hello tweets.

i was feeling exhausted today so i did not spend much time at
the montlake fill tonight (445-530pm). it was mostly cloudy and
quite windy today, but not unpleasantly cold as it has usually
been in the days and weeks past.

i did see three vaux's swifts flying around with the bazillions
of swallows, a new arrival for the montlake fill. i also saw
7 least sandpipers, 2 western sandpipers, four male and one
female blue-winged teal, one pair of cinnamon teal and one very
handsome male pintail. the duck numbers have plummeted sharply
since my last visit; i only saw perhaps 50 ducks total. it
appears that all the ring-necked ducks and greater scaup are
now gone, almost all of the bufflehead are gone (only two females
remained on the central pond), and there were very few lesser
scaup and green-winged teal to be seen. american pipit are
still there, and the savannah sparrows are very numerous but
easy to miss because they are so quiet and secretive now.

bob vandenbosch told me that he saw a western kingbird at
the fill today, but i couldn't find it, nor did i hear it
vocalizing. perhaps this is due to my own exhaustion and
short time investment? i also ran into tom o'connell, who
is an instructor at north seattle community college (?), who
mentioned the newly arrived swifts.

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://students.washington.edu/~nyneve/
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