Tweets ? we went out on Wednesday this week because of Thanksgiving. The weather report was inauspicious, but things could have been worse. In fact, we didn?t get rain until 9:30, and had only about 1 hour of hard rain during the 5 hours I was there. But it was blowy (10-15 mph gusts at times). Thankfully, temps were in the low 40?s, so we didn?t freeze.

Because of the weather, I dawdled on my way to the park, figuring owling was a lost cause. I didn?t arrive at the East Meadow parking lot until right at 7:00 a.m., and it was pretty bright out by then, and windy. I was kind of shocked (but delighted) to see two BARN OWLS flying around actively hunting, giving me good looks. I never even bothered to get out of my car, but instead just watched from there for about five minutes. Then I decided to drive over to the model airplane field, where I immediately spotted a SHORT-EARED OWL that came really close to my car, giving outstanding looks. As I drove back towards the west side of the park at 7:11, I could see the Short-eared had swung over to the East Meadow, where there was still at least 1 Barn Owl flying around. I expect both settled down for the day before 7:15.

That was by far the best highlight of the day for me; it was a good day for ducks and gulls, but really quiet for passerines, with many expected species missing from our lists, or else just barely seen. We didn?t get a BEWICK?S WREN until just before noon as we approached our cars at the Rowing Club!

The recent rains have flooded a good portion of the grass/gravel parking lot just north of the grass soccer fields. All day long it was filled with MALLARDS and CANADA GEESE, as well as a few gulls, plus two AMERICAN WIGEON, at least two GADWALL, some KILLDEER, and a few CACKLING GEESE. I could easily imagine other ducks showing up in this ?pond?.

We also had some huge flocks of ducks high over the park (very unusual), that appeared to be mixed flocks of dabblers. We did pick out NORTHERN SHOVELER and NORTHERN PINTAIL among what were probably mostly Mallards and Wigeon.

Other highlights:

Sharp-shinned Hawk Over weir, having trouble with the wind
Western Gull Sharon had one near the duck puddle
California Gull Scott had one near the duck puddle
Lincoln?s Sparrow One at the Compost/Dirt Piles
?SLATE-COLORED? Junco Really nice looks at the Compost/Dirt Piles

The Rowing Club had a pretty nice collection of birds, including a RING-NECKED DUCK, three HOODED MERGANSERS, a BELTED KINGFISHER, and a WILSON?S SNIPE.

Things we missed for the day included Cooper?s Hawk, Merlin (which has been quite regular recently), Northern Shrike, Steller?s Jay, Varied Thrush, White-crowned Sparrow, and Purple Finch.

But still, we managed 55 species.

== Michael Hobbs
== www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
== BirdMarymoor at frontier.com