Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park Report (Redmond, King Co., WA) 2011-04-07
Date: Apr 7 15:03:03 2011
From: Michael Hobbs - BirdMarymoor at frontier.com


Tweets - it was cold and dark and rainy and flooded. It was often hard to
find the birds, and often really hard to see them at all. There were a lot
of species that were "heard-only" for a long time before we finally saw one,
and a few things that were only seen by one or two people.

But there was a LOT out there.

Highlights:

American Wigeon Two east of the East Meadow
BARROW'S GOLDENEYE Female with all-dark bill at lake
Common Loon Three at lake
Green Heron One at Rowing Club
American Kestrel TWO females
Merlin 1 quick flyby
Barn Owl 1 after 6 a.m., model airplane field
SHORT-EARED OWL 1 after 6 a.m., model airplane field
Hairy Woodpecker Near Rowing Club dock
CLIFF SWALLOW 1 at lake, first of the year
Barn Swallow 2-3 over East Meadow
Pacific Wren Still at least 2 singing
Varied Thrush 1 heard near mansion, 1 at Rowing Club

The BARROW'S GOLDENEYE was only our 8th record at Marymoor (and first since
2007), and could easily have gone unnoticed. Ryan Merrill spotted it
amongst a tight group of Common Goldeneye females. The bill was all dark
(unusual for either species at this time of year) but was clearly smaller
than the bills of the Commons. And the head shape consistently had the
steep forehead and "puffy" appearance of a Barrow's.

While we've had COMMON LOON every month of the year except July-September,
April seems to be the time we see them most consistently. November would be
the other good month for them. Three birds, however, is noteworthy.

Pacific Wren apparently don't breed at Marymoor, and tend to clear out by
this time of year. We have only one sighting later than today in the spring
period - April 9, 2003. They show up again in September. Today we had two
singing at quite disparate parts of the park. Maybe with the cold spring,
they'll hang around a while.

We also had a large, pale, black wing-tipped gull that might have been a
Herring Gull, but it was seen only distantly in flight.

We did well with mammals too:

Virginia Opossum 1 dead in the grass at airplane field
American Beaver Matt heard tail slaps near windmill
Muskrat 1 in slough
Townsend's Vole 1 on mansion lawn - great looks
River Otter At least 2 from the lake platform

For the day, 70 species! Earlier in the week, at least 5 additional species
were seen: Cooper's Hawk, Band-tailed Pigeon, Mountain Bluebird, Lincoln's
Sparrow, and Brown-headed Cowbird.

New for the year list this week were Barrow's Goldeneye, Common Loon,
Osprey, American Kestrel, Cliff Swallow, Barn Swallow, Mountain Bluebird,
and Brown-headed Cowbird, to bring the park year list to 99 species.

A good week.

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