[Tweeters] Marymoor Park (Redmond, King Co.) 2023-12-14

[birdmarymoor]

Tweets - The rain mostly held off this morning; we had only short runs of drizzle and mizzle and maybe 5-10 minutes of actual rain.  The rest of the time it was actually pretty nice out.  Last week the water level was high; it crested on Monday about 6" higher than it had been last Thursday.  By today, the water level had dropped back to within an inch of last Thursday's level, but much of the Dog Meadow was flooded by Monday and has not drained yet, so much of the southern half of the Dog Area is closed.

Highlights:
    Snow Goose - Flock of 60-70 heading west.  First of Year (FOY)
    Cackling Goose - Much comings and goings, but at noon there were easily 2500 on the grass soccer fields
    Northern Shoveler - Four flew down the slough, only our 2nd sighting of the year
    Purple Finch - At least 2.  Only our 2nd record since the 2nd week of October
    Lincoln's Sparrow - One popped up briefly on the blackberries just south of the Pea Patch
    
So, three species of goose and nine species of duck, many crows, robins, juncos, and starlings.  It made for many birds, but not very many species.

Misses today included Green-winged Teal, Ring-necked Duck, Anna's Hummingbird (may have heard one), Virginia Rail, Belted Kingfisher, Bushtit, American Goldfinch, and Red-winged Blackbird.  No owls today, nor accipiters.  After that string of Merlin on nine weeks out of thirteen during the fall, it's now been four weeks without a sighting.  

For the day, 49 species, plus the maybe-Anna's and some indecipherable gulls that may have included "Thayer's"-type Iceland.

= Michael Hobbs