hello tweets.

i went to the montlake fill this morning to take my weekly
bird census, instead of waiting until the evening. despite the
fact that the overall diversity of species has declined
somewhat at the fill, there are some really neat birds to be
seen there right now.

perhaps the most surprising sighting today were the four
killdeer chickies running through the purple loosestrife
at the southern end of the central pond, near the gravel
trail. these four chickies appeared to be about three or
four days of age, perhaps older, because they were showing
some feather growth under all their puffy fluffy downy
feathers. mama and papa bobbed nearby, and said
"deedeeedeeeeeee" almost constantly.

i watched a male red-winged blackbird walking through the
tall grasses near the beaver tree pond, raised wings flaming
brilliant red against glossy gleaming black plumage, making
quite a strange and loud racket. he abruptly disappeared
into a bush but continued to make his ungodly noise, so i
finally decided that i had to see what was happening. oops,
sez i, as i get quite an eye-full of red-winged blackbird-style
romance. the startled male and the female exploded out of the
bush and flew away in opposite directions.

i also spent some time watching the ever-lovely cedar waxwings
as they hawked and gleaned insects from the trees standing in
the central pond. every time one of the birds captured an
insect, the plumage would be puffed out and the bird raised the
crest feathers, making a faint buzzing call. immediately, the
other bird would fly to her (i assume female) partner's branch
and beg for the morsel, walking down the branch with wings
a-flutter and mouth wide open, exposing a brilliant raspberry-red
gape. the partner would then give the morsel to his partner and
they would settle companionably close to each other on the branch
for a few brief moments until they both started to feed again.

cedar waxwings' calls are really interesting to me because it
seems as though i don't actually hear them at all; rather, it
seems that i feel them as a sort of excitement in the air. the
soft buzzes and high-pitched trills of the cedar waxwing are
the electric pulse emanating from all living things, but to which
we humans are indifferent. the cedar waxwing seems uniquely
capable of magnifying and radiating this trembling life force
so humans can finally become aware of it.

an interesting thing happened today. a down-clad canada gosling
adopted me. as i was sneaking around the edge of the central pond,
i could hear the loud shrill peeping of a lost canada gosling
calling desperately for its parents. i ignored the gosling as i
went about my business until i reached the far side of the pond,
when i decided that this gosling was the loudest i'd ever heard,
and where were his parents, and gee, i wish he'd shut up so i
could hear something besides his pathetic screams.

well, he must have heard my thoughts, because he did shut up as
soon as i found the cedar waxwings. as i stood there quietly
watching them, this gosling walked cautiously through the grasses,
stopped near a bush, and stared at me. i finally looked at the
bird and our eyes met. i guess he decided that was an invitation
to follow me, so he walked right up to my feet and stood next to
me expectantly. i walked away and he followed me. i peeped at him,
trying my best to sound like a happy gosling. he answered me and
began to eat grass at my feet. i peeped again, and he stopped
eating to gaze up at my face lovingly.

i realized that i made a mistake at that moment. i walked away,
and the gosling followed me. i walked towards a group of adult
geese loafing on the shore, hoping to lose the kid there. the adult
geese honked suspiciously and parted for me like the red sea.
the gosling had eyes only for me, so i walked faster.

the gosling peeped pitifully and ran after me as fast as his legs
could carry him, fluffy wing-stubs sticking straight out from his
sides for balance.

i groaned. now what was i going to do? i slowed down to let the
wee gosling catch up with me, and he rewarded my with his cute little
happy gosling sounds. despite everything, i liked this. i looked
skyward through my binos while the gosling pulled contentedly at
the grasses near my feet. he sometimes stood on my shoes while he
fed. i watched the caspian terns catch fish.

i wondered why this gosling wanted to follow me so badly. what sort
of physical attribute was his focus? why wouldn't he follow
other people? why wasn't he interested in being with other goslings?
he certainly was interested in groups of other goslings, but he
was determined that i was his mother, and that was the end of that.

i wondered if he had been kidnapped by a human as an egg or a
newly-hatched gosling, and bonded to humans. if so, perhaps i
looked a lot like his previous human? on the other hand, maybe i
just looked like a "super goose" with my dark purple husky baseball
cap and pale blonde hair and white cheeks?

i eventually lost this gosling at the beaver tree pond, where there
were two other canada goose families comprised of similarly-sized
goslings. even though i had only been running away from this
gosling for a short time, maybe half an hour, i really miss him
and now i am worried about his safety.

i went back once, briefly, to check on my gosling. he was feeding
contentedly with the other goslings. i wondered if i could distinguish
him from the others, and decided that he was so happy to be with his
kin that he had forgotten all about me. all of a sudden, i heard a
loud, shrill peeping and saw my gosling running towards me, wing-stubs
held away from his body, as if he was in one of those slow-motion
running scenes in a cheesy romance flick. of course, i recognized
him immediately and ran away as fast as i could go. he lost sight of
me and finally settled in with the rest of his fuzzy bretheren.

other notable birds include the anna's hummingbirds that i watched
feeding and zooming around the wedding rock, the lone cinnamon
and blue-winged teals, and the single handsome male pintail
floating around the central pond, regarding me suspiciously as i
tried to hide from "my" gosling. i also had three sightings of
at least two different green herons. they were actually quite
bold, sitting out in the open and one went so far as to have a
quarrel with a crow.

as i left the fill today, i found the decapitated body of a gosling
laying on the gravel path. the dead gosling looked to be almost as
big as "my" gosling. guilt and worry. however, i did successfully
resist the urge to run back to the beaver tree pond to check on "my"
gosling.

i was at the fill from 935am until 1100am, and saw 46 species of
birds. my bird list follows, for those who are interested;

pied-billed grebe
green heron, three sightings of at least two individuals
great blue heron
canada goose
mallard
gadwall
northern pintail 1 male
northern shoveler
blue-winged teal, 1 male
cinnamon teal, 1 male
bald eagle, 1 adult
ring-necked pheasant
california quail
american coot
killdeer
spotted sandpiper, 2
western gull
glaucous-winged gull
caspian tern, 2
rock dove
mourning dove, 1
anna's hummingbird, 2+
northern (red-shafted) flicker
american crow
tree swallow
violet-green swallow
cliff swallow
barn swallow
black-capped chickadee
bushtit
bewick's wren
marsh wren
american robin
european starling
cedar waxwing
yellow warbler
common yellowthroat
savannah sparrow
song sparrow
white-crowned sparrow
red-winged blackbird
brewer's blckbird
brown-headed cowbird
house finch
american goldfinch
house sparrow


Deborah Wisti-Peterson email:nyneve at u.washington.edu
Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash, USA
Visit me on the web: http://students.washington.edu/~nyneve/
<><><>Graduate School: it's not just a job, it's an indenture!<><><>