Tweets ? thank goodness the wind died down at sunrise, for there was horizontal rain at times before that. We did get rained on, at times, but without the wind it wasn?t too bad. Temps around 50 degrees also tempered the discomfort. And we had long stretches without rain at all. Not a bad morning, weatherwise, considering what we could have had. For birds, it was a good day for ducks and geese, and we managed to find most of the other usual stuff.

In an attempt to catch the geese and gulls before they flew off, we ended up pulling a u-turn and doing the walk in reverse.

Best bird was a BARN OWL that we accidentally flushed out of Snag Row while walking between the Pea Patch and the grass soccer fields. Best bird for Matt was a NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL that he heard tooting near the mansion at 5 a.m.

Other highlights:

Gr. Wh.-fronted Goose Four with huge flock of Cacklers
Wood Duck Pair in slough
Northern Pintail Sharon had a couple fly over
Lesser Scaup One male, first for 2012!
Common Merganser Maybe 5-6
Western Grebe A couple out on the lake
Hairy Woodpecker On a branch over the boardwalk
Northern Shrike North of fields 7-8-9
Varied Thrush One near mansion
Yellow-rumped Warbler Amit had two in Snag Row

For the day, I think we came up with 59 species total.

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