Greater Seattle, Washington area, 8/13-22/15

Marymoor Park; 8/20/15

This turned out to be a strange day. The forecast was for sunny skies, but it was drizzling in the morning. I decided not to travel far in case the rain increased, so I went back to Marymoor Park. By the time I got there, the rain had stopped, but it was still overcast. I hiked the nature trail, and logged about 15 species.

Great Blue Heron

Black-capped Chickadee

Northern Flicker

Northern Flicker

Northern Flicker

Wood Ducks

Wood Duck

Downy Woodpecker

Wilson's Warbler

Spotted Towhee

Osprey carrying a crab?

Anna's Hummingbird

Juvenile White-crowned Sparrow

There was a lot of commotion in one of the trees. Two juvenile Cedar Waxwings were demanding to be fed.

Cedar Waxwings

Cedar Waxwings

Cedar Waxwings

Cedar Waxwings

When I was at the end of the boardwalk, I heard a Virginia Rail, but could not locate it. Later that evening, I read a blog from the early morning Marymoor Park guided bird walk, and a Virginia Rail had been seen at the same location before I arrived.

The weather cleared after a few hours, and I decided to try another birding site that I had pre-programmed into my GPS: Crescent Lake. I followed the GPS directions and thought to myself that I would have never found this site without the GPS. I had been unplugging the GPS from the 12-volt auxiliary outlet in the car each time, as the rental car did not shut off the power to the auxiliary outlet when I stopped the engine. When I parked the car at Crescent Lake, I pulled out the GPS connector, and it came apart into several pieces! OMG! I tried to re-assemble the connector, but it didn't look right and wasn't sending power to the GPS unit. I wasn't sure where I was and didn't have any maps of the area. After a few minutes of mild panic, I remembered that the GPS had internal batteries, and when I turned it back on, there was enough power to get me to a highway before it shut off, and I was able to reach a store, buy some maps, and head back to the hotel. Whew!