Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park (Redmond, King Co., WA) 2013-09-05
Date: Sep 5 15:16:17 2013
From: Michael Hobbs - birdmarymoor at frontier.com


Tweets ? the weather reports people looked at didn?t match our morning very well at all. The late-arriving rains never materialized, possibly because they came through with a vengeance earlier. We had a very remarkable and long-lasting thunder and lightning show starting pre-dawn and extending for at least a couple of hours into our walk ? there?s only one other time we?ve had thunder and lightning during one of my Marymoor surveys, and that was back on 2008-07-03. We also got drenched with a downpour at around 7:00 a.m., but the rest of the morning featured intermittent drizzle which only rarely ventured towards light rain, with frequent let-ups. And by mid-morning (clock time), it was almost sunny. As for birds, we had pretty good bird diversity, but were rather lacking in great views for many of the species, and we didn?t have anything too rare.

Highlights:

Northern Shoveler Small flyby flock; another flock might have had pintails
Common Merganser 5 swam down the slough towards the weir
Green Heron Juvenile with a downy head at the Rowing Club
Cooper?s Hawk Several views of a juvenile
Virginia Rail Responded from across the slough
Spotted Sandpiper One flew downslough past RC dock
Wilson?s Snipe Heard by Matt, predawn. First of Fall
Band-tailed Pigeon One
Eurasian Collared-Dove One
Barn Owl One, north end of East Meadow, just before 6 a.m.
American Kestrel One seen a couple of times during the first hour
Merlin One seen flying towards lake
Hammond?s Flycatcher? Part of the group had a bright empid that was prob. Hammond?s
Pac.-slope Flycatcher At least 2 seen
Lincoln?s Sparrow 3, First of Fall
Black-headed Grosbeak 2 juveniles
Evening Grosbeak Heard

For the first time since the beginning of March, we had NO SWALLOWS. We also missed Bushtit, Marsh Wren (though twice I *thought* I heard them), Black-throated Gray Warbler, and Western Tanager. I made a late swing past the lake and picked up our only BALD EAGLE and CALIFORNIA GULL, as well as our only visual for EVENING GROSBEAK.

For the day, we managed 60 species, but nothing was new for the year.

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

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