Dear tweetsters,

Spent three hours this (Saturday) morning, wondering around parts of Green
Lake, focusing on various non-duck courtship activities.

There's still a lot to be learned about Pied-billed Grebe courtship,
especially the early stages; very hard to distinguish from aggressive
behavior. Unfortunately, the birds were not active at all this morning. Only
one pair showed some interaction, but it was limited to the chattering
greeting call of an already established pair. Not what I was looking for.

The time spent at the north end of the lake, near the area where the Parks
Department in conjunction with the Green Lake Park Alliance (volunteers for
Green lake Park) are working on wildlife habitat improvement around the
snags, was much more productive.

I discovered red-breasted nuthatches that have chosen a cavity in a birch
tree which I asked Parks not to cut down this winter (since it's not near
the path it poses no direct danger to park users). I'll send Paul West, the
very cooperative Urban Forester for the city, a note about this too. Just so
he knows that the tree he decided to leave is now home to these industrious
bug-eaters.

The tree the nuthatches were in last year is currently the center of a
battlefield between tree swallows. What looks like a pair (at least I assume
they are a pair, I can't tell) is defending a hole in a snag along shore. I
watched for an hour while the two would fly to the hole, inspect the inside,
cling to the trunk, or sit on nearby branches. Violet-green swallows were
allowed to perch within a foot of the tree swallows, but another tree
swallow was constantly chased off. Not only from the tree with the hole, but
from any tree within about 50 meters. A hundred meters was apparently safe,
for a tree at this distance was used by numerous perched and preening tree
swallows.

It was interesting to see the bill-to-bill mid-air grappling/fighting
between the tree swallows. Both members of the defending pair would grapple
with the third bird. Either they would lock bills and spiral down, much in
the fashion of a maple seed helicopters down, or the birds would try to stay
above the adversary, while trying to lock bills and then in addition use the
feet to push the bird down. The fights took place over water and the
fighting birds repeatedly landed in the water ( they had no apparent
problems getting airborne again, only looked wet afterwards).

This illustrates all the more how important it is to have snags throughout
parks, nut just in one location.

The next time the volunteers working on the habitat improvement project have
a work party I'll go down and set the scope on the various holes so they
(the volunteers) can put faces with the names of the beneficiaries of their
efforts.

I love taking the time to stand in one spot and observe all the activity. In
answer to the question "anything interesting to see?" I always respond "it's
all interesting" and then add what I'm looking at specifically. I've gotten
some great responses that way (regardless of the price of the binoculars
people carry) and especially the people who don't carry binoculars often
will start paying attention (as evident from the questions I get at later
dates).

A Saturday morning well-spent.

I hope you all had similar edifying and uplifting experiences.

Martin Muller, Seattle
MartinMuller at email.msn.com