[Tweeters] Marymoor Park (Redmond, King Co.) 2022-09-08

[Michael Hobbs]

Tweets - A much better day than last week.  Predawn was *cold* (49 degrees)
and crystal clear.  Jupiter and Venus fought Orion for attention in the
sky.  The Pleiades were visible to the naked eye.  When dawn finally
arrived (sunrise was a little after 6:30 a.m.), things warmed up moderately
quickly.  By 7:00 the birds were fully active and were calling and moving
around.

Highlights:

   - COMMON TERN - small white tern well out from the Lake Platform;
   presumptive ID
   - Cooper's Hawk - one flew from the Pea Patch over the grass soccer
   fields, right near us
   - Four woodpecker day - all seen, missing only a sapsucker for the clean
   sweep of typical woodpeckers for the park
   - American Kestrel - one over our cars after our loop around the
   mansion.  Our 2nd sighting for the year, and First of Fall (*FOF*)
   - Merlin - two sightings
   - California Scrub-Jay - one eating acorns with Steller's Jays near the
   park office.  First of the year (*FOY*)
   - Lincoln's Sparrow - three different birds
   - Red-winged Blackbird - first in five weeks.  Does that make these (
   *FOF*)?
   - Yellow Warbler - two female/immature-type in NW part of the Dog Area
   - Yellow-rumped Warbler - three along the west edge of the Dog Meadow (
   *FOF*)
   - Black-throated Gray Warbler - two seen
   - Western Tanager - two? heard, with a couple of bad glimpses for me

There are four previous records of COMMON TERN at the park, one spring
report on eBird, and three fall reports of birds seen during the survey.
Fall dates span August 6 to September 17, so today's would fall squarely
within that range.  The bird was so distant, though, that we can't rule out
the much less likely possibility of Forster's or Arctic (neither of which
are on the park list).

Misses today included Green Heron, Red-tailed Hawk, Willow Flycatcher,
Warbling Vireo, Bushtit, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Marsh Wren, Orange-crowned
Warbler, and Black-headed Grosbeak.  Bald Eagle, Western Wood-Pewee, and
Violet-green Swallow also were not seen today; they've only been seen 12 of
28 years and so I don't consider them "real" misses, but close.

Despite the long list of things we didn't see, we did have 53 species
today.  Though not that many more species than last week, today had *much*
better birding.

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