Geez -; one bad weather forecast and everybody stays home! It was just me, Matt, and Brian this morning, and the weather wasn't even that bad. In fact we had over an hour without rain to start the walk, a mix of mizzle and drizzle with occasional clearings after that, very few gusts of wind, and our only real, real rain came just before noon as we were leaving the Rowing Club. Birds were a little hard to come by, but it certainly wasn't a waste of a morning.

Highlights:
a.. American Wigeon -; a pair hung out with the coots all morning
b.. Greater(?) Scaup -; three females out from the Viewing Mound
c.. Short-billed Gull -; about six all told, First of Fall (FOF)
d.. Sharp-shinned Hawk -; at least one
e.. Cooper's Hawk -; at least one
f.. Pine Siskin -; flock of maybe 20 -; First Flock of Fall (FFOF)
g.. Savannah Sparrow -; still at least 1, East Meadow. Likely to disappear very soon
h.. Lincoln's Sparrow -; one, East Meadow
i.. WHITE-THROATED SPARROW -; one in a mixed flock of Zonos in the middle of the Dog Meadow (FOF)
On a quick drive-through after the Rowing Club I spotted ROCK PIGEON and a NORTHERN SHRIKE. A little later I did a late scan of the lake, trying to tie down the species of Aythya ducks (got them to *probably* Greater), but I turned up several other species: Two RIVER OTTERS, two NORTHERN SHOVELER, a WESTERN GREBE,...

... and 35 SWANS! I had to drive around to the other side of the lake to be close enough to identify them. As far as I could tell, they were all TUNDRA SWANS, 3-4 juveniles and the rest adults. This is just the 7th record I have for Tundra Swan at Marymoor (today's birds would have been easily visible from the Lake Platform).

Misses today included Virginia Rail, Barn Owl, Downy Woodpecker, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Purple Finch, American Goldfinch, Western Meadowlark, and Yellow-rumped Warbler (might have heard 1-2).

By the time we were finished at the Rowing Club, we'd had 52 species. I added 6 more after the walk for a day's total of 58 species. That's why I don't listen to the weather reports.

= Michael Hobbs
= www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
= BirdMarymoor at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20211028/61cb28c9/attachment.html>