Tweets - except for it being cold enough that we were all wearing sweaters
and jackets (and some were wearing gloves) it otherwise felt like a July
visit. Quite quiet, nothing too surprising in terms what species we saw,
lots of baby birds. But we were still rewarded for our diligence in making
the usual rounds.

The first highlight was a BULLOCK'S ORIOLE nest, with both parents bringing
food back to squeaking babies inside. The nest was just east of the 3rd dog
swim beach in a cottonwood. This is only the 3rd time we've found an oriole
nest at the park, the others being in 2004 and 2006 over at the Rowing Club.
(Two other years we've seen adults feeding fledged juveniles, so they
probably nested at least near the park those years, if not somewhere we
didn't find within the park).

Our second highlight was truly unexpected. At the south end of the dog area
we heard the squeaking of a juvenile bird begging. We were shocked to find
a baby BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD being fed by at least two BUSHTITS. Looking a
little bit into the literature, this appears to be extremely rare (10
reports as of 1989, according the article cited below), with most of those
being documented by examination of the eggs within the nest. Bushtits
actually feeding a cowbird may be even rarer, though the authors indicate
that the host providing food to a cowbird may not be the same species as the
hatching host. I have a hard time imagining a cowbird being able to leave
an egg in a bushtit nest, though it apparently is possible. See
http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/wb/v21n01/p0035-p0036.pdf

Other highlights:

Wood Duck Quite a few ducklings, wide range of sizes
Common Merganser One in the slough as we left the park
Band-tailed Pigeon Many flyovers, some good looks.
Barn Owl Matt may have heard babies in the windmill
Rufous Hummingbird Notably large numbers - mostly juvies
Y.-rumped Warbler Male "Audubon's" south of windmill, singing
LAZULI BUNTING Male singing north of fields 7-8-9

The Band-tailed Pigeons were a life bird (or at least a life-look) for
Julie, a visiting birder from Houston. It's always fun to get someone a
lifer.

Amazingly, the group managed to find 57 species today, though few of us had
more than 50 species on our personal lists.

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