Two new bird species spotted flying over Eastlake

Recently added to “Dave’s Eastlake Bird List – 63 Species and Counting” (now 65!) are Trumpeter Swans and Greater White-Fronted Geese that Dave Galvin spotted flying over Eastlake.

I was fortunate to see a flock of Trumpeter Swans on Union Bay and snapped the photo below (but we’d still like to get photos of the birds taken on Eastlake soil):

Here’s Dave’s recent write up on the flyovers along with photos by Larry Hubbell, who generously lets us use some of his photos when we don’t yet have images of the species taken in Eastlake. We encourage readers to check out Larry’s wonderful weekly posts about nature in the city at UnionBayWatch.blogpost.com.

Greater White-Fronted Goose

In Dave’s words, “These geese who nest far north in Alaska fly over us during migrations. I happened to be outside on September 22, 2021, and heard their distinctive call. Looking up, I saw three Vs flying south directly over Lake Union. These are a variety of waterfowl unlikely to be seen locally but we have the opportunity to hear them passing overhead on their migrations. A ‘fly-over’ species.”

Trumpeter Swan

“Swans visit Washington state during winter, mostly hanging out in the Skagit Flats north of us, a few of them hanging out in Union Bay near Husky Stadium. Trumpeters are the most common swan to winter in western Washington, so I was not surprised when I heard a jazz riff in the sky above on March 16, 2022, over my houseboat and looked up to see 22 Trumpeter Swans flying in a V northeast toward Union Bay. We don’t usually have swans wintering on Lake Union, so a fly-over of nearby birds in Eastlake is an unexpected, but possible occurrence.”