Tweets - We started out at 32 degrees and snowing, but the morning's
weather quickly improved to above-freezing with occasional blue sky
patches. It was windless, but everything was quite gray for most of the
morning. The park has a crust of frozen snow on the ground, so birding by
ear was hampered by the constant crunch-crunch-crunch of our feet and the
swish-swish of our coats and snow pants.

All in all, it was quite pleasant and quite birdy. The only downside was
that the vast majority of those many birds were just American Robins,
American Crows, and Dark-eyed Juncos. Surprises were few but nice. But
nothing really rare; very similar to last week.

Highlights:

- Swans - Two flying south were probably Trumpeters
- Pied-billed Grebe - Somewhere around 35 on the lake!
- MOURNING DOVE - One in the Pea Patch. Only our 8th sighting for
December through March
- Virginia Rail - At least one spontaneously making extensive squawking
sounds next to the boardwalk
- Wilson's Snipe - Around a dozen along the slough edge below the weir
- Accipiters - Several sightings, with both Cooper's and Sharpie
- VARIED THRUSH - Many around the mansion, more in a few other places.
At least 15, in my estimation

We had four RIVER OTTERS in the slough.

Misses today (species seen in at least half of previous years during Week
48, but not today): Short-billed Gull, Ring-Billed Gull (though we had one
2nd-winter gull that was probably RBGU), Bushtit, Marsh Wren, Pine Siskin,
and Lincoln's Sparrow.

For the day, 51 species.

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