Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park Report (Redmond, King Co., WA) 2012-05-24
Date: May 24 14:47:44 2012
From: Michael Hobbs - BirdMarymoor at frontier.com


Tweets - maybe the night's rain, the dark clouds, and the weather forecasts
scared people away today. There were just 7 of us today, and we enjoyed a
very fine day of birding. There were clouds and occasional mist, with
moments of drizzle, but quite a bit of sunshine as well. And it was birdy
(as well as rather mosquitoey)

Highlights (including BLACK SWIFT, MacGILLIVRAY'S WARBLER, and LAZULI
BUNTING) are detailed below:

We had a female WOOD DUCK with around 10 of her own ducklings plus 5 HOODED
MERGANSER ducklings, at the Rowing Club pond, a victim of egg dumping.

There were 2 juvenile BALD EAGLES as well as an adult at the lake. The
young may have been just fledged.

The young RED-TAILED HAWK atop the odd-snag nest appears to be fully
feathered, and was trying out its wings, under parental supervision. It
looked rather unsteady up there; I was afraid it would fall off of the nest.

There was a MOURNING DOVE in Snag Row.

Matt saw 3 BARN OWLS while hearing a 4th, around 4:30 a.m. at the model
airplane field.

We had 15+ BLACK SWIFTS foraging over the East Meadow and low over the
Compost Piles. A few VAUX'S SWIFTS were mixed in with swallows over the
slough.

There were plenty of WESTERN WOOD-PEWEES, at least 2-3 WILLOW FLYCATCHERS, a
DUSKY/HAMMONDS FLYCATCHER (annoyingly silent and unresponsive), a heard-only
PACIFIC-SLOPE FLYCATCHER, (with the flycatchers mostly in and near the Big
Cottonwood Forest); and an WESTERN KINGBIRD in the East Meadow.

We had a CASSIN'S VIREO in the cherry trees just northeast of the weir, our
first for 2012. There were also many WARBLING VIREOS.

We had a couple of NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOWS (first for 2012) over the
slough, a handful of CLIFF SWALLOWS near the Compost Piles, as well as the
usual TREE, V-G, and BARN SWALLOWS.

We had nesting BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEES bringing food to nests, including one
family in one of the new boxes at the Community Gardens, and another at the
Rowing Club in a tree. BUSHTITS were visiting a nest in a hawthorn in the
Dog Meadow.

SWAINSON'S THRUSH were singing and calling all over, never seen. CEDAR
WAXWINGS were much more visible, including one pair building a nest in a
hawthorn along the slough.

For warblers, we had one very yellow ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER, 2 or more
MacGILLIVRAY'S WARBLERS (including one which was singing, but which looked
more like a female - maybe a male hatched last year?), good numbers of
COMMON YELLOWTHROAT, YELLOW, and especially WILSON'S WARBLERS, and a few
"Audubon's" YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS around the mansion area.

A male SPOTTED TOWHEE was attending to a barely-fledged juvenile south of
the windmill. A juvenile SAVANNAH SPARROW was chirping along the west edge
of the EAST MEADOW. And there was still one GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROW near the
last dog swim beach.

WESTERN TANAGERS were abundant; we had several sightings and then came
across a flock of ~8. BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAKS were singing and posing all
over. There were 2+ LAZULI BUNTINGS near the east end of Snag Row. And 2+
BULLOCK'S ORIOLES were briefly seen near the 3rd dog swim beach.

For the day, 68 species. WILLOW FLYCATCHER and MACGILLIVRAY'S WARBLER were
reported to me earlier in the week. Besides them, the BLACK SWIFT, NORTHERN
ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW, and LAZULI BUNTING were new for the year, to bring us
to 137 species.

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