Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park (Redmond, King Co., WA) 2013-03-07
Date: Mar 7 13:08:51 2013
From: Michael Hobbs - birdmarymoor at frontier.com


Tweets ? it was moistly misty and drizzly pretty much all morning, though I?m not sure it ever got to ?rain?. And despite my fears, it actually got light enough to see not long after our 6:30 a.m. official start time. It turned out to be a fairly birdy and interesting morning.

Highlights:

Cackling Goose After 4 week absence, maybe 50
American Wigeon 8-10, a rather high count for Marymoor
Greater Scaup 2 female on slough, seen from RC dock
Cooper?s Hawk One shortly after 6:30 north of fields 7-8-9
Western Gull One adult looked pretty pure
THAYER?S GULL Two adults and 1-2 juveniles!
Barn Owl Only one seen, at 6:20 a.m. ? very late
Hairy Woodpecker One in cherry trees at Compost Piles
PEREGRINE FALCON One buzzed the Compost Piles
Northern Shrike One near model airplane field
TREE SWALLOW Seven over East Meadow
Varied Thrush 3+ heard
Purple Finch Nice to see again ? none in February
Red Crossbill Still several around mansion

Fitting the pattern of recent years, we had huge flocks of CACKLING GOOSE all through November, December, and January. Then we had none for four weeks before today when a two-part flock came in, with one flocklet landing and the other continuing on. The 25-or-so birds on the ground were of 2-3 subspecies. Our huge winter flocks are almost 100% pure minima subspecies, so I believe these spring sightings are birds that wintered somewhere south of here and are part of different populations. >From the neck band data, our winter birds are from the Yukon Delta area of Alaska.

Many species were singing today. Of note were GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET singing at the Rowing Club, RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET singing along the slough, fragments of GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROW song at the Compost Piles, a brief bit of FOX SPARROW song near the weir, and HOUSE FINCH singing in a couple of places.

We had a couple of RIVER OTTERS seen from the lake platform.

For the day, 59 species. TREE SWALLOWS were seen as early as Sunday, and I had two NORTHERN SHOVELER on Monday, bringing our year total to 85 species.

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