Tweets - It's hard to bird when thick fog and thicker smoke dim the
sunlight and reduce most birds to gray silhouettes. And when your N-95
mask makes your glasses and binoculars fog up pretty much constantly. And
when there's a strong desire to finish quickly so everyone can get out of
the hazardous air with AQI above 200 and rising... Not one of our better
days at the park.

It's super hard to do numbers in eBird when you can, for instance, hear
Black-capped Chickadees and Yellow-rumped Warblers in the tree ahead of
you, see that there at least eight individual birds there, manage to
glimpse two chickadees of indeterminate species, see one actual Yellow-rump
(yay!), and someone else says they're seeing a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

So, so, so looking forward to rain.

Highlights:

- Virginia Rail - two called back from far side of slough
- Northern Flicker; Downy, Hairy, and Pileated Woodpeckers, all seen
- Merlin - One flying south out of the East Meadow
- White-throated Sparrow - NW corner of Dog Area
- Savannah Sparrow - at least 3 at Compost Piles; likely heading out
shortly

Okay, a bit of a stretch to talk about highlights.

Yesterday, I had at least two CALIFORNIA SCRUB-JAYS in the East Meadow.

Misses today included Western Grebe, Rock Pigeon, American Coot, Wilson's
Snipe, Ring-billed Gull, California Gull, Double-crested Cormorant, and
Lincoln's Sparrow.

For the day, an even 50 species, which all things considered is actually
quite good.

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