Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park (Redmond, King Co.) 2013-12-05
Date: Dec 5 15:39:27 2013
From: Michael Hobbs - birdmarymoor at frontier.com


Tweets ? more of this ridiculous frosty, dry weather. It was 20 DEGREES when we started this morning, and only just got to 31-32 degrees when we left at noon. There was no wind to clear the thin, high overcast, which instead thickened through the late morning. It made for a cold day, but manageably cold due to the still dryness. Ducks may have been assembled around the slough due to frozen ponds elsewhere; certainly the Rowing Club ponds were nothing but ice. The high numbers (12 species) of ducks made up for low numbers of passerines.

Highlights:

Gr. Wh.-fronted Goose One with Cacklers on grass fields
TRUMPETER SWAN 4 flew silently overhead ? First of the year
Wood Duck At least 1 pair
American Wigeon One female barely visible in slough
Northern Shoveler Several
Green-winged Teal At least 1 pair
Lesser Scaup A few seen late on lake
Pied-billed Grebe A late count on the lake: 20+
Horned Grebe Four seen late on lake
Cooper?s Hawk Maybe a Sharpie too
Pileated Woodpecker One heard from Rowing Club
AMERICAN KESTREL One on Field 9

For passerines, we managed to find at least 1 of many of the usual suspects, but nothing unusual. We were at Dog Central (maybe 9:00 a.m), and the list was already at 30 species before we got our first AMERICAN ROBIN. I doubt we had even 10 total; probably more like 6-8.

Our only previous winter sightings of AMERICAN KESTREL were all in the winter of ?08/?09. A male was seen 11-Dec-08, a male on 01-Jan-09, a female on 08-Jan-09, and a pair on 15-Jan-09. It?s unclear how many individuals that represents, but regardless, it?s clear that this species is quite unusual in winter at Marymoor. We have no sightings from November or February.

A really pretty COYOTE, maybe the same one that was photographed so wonderfully last January, crossed the grass soccer fields right at 8:00 a.m. Matt also heard an AMERICAN BEAVER pre-dawn. There is a LOT of beaver activity (i.e. cutting down trees) at the park right now!

For the day, 53 species.

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