Subject: [Tweeters] Montlake Fill SAS trip 12/4/10
Date: Dec 4 16:56:44 2010
From: Evan Houston - evanghouston at yahoo.com


Hi Tweeters,

This morning I led a Seattle Audubon field trip to the Montlake Fill, under
sunny skies and calm weather, a nice day though frosty at the start! Sparrows,
warblers, and kinglets were seen foraging at ground-level in the grassy fields,
and the huge masses of waterfowl were out on the bay, nervously flying around as
the local nesting pair of Bald Eagles looked for lunch. It was such a nice day
that I walked around before and after the official trip, and came up with a nice
December total of 61 species. Highlights included:

- Canvasback - about 25 out on the lake
- Wood Duck - 8 at the lagoon
- Eurasian Wigeon - 2 pure males and 1 hybrid (x AMWI) male
- Western Scrub-Jay - still 3 hanging out by the East entrance
- Cedar Waxwing - 7 early, no Bohemians
- American Pipit - 1 flyover
- Orange-crowned Warbler - 1 foraging in the meadow near the burnt lone pine
tree near Yellow-rumps
- Yellow-rumped Warbler - nice group of about 10, only 1 was obviously Myrtle
- Varied Thrush - 2 popped up in Surber Grove
- Lincoln's Sparrow - nice sparrow flock near the warblers, I counted at least 9
Lincoln's total, we had prolonged great looks at some including this one
fluffing itself up more than I had ever seen: http://tinyurl.com/295hhxy
- Western Meadowlark - 1 popped up from west meadow on the final loop

The biggest miss was Canada Goose.

Good birding,
Evan Houston
Seattle, WA