Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park (Redmond, King Co.) 2014-11-13
Date: Nov 13 21:21:03 2014
From: Michael Hobbs - birdmarymoor at frontier.com


Tweets ? The cold settled firmly down in the valley. It was sunny and TWENTY-THREE degrees when we began our walk this morning. Luckily, no wind, but after the first 45 minutes we began to get swaths of very thin clouds that we did not appreciate at all, since they cut down on the sun?s warmth noticeably. Despite (or perhaps because of) the cold, it was pretty birdy this morning. And it did warm up eventually, to perhaps 42 degrees.

Highlights:

Gr. Wh.-fronted Goose Two with a huge flock of Cacklers
Cackling Goose ~1250 spent the morning in the NE corner
SWAN SP. 5(?) flew over right at 7:30. Prob. Trumpeter
Ring-necked Duck Two at Rowing Club ? First of Fall
Greater Scaup Small flock flyover, ID?s by length of white wing stripes
Common Goldeneye Two females in slough ? First of Fall
N. Saw-whet Owl Matt heard one near park entrance cedars early
Hairy Woodpecker First in five weeks
Northern Shrike Juvenile in middle of Dog Meadow
Bushtit Three flocks, after about two months of rare scattered sightings
Evening Grosbeak Male perched in Oregon Ash at Rowing Club

We had a total of NINE species of duck this morning, our first fall day with a really good selection of waterfowl.

The large CACKLING GOOSE flock was mostly the minima subspecies but did include several larger Cacklers, presumably Taverners. There was also one minima type that had a lot of white speckling all over the head and neck, and another one that was partially leucistic and was ?frosty? all over.

Todd and Lillian both reported AMERICAN KESTREL and NORTHERN HARRIER once the day got warmer. Todd also had a SHARP-SHINNED HAWK.

We had 61 species on the walk, plus the three species seen by Todd, for a total of 64 species on a frosty November day. Not bad at all.

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