Good morning Tweeters,

After reading Michael Hobbs' post yesterday, I decided to make a pre-dawn
foray to the viewing mound at Marymoor Park to watch for BARN OWLS. It was
pitch dark when I arrived, so I had to wait a while. I was eventually
joined by Grace and Ollie and Doug (from Connecticut). The fist owl showed
up over the dog run field about 5:50 or so. It eventually flew to the east
meadow and was soon joined by a second owl. Within a few minutes, we were
able to see 3 of them over the east meadow as well as over the remote
control airplane field. Soon, Ollie spotted a fourth owl. One of the owls
flew to within 20 feet or so of us and appeared to be checking us out
before swooping away. We saw one of the owls chased off of a post perch by
a COOPER'S HAWK. The last one remained in view until about 6:20, when it
was already fairly light and the crows began to voice their disapproval.
Very impressive show!

Afterward, I walked the short loop to the water via the meadow and
boardwalk with Doug, and then back along the dog run path by myself. It
was fairly quiet, but we did have a pair of MERLINS fly overhead, heard 1
WESTERN TANAGER, encountered a small mixed flock of BUSHTITS, BLACK-CAPPED
CHICKADEES, 1 WILSON'S WARBLER, and 1 juvenile YELLOW WARBLER. In a tree
just off of the dog run path, I was able to digiscope a sneaky first summer
COOPER'S HAWK (perhaps the one that we had seen earlier).

And I made it back home just before the rains came.

Good birding,

Lonnie Somer
Seattle
mombiwheeler at gmail.com
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