Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park (Redmond, King Co.) 2022-10-06
Date: Thu Oct 6 14:44:16 PDT 2022
From: Michael Hobbs - birdmarymoor at gmail.com

Tweets - It was pretty quiet today under the fog. Things picked up a bit,
later on, when a breeze started pushing the fog southbound. Before that,
there was a lot of GRAY. Almost all of the "summer" birds are gone, and
more and more of the "winter" birds are arriving.

Highlights:

- American Wigeon - three from the Lake Platform. First of Fall (*FOF*)
- Ring-necked Duck - lone bird continues in slough. Looks like a male
still in eclipse
- Wilson's Snipe - one heard pre-dawn (*FOF*)
- TURKEY VULTURE - 30 heading south late in the morning! See below
- Northern Harrier - one also moving south above the 2nd group of
vultures
- Cooper's Hawk - several sightings, and two accipiter sp.
- Red-breasted Sapsucker - one seen by Margaret towards the south end of
the Dog Area, along the slough
- Ruby-crowned Kinglet - at least three (*FOF*)
- Pacific Wren - one heard calling south of the East Meadow (*FOF*)
- American Pipit - some heard pre-dawn over the Viewing Mound

There were only 3 of us left, walking around the mansion area after the
main part of the survey, when we spotted 25 TURKEY VULTURES above the
windmill cruising south. A few minutes later we noted 5 more, with the
NORTHERN HARRIER above them. On 2017-09-17 we had 21 vultures in a kettle,
and on 2006-10-04 we had 23 split between two kettles. So this is the
prime time for southbound migration of vultures over the park, but today we
had a new high count. (Today and those other two days are the only times
we've had double-digit numbers of vultures).

Quite a few "summer" birds, many seen as recently as last week, were not
seen today. These include Band-tailed Pigeon, Osprey, swallows, Swainson's
Thrush, Orange-crowned Warbler, and Common Yellowthroat. All of these
absences are to be expected by this date.

Unexpected Misses today included American Coot, Ring-billed Gull, Green
Heron, Lincoln's Sparrow, and Western Meadowlark.

Please, send rain!

For the day, 54 species.

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