Subject: [Tweeters] Female Mountain Bluebird at Lake Sammamish State Park,
Date: Nov 22 14:20:50 2010
From: Sharon Cormier-Aagaard - scormieraa001 at hotmail.com



This very cold and snowy morning, Stan and I met with 5 very hardy, dedicated birders from Seattle Audubon and Eastside Audubon at Lake Sammamish State Park. It was our monthly bird walk from 8 am to noon. Forty-eight out of the 49 species seen were the usual winter birds for this Park, the highlights being one Ruddy Duck, one Horned Grebe, an adult Cooper's Hawk, one Red-breasted Sapsucker tending it's sap wells, 6 Varied Thrush, and 3 Yellow-rumped Warblers. The most delightful surprise of the morning was seeing a female Mountain Bluebird! We spotted her at Tibbits Beach, where she was perching and flycatching off the corner of various sign posts and a railing and foraging in the grass and along the lake edge. We were fortunate to get to watch her for about 10 minutes, and got good scope views before she flew off in a southerly direction. Hopefully, she'll reach more suitable weather soon. The temperatures stayed in the low 30's all morning, with snow off and on, and thankfully NO wind! It turned out to be a great morning of good bird watching. Afterwards, we made our traditional stop in Issaquah at "Rock n Roll Burger" for really GOOD burgers (beef, chicken or veggie). You should check this place out!

Sharon Cormier-Aagaard
Bellevue, WA
scormieraa001 at hotmail.com