Hey tweets, The Fill was fabulous this morning, as usual. The large flocks
of yellow-rumped warblers are still making all the trees and bushes lively,
plus now the sparrows are starting to get vocal and visible.

The best birds of the day for me were a late American pipit on the main
pond, a canvasback on Union Bay, three marsh wrens in migration (feeding in
the cattails along the southern edge of the Fill), and a western grebe on
the lake (I haven't seen one of those here for years, although they used to
like to gather in good numbers down near the boathouse).

I also saw Stuart's yellow-shafted and oranged-shafted flickers, both
really gorgeous birds. It was a good year for flickers at the Fill, as well
as towhees, which were everywhere this morning. All these species, as well
as the warblers and starlings, seem to like one particular bush near the
wedding rock. The bush is filled with round black berries. Other bushes
have these berries, too, but for some reason, the berries on this one bush
are better. It's like when you go to the Food Court at the zoo - everybody
lines up at the Pizza Hut booth, even though other booths have food that's
probably healthier. Anyway, it's rather comical to see the flickers thrash
around in the bush, along with the smaller birds. They jump onto a slender
branch and then look wildly around as though they aren't sure this was a
good idea. I was laughing so hard I couldn't actually tell whether the
flickers were eating the berries or just having a ride on the bouncing
branch. - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com