Hi Tweets,
My son Alex and I took a trip to some of our favorite birding areas in the Duvall, Carnation, Fall City areas today. While we didn't find anything earthshaking, we did have a few unexpected birds. Along the W. Snoqualmie River Rd. NE near Duvall we found two SEMI-PALMATED PLOVERS sitting on a small island in a frozen pond near the end of this dead-end road. While never very common in winter here, I can't remember finding them this far away from salt water in western Washington. Near this same spot we had a Northern Shrike and a fly-over of 8 Trumpeter Swans. We found an OSPREY near the intersection of SE 316th and 28th SE along the river between Fall City and Carnation...I'll have to check my last fall date for this species, but this caught us by surprise. Though at one-time common in King County, we were also surprised to find a half-dozen increasingly-scarce-in-King-County CALIFORNIA QUAIL in the small cornfield at the intersection of W. Snoqualmie River Rd. SE and SE 19th as we continued to work our way towards Carnation from Fall City. This is generally a good spot for WHITE-THROATED SPARROW...while we didn't see any here we did find one further down the road towards Carnation near the home marked "Dancing Lessons" and "Cooking Lessons". As an earlier post noted, the thrushs were "out" today. While we didn't have many robins, we did have perhaps 30 Varied Thrushs for the day and 2 Hermit Thrushs.
Brien Meilleur
Lake Forest Park, WA
brienm at live.com