Hey all,

Wednesday evening 4:00 I made a quick stop to Coulon Park in Renton, hoping to find a large flock of Canvasbacks to pick through for a Redhead - (no luck there, and if I don't find one this winter, I'm willing to call that my nemesis bird... if only becuase I'm a redhead...but back to the point...). Large numbers of Buffleheads were finally back (50) as well as a Barrow's Goldeneye, and a huge flock of what seemed to be a mix of Greater and Lesser Scaup. It was staarting to get dark, so I did a quick peek around the rest of the water between Bird Island and the log booms to the east, and I spotted a loon. It had no white coloring around the eye, and was extensively dark on the flanks. It was swimming away from me most of the time, so I went around to the dock that encloses the swimming area - still not great viewing but I never saw any white extending into the neck, and had 2-3 glimpses where it seemed to have the clean straight white/dark line down the neck. It got a little dark, so I called it an evening, but felt pretty good calling it a Pacific Loon.

Apologies for not posting earlier - I had wanted to see if I could relocate it this morning to get a view in better lighting, although I wasn't free to make it out. It was headed over towards the log booms as the light was leaving, and would hopefully be out there today. Would love to hear if anyone relocates it today - it's an unusual enough bird to find on the lake, although probably still second to the Long-Tailed Duck that was out there 3-4 years back!

Happy birding!

Tim Brennan
Renton