Wallis --

Have you considered wood duck? That's what it sounds like. If the male's in eclipse
plumage, you might not recognize him from the book.

JMc

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From: Wallis Bolz[SMTP:wallitra at nwrain.com]
Reply To: wallitra at nwrain.com
Sent: Friday, October 23, 1998 12:02 AM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: birds doing things birds do in the Washington Park Arboretum and my backyard

Hey tweeters,

The absolute high point of the week was the Belted kingfisher's visit to
the Japanese Garden. Mr. Kingfisher caught one of the big fat goldfish in
the pond. That fish was so bright, so gold, so shiny. I watched him fly to
a stone pagoda, tip his head back, crook the beak open to swallow the big
fat gold fish, and lose the fish. Plop, the fish slid from his beak, into
the shallows and away. The kingfisher dove twice from the pagoda, but he
could not recover the fish.

So then I saved several ducks in the pond below the gazebo from the
spit-soaked jaws of a great furred domestic beast. Oh, how I did hate
stupid off-leash dog owners then, and decided the zen thing was a hard one
to work for a woman with so much righteous anger. I knew the mallards, but
three ducks in the pond I could not identify. A short bill, a bit like a
coot, and yellow. A white band about the throat, in line with the bottom of
the bill, not the bottom of the neck. Blue? from eye to eye and a bright
green top on the male. Two females in tow, and they were brown but they
also had the bright green top. Wing bars two--short blue and short white.
What did I see? I don't recognize this duck from the pages of Peterson.

And today a band of Steller's Jays cleaned my gutters, and the Song Sparrow
who lives now in my backyard gave me his song. I am clad from head to toe
in blue, I have a jay feather in my pocket, and it is evident that today I
am one with the jay. Squawk squawk squawk.

Wallis
Arboretum heights now, the neighborhood, according to Windemere