Hi Jim and all,



The Seattle CBC includes the Duwamish as a section in the count.? For the last two years, I have led the count in this section.? Thanks this year to Brien Meilleur, Steve Caldwell, Kathy Andrich and my wife Trisha for spending a long but productive day doing the count.? Our boundaries are essentially the West Seattle bridge to the north, the 'big bend' in the river to the south, the freeway to the east and the base of the ridge to the west.? This year?our count yielded 58 species and 2,521 individual birds.? Our count included all your species except Western Grebe.? A few of the additional species we found included:



CACKLING GOOSE

GREEN-WINGED TEAL (a nice flock of forty birds in the 'First Avenue Marsh' which contained well over a hundred ducks amidst whizzing cars and several major arterials)

PIED-BILLED GREBE

KILLDEER

DUNLIN (one confused individual in with a flock of Killdeer, and a flock of 14 found in another location)

WILSON'S SNIPE

WESTERN GULL

THAYER'S GULL

ANNA'S HUMMINGBIRD

BELTED KINGFISHER

RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER

DOWNY WOODPECKER

WESTERN SCRUB-JAY (3)

BROWN CREEPER

BEWICK'S WREN

GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET

RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET

PINE SISKIN



So our data clearly supports your assessment of a surprisingly birdy area.? The birds are there, both in variety and numbers.? ? The difficulty in birding the area is that except for a few fairly obvious locations, the good birding spots are scattered about in industrial or residential areas and take some searching out.? (One example is the old Marra farm that is currently a large pea patch complete with a small stream running along one edge.)? One of the most surprising locations is a row of mature poplars along the trail by the river that for some reason is Downy Woodpecker central.? Last year we had 13 in those trees, and this year the count was 20.? Steve Dang, who acquainted us with the count route last year, indicated he had 30 (!) Downy's in that small stretch of trees in one earlier count.



John Tubbs

Snoqualmie, WA


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Flynn" <merlinmania at comcast.net>
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Friday, January 7, 2011 9:09:50 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] A Tweeters request (and birding in the toxic zone)




Dan, Hal et al.,



Can we please add global warming to the short list of banned subjects on tweeters?? The last thing we need is more heated discussions and nary a mention of birds...



I know some ninny will mention how important this is to birds. I don't say it's not - just that its one of those subjects that will make everyone here more crazy than normal. Myself included.



Please? No really. Pretty please?


*Mandatory Bird Content*

"Birding in the Toxic Zone" is what I have come to call my recent efforts to see what birds are using the Duwamish River area of Seattle. A friend scoffed recently at my attempts to find birds there, but I've actually found it a surprisingly birdy area, and not just for waterbirds (mutant or otherwise). Today I checked T-105 park and Herring House Park. Waterbirds were a bit more common than last month; today's list included:

GADWALL - 4

COMMON GOLDENEYE - 3

BARROW'S GOLDENEYE - 20

RED-BREASTED MERGANSER - 12

WESTERN GREBE - 2

DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT - 12

MEW GULL - 6

GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL - 4



It was the passerines that surprised me today. In the past few months I have been surprised to find Varied Thrush and Yellow-rumped Warbler several times each. Today I had 5 species of sparrow (6 if you count Towhee).

FOX SPARROW - 6

LINCOLN'S SPARROW - 1

WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW - 2

GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROW - 5

SONG SPARROW - 4



Even more surprising was a PURPLE FINCH - it may have come from the greenbelt on the hill to the west. They are uncommon but present throughout SW Seattle. Other nice finds for such an urban, industrial landscape were 1-2 HERMIT THRUSHES, 5 MYRTLE WARBLERS and several GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS.



Thanks to all of the dedicated people who have done habitat restoration and toxics cleanup helping to bring bird life back to this normally forgotten place.



good birding,


Jim Flynn
Seattle, WA



*Mandatory Bird Content*

"Birding in the Toxic Zone" is what I have come to call my recent efforts to see what birds are using the Duwamish River area of Seattle. A friend scoffed recently at my attempts to find birds there, but I've actually found it a surprisingly birdy area, and not just for waterbirds (mutant or otherwise). Today I checked T-105 park and Herring House Park. Waterbirds were a bit more common than last month; today's list included:

GADWALL - 4

COMMON GOLDENEYE - 3

BARROW'S GOLDENEYE - 20

RED-BREASTED MERGANSER - 12

WESTERN GREBE - 2

DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT - 12

MEW GULL - 6

GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL - 4



It was the passerines that surprised me today. In the past few months I have been surprised to find Varied Thrush and Yellow-rumped Warbler several times each. Today I had 5 species of sparrow (6 if you count Towhee).

FOX SPARROW - 6

LINCOLN'S SPARROW - 1

WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW - 2

GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROW - 5

SONG SPARROW - 4



Even more surprising was a PURPLE FINCH - it may have come from the greenbelt on the hill to the west. They are uncommon but present throughout SW Seattle. Other nice finds for such an urban, industrial landscape were 1-2 HERMIT THRUSHES, 5 MYRTLE WARBLERS and several GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS.



Thanks to all of the dedicated people who have done habitat restoration and toxics cleanup helping to bring bird life back to this normally forgotten place.



good birding,


Jim Flynn
Seattle, WA

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