us to the Bohemian Waxwings!
Yours, Carol Schulz
Des Moines
carol.schulz50 at gmail