Tweets ? Dark, drizzly, and breezy. Not very pleasant, and not very many birds. This is February; we don?t expect much, and we didn?t get much. Still, even a pretty crappy day at Marymoor isn?t too bad.

Highlights:

Gadwall ~18 just below the weir
Green-winged Teal ~18 at Rowing Club pond
Greater Scaup Lone female in slough
Great Blue Heron On nests. Some nest building yesterday
Western Gull One, Lot B with GWGUs and hybrids
THAYER?S GULL One, Lot B, Grass soccer fields with above
Belted Kingfisher One near weir
Red-br. Sapsucker One at Rowing Club
Northern Shrike One, East Meadow
Red Crossbill Still a few around mansion

This is just our 3rd THAYER?S GULL, but many of our unusual pink-legged gulls have turned up in Weeks 7, 8, and 9 (this is Week 8). We spent quite a bit of time chasing this bird around trying to get good looks, but we left feeling pretty confident of our ID. Some Thayer?s are relatively easy to ID ? this was not one of those...

Singing birds included BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE, PACIFIC WREN, MARSH WREN, BEWICK?S WREN, AMERICAN ROBIN, SONG SPARROW, DARK-EYED JUNCO, and RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. When I played the nyuck-nyuck-nyuck call of VIRGINIA RAIL from the boardwalk, one responded in kind but another began singing the tiDik-tiDik-tiDik song.

For mammals, we had a MUSKRAT at the Rowing Club, besides the usual squirrels and cottontails.

Misses today included Cooper?s Hawk, Mew Gull, any owls, Downy Woodpecker, Lincoln?s Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, and Purple Finch.

Still, we managed a fairly respectable 53 species. Thayer?s Gull was new for the year, of course, bringing our total to 82.

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