Date: 11/21/24 2:22 pm From: Michael Hobbs via Tweeters <tweeters...> Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park (Redmond, King Co.) 2024-11-21
Tweets - It was a very unusual day - the weather was quite nice with temps in the 40s, no wind, no precipitation, and pretty good light, and we did the bird survey as always. But we spent at least as much attention on the devastation that the bomb cyclone brought to the park; dozens of huge snags and mature trees either snapped off or uprooted, large branches down everywhere; downed twigs covering all of the ground.
Highlights: Trumpeter Swan - THIRTEEN in three groups flying south, silent. They did look very long necked Northern Shoveler - Two with a small flock of Mallards flying north - First of Fall (FOF) Gadwall - A long line of ducks seen from the Lake Platform turned out to be 53 Gadwall, ~10 American Wigeon, and 2 Green-winged Teal. Probably a High Count for Gadwall Cooper's Hawk - Nice adult flew across the slough, calling, then perched for us to admire Four Woodpecker Day - Missing sapsucker. Except for Northern Flicker and one glimpse of a Downy, all woodpeckers were heard-only Merlin - Seen on the long dock during my late scan of the lake Northern Shrike - Juvenile seen a couple of times on the far side of the slough; unusual spot for shrike Golden-crowned Kinglet - Continue to be especially numerous and widespread and visible; Ruby-crowns also common, but 1/3 as many? Varied Thrush - Mason saw one near the mansion Pine Siskin - somewhere between 75 and 500, but probably 100 is a rough estimate Townsend's Warbler - One NE of the mansion
Pre-dawn, it was strange to look out at Lake Sammamish and see virtually no lights anywhere. A couple of houses had generators, but the whole lake seemed to be without power.
Two of the large trees supporting the heronry have blown down. A few GREAT BLUE HERONS were sitting (claiming?) nests in other trees, and one was in the next-nearest best tree where I expect nests to be built in spring.
Pretty much every tall snag on the far side of the slough has come down, including the ones that Purple Martins nested in for the last couple of years. The Big Cottonwood Forest lost many mature trees. Both the Douglas Fir grove NE of the mansion and the Aspen grove across Pea Patch Rd. had several downed trees. Clean up will take weeks.
Misses today included American Coot, Killdeer, Bushtit, and American Goldfinch.
For the day, 59 species, including a Barn/Short-eared Owl seen by Eric pre-dawn over at the model airplane field.
= Michael Hobbs = <BirdMarymoor...> = www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
