Well, to be honest, Birding While Sick would be a better title.? Today is the 48th anniversary of?my wife's and?my first date, with each other that is.? We are both fighting colds and have been for awhile.? It is raining out.? What to do?? This morning we birded from our living room window.? Then we got the idea of car birding in the Snoqualmie Valley.? The intention was to only get out of the car to get some of the 50 cent cookies at the Carnation IGA.? I violated this a couple times, but only briefly.? We drove a figure eight with Fall City being the southern most point, the Monroe Honor Farm being the northern most point and Carnation being the cross over point.? Our Big Little Day of birding in the Snoqualmie Valley was wonderful, i.e. we had a lot of fun.? We intend to repeat it often with more time out of the car, weather and health permitting.? Here are the results.? There were more species that could have been identified, but
darkness due to rain and sunset?came early.
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Lake Joy:? 2 Anna's Hummingbirds, 1 Black-capped Chickadee, 15 Bufflehead, 13 Canada Geese, 2 Chestnut-backed Chickadees, 10 Dark-eyed Juncos, 23 European Starlings, 1?Lesser Scaup, 7 Mallards, 6 Mourning Doves, 2 Northern Flickers, 1 Pied-billed Grebe, 7 Pine Siskins, 1 Red-breasted Nuthatch, 14 Red-winged Blackbirds, 15 Ruddy Ducks, 1 Song Sparrow, 2 Spotted Towhees, 3 Steller's Jays
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North Carnation:? 1 House Sparrow, 25 Brewer's Blackbirds (they sure like that dairy farm), 20 European Starlings (they like it also), 1 Red-tailed Hawk, 2 Mallards, 40 Canada Geese
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Carnation Library:? 8 Red-winged Blackbirds, 1 Northern Flicker
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Tolt-McDonald Park:? 2 Mallards, 19 European Starlings, 1 Red-tailed Hawk, 1 Steller's Jay, 1 Spotted Towhee, 1 Black-capped Chickadee
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Between Carnation and Fall City via the West Valley Road and back via Highway 203:? 5 Dark-eyed Juncos, 2 Mallards, 100 Canada Geese, 2 Cackling Geese, 2 Bufflehead, 1 American Crow, 1 River Otter, 5 Trumpeter Swans
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Fall City:? 4 American Crows, 1 American Robin (haven't seen one of those for awhile)
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Chinook Bend Natural Area:? 7 Gadwalls, 4 Northern Shovelers, 1 Black-capped Chickadee
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Sikes Lake:? 200 (?) Mallards, 1 American Wigeon,?3 Pied-billed Grebes, 50 American Coots, 3 Double-crested Cormorants? (It was raining hard and dark due to overhanging clouds.? There were a lot of birds out there that we could not ID.)
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Monroe Honor Farm:? 100 Trumpeter Swans, 1 Great Blue Heron, 1 Bufflehead? (Now it was dark because the sun was setting.? Again, there were birds that we could not ID because they were dark silhouettes on the water.)
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Hank Heiberg
Lake Joy
Carnation, WA
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