Date: 4/24/25 5:12 pm From: Michael Hobbs via Tweeters <tweeters...> Subject: [Tweeters] Marymoor Park (Redmond, King Co.) 2025-04-24
Tweets - Gorgeous day (you should have seen the crescent moon and Venus to the east at 5:30 a.m.!). Sunny, cool to start but warming, no wind. The dawn chorus was loud but disappointingly free of any new voices for the spring. And that's pretty much what we found all morning; almost zero new arrivals. This was particularly disappointing since several species that we have not yet had on the survey were reported on eBird during the week. This perhaps points out that during migration, birds pass through as much as they arrive.
Highlights: Green Heron - Fairly high-flying bird heading south past the windmill. These former breeders at Marymoor have almost disappeared since the Great Blue Herons build their heronry Five woodpecker day - though Hairy and Pileated were heard-only Northern Rough-winged Swallow - Two in the East Meadow, First of Year (FOY) for the survey White-crowned Sparrow - Still at least one gambelii subspecies song heard, though most were the breeding pugetensis type Western Meadowlark - One in the East Meadow. These turn up surprisingly late during spring sometimes Western Tanager - Male, silent, in the riparian strip west of the Dog Meadow (FOY)
The WESTERN TANAGER was a real surprise since this is the earliest ever for the Marymoor Survey, and the 2nd earliest for the park reported on eBird. Our previous earliest sighting was on 26-Apr-2018. On eBird, there is a report from Sarah Pedan, 20-Apr-17. Most years they have not appeared until May.
We had a better day for mammals, with coyote and deer seen along with the more usual beaver, bunny, and squirrel.
Misses today included Bufflehead, Hooded Merganser, Vaux's Swift, American Coot, Wilson's Snipe, Glaucous-winged Gull, Pied-billed Grebe, American Barn Owl, Barn Swallow, Cliff Swallow, Hermit Thrush, and Lincoln's Sparrow.
Despite that long list of misses and our general disappointment in the morning, we had 58 species. Adding NRWS and WETA puts the survey at 96 species for 2025.
= Michael Hobbs = <BirdMarymoor...> = www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
