Subject: [Tweeters] more on yesterday's Bellevue-Eastgate Snow Geese
Date: Oct 17 05:20:03 2012
From: Pterodroma at aol.com - Pterodroma at aol.com


Amazing morning and really good karma in the bird world yesterday! Since
first mentioning my early morning 'yard first' Snow Geese, reports came in
from all around the Puget Sound area, both sides, and SW Washington too.
And not just Snow's, lots of Cackling and a few White-fronted too! Clearly,
a widespread movement of geese on the post-frontal heels of the season's
first good wind/rain event. And for me, yet another Snow Geese yard
sighting! At 0740hrs, I was under the car port putting my walking shoes on and
ready to 'board' the car for the short 5-minute hop over to the Lake Hills
Greenbelt (LHG) and my morning 3-mile 'power bird walk', and I hear more Snow
Geese overhead. My bins were already around my neck ready for LHG, so it
was just a simple few steps, look straight up, and see a perfect "V"
formation of ~140 Snow Geese maybe 3-4,000 feet straight up heading due west.
Same or different, dunno ... if same, maybe still trying to figure out the
I-90/405 interchange :-)), but probably yet another given the number of other
tweeter-reader replies and reports of Snow Geese received, most
privately, upon my return home. Thanks(!) you all for the reaffirming feedback and
I am pleased to see that yesterday's Snow Geese and others wasn't just an
isolated event, rather one noticed and shared by many.

Almost but not quite to be outdone by the Snow Geese and back home
mid-morning after the LHG walk, I made up a cup of hot chocolate and went to sit
out on the back porch when out popped a Hermit Thrush from under the still
lush rich and all summer long blooming red Salvias (hummingbird favorites!)
just a few feet away. Only the 2nd time for a Hermit Thrush here in the
yard with the only previous record nearly 19 years ago (Dec 3, 1993). So,
all things considered, first Snow Geese, a record high October LHG 'power
bird walk' record of 48 species which btw included two westbound high fly-over
flocks of Cackling Geese in keeping with other reports, the Hermit
Thrush, the yard resident and typically noisy Merlin pair still around, plus an
absolutely dazzling noon-time adult Bald Eagle seen from the north front
window making a close flyby and lit off in the brilliant sun against a
spectacular sky full of dramatic boiling convergence zone cumulus, an awesome good
karma filled morning and one of this caliber I haven't had in a long long
time! Sometimes the best things in life can be had without really going
anywhere.

LHG 'power bird walk'? What's that exactly you may wonder? It's #1 and
foremost for the exercise, #2 whatever birds I might happen to see and/or
hear along the way with little to no dilly-dally, otherwise, it defeats the
purpose of #1. More about that later and after the end of the month. Stay
tuned :-))

Richard Rowlett
Bellevue (Eastgate S of 90), WA