Hello Tweets,

I've had a very fine few hours of birding today! My first stop was Green Lake. I arrived at 11:55 and spent a little over an hour walking around the southeast part of the lake, enjoying the antics of the redpoll flock in the birches and bare trees with a small group of other birders, and sharing the news with interested non-birders walking by. Also present were a sharp-shinned hawk (that at one point flushed the redpoll flock into a "mini-murmuration" over the lake) and a peregrine falcon perched up in a cottonwood (others had seen it as a flyover before I arrived).

I was walking out of a delicious celebratory lunch at Taste of India when I received a text from my friend, Adrian Lee. The text contained one word: "Egret". He had refound the Great Egret in Portage Bay! I raced as quickly as I could to Agua Verde Cafe & Paddle Club, from where Adrian had seen the bird. Standing in the public "park" beside the cafe, I scanned the tops of the house boats across the water. Soon enough, at about 2:50 PM, my scope fell on a graceful, slender white shape perched beside a chimney! I was able to watch the egret look around and stretch its neck for a few minutes, before it flew off over the water towards the Eastlake Ave. E bridge and landed in between a couple house boats. I last saw the egret sitting on the dock of a small brown house boat when I left. A long-awaited lifer!

Good birding, Joshua Glant

Mercer Island, WA

Josh(dot)n(dot)glant(at)gmail(dot)com