Hello Tweets,
Things are really cranking up here at the lake! (not even
counting the many human picnickers this morning, who lasted through the
first raindrops.) On Thurs 5/9, I had my first sighting this spring of
pied-billed grebes working on a nest, near the cattail patches on the
west side of the lake. Both grebes, as usual, were
bringing up stems. They seemed to be working quite rapidly. On Friday and
Saturday, a grebe was sitting on the nest. This morning we saw the first
2 eggs of the season, white (as yet unstained), with parent 1 floating an
inch or two away from the nest while parent 2 was busy chasing off an
interloper grebe (both ran a couple hundred yards? across the water).
Another pair of grebes seems to be just this morning claiming another
patch of lilypads further north along the west side: one was swimming
around the pad area (in a rough circle) with a beakful of rotting leaves and
other indefinable stuff, diving occasionally (retaining the stuff), while
the other swam behind.
We've been keeping an eye on a tree hole populated by a Northern
Flicker. I first saw the male apparently excavating the hole (about 20'
up the decaying top of an alder) on April 27. The hole is round, a
little broader at the top than bottom. Every day since Friday 5/9, when
we've taken a couple of minutes to check out the hole through binocs, we've
been rewarded with the appearance of a male flicker head through the
hole. I've seen a female in the area,
but never in the hole, which surprises me; my Birders' Handbook says that
both M and F attend the nest (if it's indeed a nest; comments welcome). I
want to make sure I'm not disturbing it by watching them through binocs
from about 20' away from the tree--any thoughts on how far away I should
stay?
It's been great fun watching the two (at least) baby red-winged
blackbirds in a nest on the west side of the lake getting fed by their
diligent mother. Yesterday evening she was coming to the nest about every
2-4 minutes with some more goodies. Once we found the nest, which is very
well hidden, we could see the bright red throats of the youngsters as
they open their beaks to receive their meals.
The clearing of some of the blackberry thickets on the western
side of the lake has opened a clear warm shallow shoreline place
populated by 30+ bullfrog tadpoles (heads about an inch long--huge babies!).
And finally, it's been a banner time for warblers. In one group
of alders on Friday, I saw 2 Wilson's warblers, at least one yellow
warbler, an Audubon's warbler, a black-throated gray warbler F, and an
apparent Myrtle-Audubon hybrid. Today I saw my first warbling vireo.
With all the exciting arrivals, it's been time for goodbyes as well.
The last time I saw cormorants on the island was Saturday 5/4. There's
only one pair of wigeons and one of gadwalls (at least on the western
half of the lake, where I usually hang out). But there are goslings and
mallard ducklings waddling about, cheering everyone up. (Except the
territorial RWBlackbirds, who were busy chasing off everyone from
sparrows to crows and gulls.)

Trileigh Stroh
Green Lake, Seattle