Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park (Redmond, King Co., WA) 2013-11-27
Date: Nov 27 13:30:50 2013
From: Michael Hobbs - birdmarymoor at frontier.com


Tweets ? this weather is almost scary, it?s so nice. It was a bit chilly, and there was some ground fog, predawn. But certainly by about 8:30, it was warming up under partly cloudy skies showing a lot of blue. (You should have seen the moon and Jupiter in the wee hours, and Mt. Rainier at sunrise...) And we had some exciting birds to go with the delightful weather.

Right at 7:30, a large group of MEW GULLS (several hundred) landed on the grass soccer fields. We spent at least 10 minutes fruitlessly looking through them for Ring-billed or California, and only turned up some GLAUCOUS-WINGS and ?Olympic? gulls. I gave up and started the stroll to the river, when I heard shouting back at the parking lot. Stan Wood had spotted a smaller gull. We managed to get close enough for some pretty good looks, and were amazed to find it was a juvenile FRANKLIN?S GULL. Ollie got some photos, which will be on the blog in a few days. This is just the third time we?ve had Franklin?s Gull at Marymoor, and this was by far our best look. The last time we had a Franklin?s was NOVEMBER 24, 2010 ? a very similar date! The other sighting was in late May quite a few years ago. For me, personally, this was my first FRGU at Marymoor, my 209th species for the park for my personal list.

If anyone want to try and chase the Franklin?s Gull, I?d suggest being there from 7:30 to 8:30 tomorrow or Friday. The Mew Gull flocks fly in just around sunrise, and often (but by no means always) land on the grass soccer fields for breakfast. They typically leave within an hour of arrival.

Other highlights:

SNOW GOOSE Two flew over the Viewing Mound about 7:15
Cackling Goose Some nice big flocks landed in the park. 300 total?
Wood Duck At least 5 in the upper slough
Horned Grebe 1-2 visible from Lake Platform
FRANKLIN?S GULL See above
Hairy Woodpecker Near Dog Area storage shed
Pileated Woodpecker Seen far to the east of the east footbridge
Y.-rumped Warbler One at Rowing Club
Townsend?s Warbler One at Rowing Club
Fox Sparrow Unusually plentiful
Purple Finch Male at Rowing Club

It was so warm, we heard PACIFIC TREE FROG, and saw a GARTER SNAKE ? our first snake sighting ever for November-February.

For the day, 55 species.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

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