[Tweeters] Marymoor Park (Redmond, King Co.) 2025-01-09

[Michael Hobbs via Tweeters]

Tweets - Our ridiculously fine weather continues.  Today's low was 41, and
by the end it was 47 and sunny with no wind.  Yikes!  It was birdy too, at
least here and there.

Highlights:
     Green-winged Teal - Lone drake at the Rowing Club pond, first in 5
weeks, and only the 8th since last spring.  First of Year (FOY)
     Hooded Merganser - Pair in the slough near the start of the boardwalk
(FOY)
     Virginia Rail - Two responded from the far side of the slough (FOY)
     Killdeer - Heard by Matt, flying over the East Meadow pre-dawn.  First
since October (FOY)
     Cooper's Hawk - One near the concert stage, mobbed by a couple of
crows (FOY)
     Short-eared Owl - Model Airplane Field, about 7:30 a.m.  (FOY)
     Northern Shrike - Juvenile, again on the far side of slough.  Report
also from East Meadow (FOY)
     AMERICAN TREE SPARROW - Not just one, but TWO together, East Meadow,
first since 2023 (FOY)
     Lincoln's Sparrow - Same flock as the American Tree Sparrow (FOY)

I just happened to check my phone, and saw that John Puschock had found an
American Tree Sparrow along the upper west portion of the East Meadow.  We
did a bit of willy-nilly navigation straight there, only to find TWO of
them in the same bush at the same time, about 2 feet apart.  I believe this
is the 13th record for ATSP at the park.  John had been searching for the
"Eastern" subspecies Song Sparrow that has been in that same area recently;
I heard he saw it later, we did not.

There was a flock of 120-140 SHORT-BILLED GULLS, but they were always too
far away for us to search through them for a Ring-billed or other gull.

Besides geese and gulls and crows, the most numerous birds today were
AMERICAN ROBINS and DARK-EYED JUNCOS.

A late scan of the lake turned up four HORNED GREBE just off the Marymoor
south shore (FOY).  I then returned to the park and found the two
CALIFORNIA SCRUB-JAYS that have been hanging out near the East Entrance
(FOY)

Misses today included Ring-necked Duck, American Coot, Ring-billed Gull,
Bushtit, Marsh Wren, and Purple Finch.

For the day, 53 species, with 11 new for the year, to bring us to 57
species for 2025.

= Michael Hobbs
= BirdMarymoor at gmail.com
= www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20250109/a4439b3f/attachment.html>