Hey tweets, It took an entire collection of Seattle Audubon day-trippers to
do it, but we found the GREEN HERON at the Fill yesterday morning. As you
may recall, green herons are my particular bane, so it was highly gratifying
to find one - the first of the year for me, and here it is mid-July already.
We flushed the heron out of the reeds on the south side of the dime parking
lot permanent pond (not the restored ponds, but the round pound just south
of that). The heron flew to a downed tree on the north side of the pond and
perched there, giving us great looks. Also on that pond were an AMERICAN
COOT NEST (the mom is off the nest now, and the baby is a beautiful silvery
gray), and a little family of PIED-BILLED GREBES, with two babies looking
like avian zebras.

That pond was definitely the highlight of the walk for me, although we did
see some other great birds. One of the silent BELTED KINGFISHERS flew
straight at us across Union Bay as we watched, and then veered south to fly
right by us. She reminded me of the airshow I had attended the previous
weekend at McChord Airforce Base. The airshow featured fly-bys of all sorts
of military planes (including a slew from the former USSR), aerobatic
planes, jets, etc. After each one did its stuff, the announcer would tell
the audience, "Get your cameras ready, folks, here comes the photo flyby."
Then each plane would skim by the audience, its wings tilted at just the
right angle so that camera buffs could shoot a picture showing all the
features of the airplane. Even the lumbering refueling jet, which resembled
a flying whale, came by on a photo pass - you just knew the pilot was
wishing like crazy to be flying an agile Stealth or Thunderbird, but he had
to make do with what he had. Well, the belted kingfisher gave us the same
kind of photo flyby. It was most amusing, considering that birds have been
flying a heckuva lot longer than humans have.

Another highlight for me was the NORTHERN SHOVELER on the main pond. I
haven't seen one of those in a while! It's still in eclipse (or maybe it was
a female), but at least it was out and about. The CEDAR WAXWINGS are still
around, gorging on berries and bugs. And the BEWICK'S WRENS have come out of
hiding, finally. The parents are busy trying to ditch the babies, who, while
perfectly capable of finding their own food, refuse to forage on their own
as long as mommy or daddy is around, even when a bug is literally right
under their noses. I won't make the obvious comparison to my four older
teenagers living at home this summer, but it is remarkable how often I'm
going to the grocery store. My sister, who has no children, says that I'm a
spendthrift on food. She says that going to the grocery store every day
(sometimes twice in one day!) is making me spend a lot more money than I
otherwise would. She says I should stock up heavily once a week, and then
fill in on perishables as needed. She simply does not believe me when I tell
her that if I followed her suggestion, I would have to buy at least one more
refrigerator and build an add-on pantry. But the Bewick's wrens, who look
about as frazzled as I feel, know that parents of teens do not live in the
"should" world.

Finally, I want to mention another highlight of our trip yesterday. Dennis
Paulson very kindly gave me four bird carcasses in May. I've been keeping
them in the deep-freeze since then, unbeknownst to my family. But yesterday
morning I had to reveal their presence because in my house, no food-like
packet wrapped in a plastic bag and sitting on the counter goes unnoticed.
So when my kids did some unauthorized exploring, they got a big surprise.
The Eeewwwss were loud and long, but I was unmoved. I thought the carcasses
were terrific. We had a starling, varied thrush, red-breasted sapsucker and
belted kingfisher. I took them to the Fill and spent the first hour or so
showing my participants wonderful things about bird anatomy: how bird ears
look (so very beautiful); how wings fold; how feathers have evolved to serve
many different purposes; how wing feathers attach to a bird's arm; how
coverts look when a wing is extended or folded; how barbules keep flight
feathers smooth and how barbuless feathers are fluffy, etc. It was great.
Thanks, Dennis, for your generosity.

Here's a complete list of what we found on our walk:
pied-billed grebe
great blue heron
green heron
Canada goose
mallard
northern shoveler (at last)
wood duck
American coot
osprey
Anna's hummingbird
rufous hummingbird (this one a bit of a guess, as it never lifted its wings
to show up its flanks; but it had that more stubby look than an Anna's)
northern flicker (red)
belted kingfisher
tree swallow
violet-green swallow
cliff swallow
barn swallow
American crow
black-capped chickadee
Bewick's wren
marsh wren
American robin
cedar waxwing
European starling
common yellowthroat (heard, not seen)
spotted towhee (I saw this one before the group arrived)
savannah sparrow
song sparrow
white-crowned sparrow (I saw this one before the group arrived)
red-winged blackbird
house sparrow
house finch
American goldfinch - Connie Sidles, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com