Tuesday (
1/14) my son and I stopped briefly at Mini Park in Lynnwood. I had never before seen any in the small lake, but two double-crested cormorants were present while we were there. The feathers on this one look like a dragon's scales. Shades of Smaug!
Two Pacific wrens were in a blackberry bramble on the west side of the park. This is the first good photo I have taken of one. Their name was recently changed from winter wren, which is still found in older bird books. According to
Birds of the Puget Sound Region, the house wren is the sole local wren waiting for me to photograph.
A Bewick's wren was in the same bramble, which made for a good comparison between the two wren species.
The two that got away: a golden-crowned kinglet at Mini Park and a sharp-shinned hawk in my neighbor's back yard.
I think it was my first prolonged look at a sharpie. Based on its
robinesque size and shape, I initially thought it was one of the varied thrushes spending the winter in my back yard until I got out the binos. It was noticeably smaller than its look-alike cousin, the Cooper's hawk. Compared to the Cooper's hawk, the tail appeared shorter and head smaller in relation to its body.
I had earlier noticed feathers on the ground in my back yard and assumed my cat had taken a small bird hanging out in the rhodies under my bird feeder. After seeing the sharpie, I wonder if it was responsible for the pile of feathers.