Tweets - The weather really wasn't too bad, with temps starting around 36
and probably rising a bit. We had heavy, quilted overcast skies, but little
wind, and it only misted some and rained on us for a few minutes during a
long morning.

I went to the Seattle Opera last night, and came home late. In my
exhaustion last night, I confused myself and set my alarm too early. As a
result, I had over 2 hours to go owling before the walk began. Most of my
owling attempts were fruitless (Matt saw BARN OWLS while I was elsewhere),
but Matt did lead me over to the east kiosk (Lot D), where a tufted owl
remained sitting on the fence. Matt had presumed it was the Great Horned
Owl that had been reported there a week ago or so. But when we looked at it
closely, we were able to see that it was actually a LONG-EARED OWL. It was
very copacetic, allowing us very long looks. We finally left, with the owl
still on a signpost near the kiosk.

Other highlights:

We had four WHITE-FRONTED GEESE in with CACKLERS in the NE corner of the
park near the baseball fields.

The GREEN HERON was again at the Rowing Club ponds, only today it was at the
south pond.

There were many VIRGINIA RAIL calling, and some tock-tock "song", heard from
the area south of the model airplane field and east of the East Meadow.

There were two NORTHERN SHRIKE, presumably the same juvenile that we've been
seeing each week in the East Meadow, and what appeared to be an adult north
of the grass fields 7-8-9.

We had many great looks at PURPLE FINCH.

For mammals, there were two RIVER OTTER at the lake, and we had a
LONG-TAILED WEASEL at the little lot where we park our cars. That our first
weasel since last June!

Yesterday, I had several additional species, including a Western Grebe, a
Hairy Woodpecker, and a Lincoln's Sparrow.

For the day today, 56 species. For the week, 61. For the year, adding
WEGR, LEOW, and LISP, we're up to 75 species.

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