Hello Tweeters,
The weather forecast did not look good for the count on Saturday, heavy rain and wind. But some how we ended up in a rain shadow for almost all of the day. We did a preliminary tally at the post-count potluck. Judging by personal experience, the total number of birds were down. It seemed like even the common birds were reluctant to show themselves. I think we will end up close to our average of 123 species.
We did have a few unusual birds on the count. Carl Haynie reported on Tweeters the Townsend's Solitaire that they found. The beach crew at Discovery Park found a Horned Lark at the West Point Lighthouse. I didn't find any records for this species in the past CBC data for Seattle. They also had a Long-tailed Duck from the north beach. A notable miss was the Ruddy Duck. Last year we had a 10 year record high of 50. This year we had zero.
Owls were hard to come by. Only the Barn and Barred were found. Seemed like there were many birds with one individual found. There was one A. Kestrel and one Virginia Rail. CA Quail seemed to have disappeared from every where but Magnuson Park. The Pine Siskins are certainly back in big numbers in Seattle.
Our compiler, Matt Bartels, will eventually have the final numbers. As always, we had a great group of participants who made the day a success.
Any day on the Seattle CBC where it doesn't rain all day is a good day.

Neil Zimmerman
Brier, WA