Hello all,

I started my morning with a pre-dawn visit to Marymoor park where I've
tried unsuccessfully to find one of the barn owls reported before
Michael's Thursday walks. This time I was finally successful and got
an extended view of one hunting the fields west of the flight field
just as the sky began to lighten.

After leaving work a little early I headed to North Creek Park. I've
noticed that certain places get a ton of action from birders and other
places don't get much, if any, so I picked this as a place I was
familiar with that had only been mentioned only a few times that I can
find in the Tweeters archive and only has a couple reports on Ebird
from the previous year and none from this time of year and none from
March so it was ripe for testing the waters. For those who haven't
been (this is apparently almost all of you), North Creek Park is park
just off highway 527 directly south of Mill Creek in south Snohomish
County. The habitat is made up of almost exclusively of wetlands and
there is a 3/4mi boardwalk that connects the south end and the north
end. I wore rubber boots, anticipating that I would need to do
significant wading from my experience last year, but it turns out they
recently rebuilt the entire boardwalk this winter and it is no longer
sinking.

When I arrived I noticed large numbers of birds calling from the high
places in several nearby fir trees. Upon closer investigation, I found
several RED BREASTED NUTHATCHES and eventually a RED CROSSBILL feeding
from Douglas Fir cones. I moved towards the boardwalk, but was
distracted by a beautiful SONG SPARROW welcoming spring with its
beautiful song as well as a male ANNAS HUMMINGBIRD scolding me from a
small tree.

As I moved down through the boardwalk the wetlands felt deceptively
dead. The peat bog pond spur of the trail did have several birds I
couldn't identify by song so I attempted to locate them visually for a
bit, paying attention to every movement of every reed with little
success until I was startled by a movement too large to be a bird. I
was thrilled to see a large RIVER OTTER appear and begin fishing in a
small area of standing water. I don't recall having ever seen a river
otter in my life, at least recently, so this was quite a thrill.
Eventually I also located my mystery singing birds which were,
unsurprisingly, MARSH WRENS.

Moving on down the boardwalk I was unsurprised to see a handful of
VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOWS, but I was surprised when looked farther down
the trail and saw what appeared be an explosion of swallows farther
down. The air above the marsh actually appeared to shimmer as their
white bellies flashed almost like a distant fireworks display. Trying
to count them would be a near textbook definition of futility, but I
would estimate at least fifty birds were present and there were plenty
of visible insects to feast on.

As I made my way to the end of the trail, I confirmed a RED-TAILED
HAWK soaring high over head and put glass on what I assumed was a
second one nearby. To my surprise, the second bird turned out to
actually be a ROUGH LEGGED HAWK. I was shocked to see this, since I
grew up around two miles from here and never recall seeing anything
but red tails in the area. I retraced my steps and encountered my
third raptor of the day, a NORTHERN HARRIER that seemed to be looking
for a spot to relax in the sun.

A gentlemen stopped me on my way out and asked me about a BALD EAGLES
nest that I hadn't noticed in the high fir trees on the northeast
corner of the park. A second gentleman, named John, was actually
bringing a scope down to take a look and invited me to join him. There
was indeed a nest and in fact an eagle was sitting on it and,
according to the gentleman has been for over a week. I've been hoping
to find an Eagles nest in the area, so this was quite a treat. John
and I had a long discussion about various things while monitoring the
eagles nest and enjoying nice views of some very healthy looking PINE
SISKINS feeding above us in a tree. During this time the ANNAS
HUMMINGBIRD I had encountered earlier was moving from tree to tree
nearby, providing good looks. Eventually I got to see something I had
never witnessed in person, the dive display. It was more impressive
than I could've imagined and on any other day would've been the clear
highlight.

All in all, an extremely successful first trip to North Creek.

On the way home I dropped by Scriber Lake in Lynnwood. I'd been there
yesterday, without my camera, and of course I had Golden Crowned
Kinglets and a Downy Woodpecker both stationary within ten feet of me.
Today nothing would come within twenty five yards with the exception
of a female ANNAS HUMMINGBIRD that was feeding on blossoms that had
not yet opened of what appeared to be a a salmon berry or similar
bush. There were LESSER SCAUPS and RING-NECKED DUCKS in the lake
itself.

Highlights are on my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beastofexmoor/

Josh
Lynnwood, WA