Tweets ? The weather was blah, though not horrible. Warm an muggy, with the dark blanketed sky spitting drips and drops on an irregular basis, and a bit of a breeze for the first hour or two. The darkness made birding difficult. There was also a LOT of tree damage from the weekend windstorm. Many large trees lost huge branches or fell entirely, including probably the largest, tallest cottonwood in the Cottonwood Forest: the tree with the never-used Bald Eagle nest seems to have disappeared. There was also damage to the new Bald Eagle nest tree area in the SE of the park as well.

There wasn?t much in the way of birding, but as usual, we ended up finding some VERY NOTABLE birds.

Highlights:

SWANS 8 who gave up thoughts of landing, just a couple of single-notes heard
Bufflehead Four flying at the N end of the lake. First of Fall
Great Blue Heron At least four sitting on nests in the heronry
FRANKLIN?S GULL 1st winter bird on grass fields, with Mew Gulls
GLAUCOUS GULL 1st or 2nd winter bird; color of VERY milky tea, bicolored bill, huge
American Pipit A few heard overhead, glimpsed in flight
C. YELLOWTHROAT Young male at Compost Piles after the walk. Latest sighting ever

This is just the 3rd GLAUCOUS GULL sighting for Marymoor, and the first fall record. It was seen on several of the grass soccer fields, and at the model airplane field. It?s darker toned than many juvenile GLGUs, and slightly orangey. The bill looked cleanly bicolored, with a flesh colored base. The wingtips and tail were the whitest part of the bird. It was notably larger than all other gulls present.

The FRANKLIN?S GULL was a 1st winter bird, and I?d gotten a report that it was present last Friday as well.

Just 53 species for the day, and that?s overstating things, as many of those were seen before, after, or by only a very few people. Pretty crappy day for species total, but pretty good for gulls.

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