Now that most wetlands ponds are full of water, there should be wintering duck action. Not. Particularly now that all but Promontory Pond are frozen, hardly any water birds were in the mitigation habitat. But, there were plenty on the lake. Scaup are back in increasing numbers, but grebes are hard to come by. Except for Western.

It was an interesting day because of the frozen ground: less than 30 F to start, clear and just a slight breeze, then warming up to 40. The warm-up took its time though and the passerine activity seemed quite delayed. Some notables:

Eurasian Wigeon - back for the winter, presumably, with the 100+ American Wigeon flock
Canvasback - one male hanging out with the scaup (most of them are at the north end of the lake)
Western Grebe - ?exact? count of 485 birds, all but 20 or so in the typical large raft in the middle of the lake
Sharp-shinned Hawk - adult male on Kite hill
Cooper?s Hawk - immature female in the wetlands
Herring Gull - one on the swim platform with the other 4 species
Belted Kingfisher - as it has been doing all fall, flew out of its night roost in the meadows before dawn
Northern Shrike - south fence line, eventually chased off by a pair of Anna?s; first of year?its been 4 years since I have seen one in the park!
American Robin - tons! today?s feasting was mostly on pyracantha berries plus some ground feeding:
https://youtu.be/8W-K2_ze6iw

For the day, 57 species.
Checklist: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S40977255 <http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S40977255>
Scott Ramos
Seattle