Trip Report
Naturalist Trip - Center for Urban Horticulture
8 of us enjoyed a lovely winter morning with no rain or wind and 37 bird species including 4 bald eagles, wood ducks, green-winged teals, and a raft of over a thousand coots, wigeons, and gadwalls.
Courtenay Schurman
- Thu, Jan 22, 2026
- Naturalist Trip - Center for Urban Horticulture
- Center for Urban Horticulture
- Naturalist
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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We encountered patches of frost and ice (Yessler boardwalk was thankfully mostly dry and has texture to prevent falls) with a few muddy areas near the ponds, but for the most part, now is a fabulous time to bird at The Fill.
8 of us met to bird for 3 hours on a dry, cold, windless morning. We enjoyed 37 species and several "wow" moments with a pair of adult and 2 juvenile bald eagles, good looks at tiny, loud, very busy Anna's hummingbirds (below)
northern shovelers doing their circular feeding, sleeping green-winged teals (bookending shoveler pair)
and double-crested cormorants drying their feathers.
The "bird of the day" that caused us to work was a lesser scaup although I also loved seeing all the eagles.
No scope on this trip; it would have been handy to have as we saw a raft of over 1000 birds that, on examining a photo after the fact, taken with my 100-400 lens, yielded mostly wigeons, gadwalls, grebes and coots. Too far out (and into the sun!) for binocular identification.
This was a reschedule from December's Lincoln Park trip that got weathered out, and moved from Lincoln Park due to Revive-I-5. A great decision I'd make all over again. Union Bay is fabulous.
