Tweets - the rain stopped by 7:30 a.m., so we had a nice morning with
blotchy overcast skies. Not too cold. No wind. Couldn't ask for much
better.

The park is substantially flooded. Flooding begins when the water is just
over 4' at the gauge. Currently, it's about at 6.7', so there's a large
part of the park under 2 1/2 feet of water. We could get no further than
Dog Central on the slough trail, and only to the footbridge on the east side
trail. Much of the Dog Meadow is flooded and closed off, and it was filled
with ducks, geese, and gulls. There's flooding in the grass/gravel parking
lot, in the Pea Patch, and in the Pet Memorial Garden as well. We could
get to the Rowing Club building, but not to their dock. So we were able to
bird only about 1/2 of the slough and none of the lake.

Best birds were a SWAMP SPARROW in the same place it's been seen twice
mid-November - about 100-150 yards downstream of the weir. Then we had a
SECOND SWAMP SPARROW that was calling from the middle of the flooded portion
of the Dog Meadow. It was more brightly marked than the first. So 3 of our
8 Swamp Sparrow sightings ever have been this fall.

Other highlights:

Gr. White-fronted Goose 2 in the flooded parking lot
Green Heron Still at the Rowing Club pond
Northern Shrike Juvenile east of East Meadow
Townsend's Warbler Near concert stage
Evening Grosbeak 1 heard flying overhead

We had 8 species of duck overall, including GADWALL, NORTHERN SHOVELER,
AMERICAN WIGEON, and GREEN-WINGED TEAL that were hanging out on the ponds in
the Dog Meadow with the MALLARDS.

We had 55 species for the day - not bad considering we couldn't bird about
1/3 of our route. I had 3 more species yesterday - Ring-necked Duck,
Western Gull, and Brown Creeper, so 58 species for the week.


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