Rhodostethia = red breast, rosea = rosy*. Rhodostethia rosea, bringing the
rose of the arctic sunlow to the fleecy blue of the sky and the steely blue
of the waters at the congruence of the Cascadian states. It's enough to
make one wax poetic. High above lumbering glaucous-wings, threading through
lighter ring-bills and Bonaparte's, dusky gray underwings catch the eye.
Magnetic attraction that keeps the scope fluid, back and forth from outlet
pipes to midriver, passing common loon, mergansers, goldeneyes. Pale
gull-gray mantle flows onto head and neck, stops suddenly where it meets
glowing pink underparts, which suffuse back until replaced by snow-white
astonishingly pointed tail, a touch of its white captured at the wing's
border, as if rubbed off when they were folded over it. Dark eye smudge and
petite bill the special gifts at close range. This is nearly a perfect
bird.

But remember, this Arctic sprite was captured in its wandering only by the
promise of free fish chowder delivered by one of the oft-cursed dams on the
once free-flowing river. These dams attract the hordes of flying
fish-fancying fowls that, by intelligence or ESP, arrive to accept their
welfare stipends of bouillabaise; how could they do otherwise? But as gull
enthusiasts arriving at the Columbia River, are we to say "Dam it all?"

* And the Rose-breasted Grosbeak got stuck with Pheucticus ludovicianus;
well, it's only a passerine....

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416