Tweets ? it was froggy this morning. Hmm. I guess a portmanteau of frosty and foggy doesn?t work very well. Fosty? Anyway, it was 29 degrees and foggy at 8:00 a.m., and the fog didn?t lift until the skies clouded over above and the wind picked up, around 10:30. Even though the temps (29-39) were a lot warmer than last week (20-32), it felt way colder today, with the damp cold and the late breeze. With the fog, we managed to completely miss the few minutes of sunshine that some people had. I think some of the birds few uphill to escape the cold, damp fog...

Highlights:

Gr. Wh.-fronted Goose One with Cacklers
Cackling Goose Three flocks on the grass fields; 950-1000 birds
TRUMPETER SWAN Single juvenile on lake (confirmed from cabana late)
Cooper?s Hawk Adult hunting Killdeer and Green-winged Teal near slough
Virginia Rail One called spontaneously near Lake Platform
Wilson?s Snipe Two flew out of slough, just downstream of the weir
Purple Finch One female

That?s about it for highlights. Not terribly exciting, actually.

There have been some species notably absent recently. Scaup have been unusually scarce, though we might have had a pair today. Gulls have been almost completely absent throughout this cold spell, with only a few Glaucous-winged Gulls present, and at most a flyover of a black-wing-tipped gull or two. We haven?t had a Barn Owl since late October, and have only had one glimpse of what may have been a Short-eared Owl all fall/winter so far. Our last Northern Shrike was three weeks ago. The most surprising has been a complete lack of White-crowned Sparrows, with only one sighing since mid-October; they?re usually a near-certainty at this time of year. And finches of all kinds have been very, very hard to find. We?ve only managed three sightings each for Purple Finch and American Goldfinch since October, House Finch numbers have been very low, and Pine Siskins have been absent altogether.

I did manage a couple of late sightings ? Hooded Merganser at the lake, and American Wigeon in the slough at the north end of the park, to get our day total teetering right at 50 species.

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