hello tweets.

i felt really lonely at the montlake fill tonight, wondering
if all the birds had gone off to a birdie gambling casino for
the night, after getting disgusted with numerous prying human
eyes? i did run into several long-lost friends (now found, it
seems) who made the loneliness a little easier to bear, and
who helped me to take delight in the numerous robins and
half-grown canada goslings that were underfoot at all times.
one robin, a brightly-colored male, stood near to us at the
central pond, holding four or five struggling worms in his beak.
his puffin imitation was certainly interesting, and i spent some
time wondering where his nest might be located. the canada
goslings looked quite comical as they tried to imitate their
bathing parents flopping vigorously in the warm green water
of the central pond. the yellow goslings flapped their
fluff-covered wings ineffectively the air while they splashed
around the shallows. we also watched several swallows chase a
white down feather hovering on the breezes above the central
pond. first one swallow would grab the feather in mid-air
and zoom away, but somehow the feather would escape and then
another swallow would grab it and fly in another direction.
i thought i might be able to attract a swallow by throwing a
down feather into the air, but the swallows weren't interested,
and my found feather sank slowly to the muddy earth, dejected.

i did manage to see some unusual birds at the fill tonight. i
did see a single Western Meadowlark, and a single Northern
Rough-winged Swallow. i did not see any shorebirds, nor did
i see the female yellow-headed blackbird, nor any western
kingbirds. i also could not relocate the vaux's swifts nor
the male pintail that i saw the other night. all of the teal
were gone tonight, as were almost all of the ducks, except
for two female bufflehead and several northern shovelers.

perhaps the birds were laying low tonight because an adult
bald eagle sat in the beaver trees for a long period of time
this evening?

i am hoping that the birds cooperate tomorrow because i am
showing someone around the fill who has traveled here from
florida to look at birds. send some "birdie good-luck thoughts"
towards the montlake fill tonight!

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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