Tweets ? Marymoor is a really good place to go birding, as we were reminded today. It was not the best day; we had a couple of hours of mist, mizzle, drizzle, and even light rain this morning, and birds were quite hard to find. But the weather cleared, and the birds came out. Best highlight was a COMMON TERN seen from the Lake Platform.

Highlights:

Common Merganser Juvenile at weir again
Green Heron Juvenile at Rowing Club ? 4th week
Osprey Appear to have fledged; many overhead
Cooper?s Hawk Juvenile going after crows, Pea Patch
COMMON TERN One at lake
Barn Owl Great looks, Viewing Mound, after 5:30 a.m.
R.-breasted Sapsucker 4-6 juveniles
Pac.-slope Flycatcher 1, south end of Dog Meadow
Purple Martin 3 babies still in gourd nest
Brown Creeper Maybe 6
MacGillivray?s Warbler 1 just south of heronry
Common Yellowthroat Many, incl. 1 feeding cowbird
Yellow Warbler Multiple males singing, plus female
Y.-rumped Warbler 2 birds NE of mansion
Bl.-thr. Gray Warbler At least 3 birds
Townsend?s Warbler Female at Rowing Club
Wilson?s Warbler One south of heronry
Western Tanager Several seen, heard

While it was still cloudy, we had our first big excitement when a LONG-TAILED WEASEL popped up in a hawthorn just south of the heronry. Many birds crowded around to keep an eye on the weasel, and that?s where the MACGILLIVRAY?S WARBLER showed up. We got to watch the weasel for about 5 minutes.

The COMMON TERN at the lake is just our 2nd sighting ever! Our only previous sighting was two birds back in August 25, 2004.

While the gourd nest still has 3 juvenile PURPLE MARTINS sticking their heads out, waiting to be fed, I suspect many of the other nest boxes (NE corner of the lake) have fledged their young. After the sun came out, there were many PUMAs overhead, mixed with BARN SWALLOWS.

The Rowing Club featured a great mixed flock that included four of the seven species of warblers that we had today, including both a male and a female BLACK-THROATED GRAY, and the female-type TOWNSEND?S WARBLER. Mixed in were chickadees, our only BUSHTITS of the day, plus probably a half-dozen other species.

Our last birds were our only RED-TAILED HAWK in a conifer north of the Rowing Club parking lot, and four ROCK PIGEONS at SR-520 at the NW corner of the park. For the day, we had 66 species.

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