hello tweeters.

i went to the montlake fill tonight for a quick peek at the
birds, instead of trying to list everything in earshot and
within sight, as usual (i'll do that tomorrow!).

i saw at least five canada goose families when i was at the
fill yesterday, including one that had 19 goslings in it, so
i went back today mostly to find them all. i only found 3
canada goose families, numbering 8, 11 and 19 goslings each.
i watched the 19 gosling family and i am wondering if this
bunch might be the product of two females (and no "husbands")?
i have been checking a fair number of canada goose nests and
haven't seen any nests with more than ten eggs in them. i doubt
that one canada goose could successfully incubate more than
ten eggs. is it possible that these two birds are females
and their family is the result of 19 (or so) one-night-stands?

as i left the fill, i walked past a cherry (crabapple?) tree
in full bloom that had a male red-winged blackbird in it that
was singing. my partner commented that the bird was in the wrong
location (the tree wasn't standing in or near water) so i
took a closer look at this bird. it must have been an immature
male practicing his song since he was clothed in streaky brown
plumage and had only the faintest of red on his wings. he was
alternating between singing and flower-eating while i watched
him.

regards,

Deborah Wisti-Peterson email:nyneve at u.washington.edu
Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash, USA
Visit me on the web: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~nyneve/
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