Hey all,

Stopped by the mouth of the Cedar River in Renton this morning, and the sky was full of swallows... as were the trees... and nearly any available perching surface. My best estimate was 1000 swallows. I was able to pick out mostly Violet-Green, Tree and Barn, about half as many Cliff, and a very small percentage of them were Northern Rough-winged. Asked the Boeing folks out on their smoke break if they had seen it like this all week, and it sounds like it was just today. Quite a sight!

The gulls had made their morning commute before I got there, and the ducks were pretty well cleared out as well. I did not check over at Coulon for ducks, but was wanting to relocate the Bufflehead female that appears to have spent the summer on Lake Washington. The only other thing that stood out was a black line out on the water that turned out to be a raft of coots - several hundred packed together.

Happy Birding!

-Tim Brennan
Renton