Tweets ? 60 degrees and overcast. July, huh? Meh. Still we had a pretty nice walk around the park.

At the lake platform, we could find no eagles, but did see an OSPREY carrying a fish back towards the nest (where 3 young were awaiting breakfast). Suddenly, two adult BALD EAGLES appeared. The osprey had at least a 100 yard lead, but the fish must have been pretty heavy. It took only about 20 seconds for the eagles to overtake the osprey. The first eagle appeared to fly under and in front of the osprey, while the second trailed below and just behind the osprey. Realizing he was surrounded, the osprey dropped the fish. The trailing eagle smoothly rotated feet-up and snagged the fish.

Later, we saw the two adult eagles sitting side by side in a tall cottonwood, one vocalizing loudly. They may already have eaten the fish by that point.

When we were at the Viewing Mound, an adult Bald Eagle flew very low over the mound and then swooped to the ground, grabbing a large clump of dried weeds, which it carried off (presumably for nesting material ?!?!?) The weeds must have been heavy and caused a lot of drag, for the eagle flew low and ponderously over the Dog Meadow. An osprey then flew fast across the meadow and took a swipe at the eagle, causing it to drop its weeds! What goes around comes around.

Other highlights:

Great Blue Heron Heronry is empty. Heron numbers down from 20 to about 4
Virginia Rail Two heard from far side of slough near lake
Caspian Tern Two flew down high over the river
Cooper?s Hawk Immature at Compost Piles
Rufous Hummingbird Female and/or immature at Pea Patch
MERLIN Annoyed the swallows over the East and Dog Meadows
N. R.-winged Swallow Probably 2 or more

For mammals, we had several MUSKRAT and a LONG-TAILED WEASEL

For the day, 57 species.

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