Hey Tweets,

Pete Fahey and I set out yesterday to put a number into Wabirder for a February Big Day in the county. The total list was 84 by the end of the day, although there were a few birds that only one of us had, and some heard-only birds mixed in. The weather was windy at times, which kept some of the birds down, and made saltwater birding a challenge. We also got creative mid-day and lost a little time, so it's not out of the realm of possibility at all for someone to put up a century of birds on a February day.

We missed owls at a few stops before we got to 287th street in Kent. Even there, we missed on Barn Owl, although the dense forest at the bend in the road did give us a Great Horned Owl. We chose not to walk the fields by the Chicken Ranch, birding the road on 287th for a bit before heading over to the flooded fields at 285th. We picked up some ducks and geese, including a single Greater-white Fronted Goose.

We went north from there, picking up Trumpeter Swans, and Brown Creeper as we moved from Smith Brothers, to Frager Road to the Old Fishing Hole in Kent. The fields at Smith Bros were flooded heavily, so we missed Meadowlark for the day, and the Eurasian Collared-Doves were not present on Frager - also a miss. Riverbend Golf Course was full of gulls, and we got Glaucous-winged and Mew before deciding that it was poor form to be stopped on the side of the road.

Kent Ponds only added a few passerines and 204th a few ducks and a Northern Harrier. By the time we got to Boeing Ponds, we had been hoping to find a Peregrine Falcon, but the landscape has changed quite a bit around there, so we were unable to locate one at any of the usual haunts. In general, the Kent Valley had very few raptors, and we left with only Northern Harrier and Bald Eagle on our raptor list at that point. Junco, Towhee and Song Sparrow were our only sparrows at the time, but that was remedied later in the day. In other years, Killdeer, Dunlin and Snipe may have been on our lists, but all three birds were also missed for the day.

Our next stop was Lake Fenwick, and it was really one of the best of the day. Wood Duck, Hutton's Vireo, Band-tailed Pigeon, Varied Thrush, Red-tailed Hawk, Pileated Woodpecker, Anna's Hummingbird, Double-crested Cormorant and Pacific Wren were all added here - many of those birds being hoped for birds that could save or add trips during a big day.

>From there, we quickly stopped at the marina in Des Moines and the viewpoint at Zenith. There was so much chop on the water, making it difficult to scope the few birds out there. We still picked up Horned Grebe, Surf Scoter, both Goldeneyes, a Red-throated Loon, and a female White-winged Scoter, which is unusual in the south sound, in my experience. The gulls huddled up in the parking lot at Des Moines included Western, Herring and Ring-billed.

Our next stretch included Weyerhauser Pond (Redhead and Lesser Scaup), and M Street in Auburn (Eurasian Wigeon and Northern Shoveler), before we hit Green Valley Road south of Auburn. We had been following an eBird lead to a residence with a few rare sparrows reported. This ended up being the most productive sparrow spot I have seen in my life: Song Sparrow, Lincoln's Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Harris' Sparrow, Golden-crowned Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco and Spotted Towhee all visited the feeder, and we had to drive a paltry half block to find Fox Sparrow! House Finch, American Kestrel and Brewer's Blackbird were also added along the road.

At this point, Pete and I could have headed due north and worked to pick up some easier birds, but we were right on the edge of the Enumclaw Plateau, which we rarely bird. We poked around for an hour or so with dreams of Mourning Dove, Northern Shrike, Rough-legged Hawk, California Quail and Ring-necked Pheasant, but ended up adding none of the above. We even side-tracked through Ravensdale, thinking obviously we would find a Common Raven there, but alas, no. The next bird added was American Dipper on the Cedar River below the bridge by the Testy Chef - a pretty reliable bird.

Back to Renton, we went to some of the spots I know better around my home, and picked up a few birds (Virginia Rail, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Bushtit, Cooper's Hawk), and my car, as I needed to pick up my kids from school for the last stretch. In Downtown Renton, we also found Western Scrub-Jay. We decided that given the time, a run up to the Cedar River Mouth (which could have given us Thayer's Gull, Belted Kingfisher and with some hunting a Palm Warbler) was going to be less productive than Alki, and less interesting for the kids, so we drove up to West Seattle to try one more time for salty birds.

At Alki, we finished with Red-necked Grebe, all three cormorant species, and Sanderling. After Pete and I parted ways, the wind died down and the Brant returned to Constellation Park, and I also found a Pigeon Guillemot, making my day total 84. The Black Turnstones and Surfbirds were not found at any of the rocky spots along the way.

Many birds could have been added easily if we had included the north end of the county on our route (Canvasback, Sandhill Crane, Greater Scaup, and possibly Pine Siskin), but we had other missed birds that we were expecting on our route: California Gull, American Goldfinch, Harlequin Duck and Red-breasted Nuthatch. And with a poor year for finches, Red Crossbill and Evening Grosbeak were not found.

So there's the number! We put up a solid, but beatable one for anyone that wants to try to take a similar snapshot of a February day in King County!

Happy birding,

Tim Brennan, Renton