Subject: What's doing at the Fill
Date: Jun 28 12:54:02 2003
From: Connie Sidles - csidles at isomedia.com


Hey tweets, It's late June, a time when I start looking for signs of fall.
The heat of summer is purgatory to me, and summer air seems to hang
oppressively heavy above the drooping plants all summer long. Fall, on the
other hand, is marked by crisp mornings and wisps of fog that burn off in
the afternoon. Instead of the brassy light of the summer sun, the fall
sunlight is rich and mellow. Since I can hardly wait for fall, I headed off
for the Fill this morning in hopes of seeing some early fall migrating
peeps.

Late June is the most difficult time to bird the Fill, I think, because -
what with many adult birds molting and many juvenile birds joining the
melange - all the birds look alike to me, and the ones that don't look alike
look so different that they appear to be different species altogether (in my
early birding days, it took me two weeks of intense study of juvenile juncos
before I realized that they *were* juncos, not some exotic who-knows-what;
when I did finally realize, I said, "Oh, juuunnncccooos," in a foolish
voice, then I glanced around to see if anyone had heard me, looking I am
sure much like a cat that has fallen off the couch and then tries to pretend
that it always meant to do that). There were plenty of tree swallows and
violet-green swallows on hand at the main pond, but telling them apart when
they all look brown is hard. You have to look at their tiny faces zooming by
at a thousand miles an hour, hoping to see whether the dark color comes down
through their eye or stops above it. I ask you.

The dabbling ducks are all pretty much in eclipse now, making them very
challenging to identify. There was a small flock of gadwalls on the main
pond, intermixed with a few mallards (told by their upturned, curly tails),
a juvenile wood duck too clueless to know that it is supposed to be shy, and
one blue-winged teal (this is a tough ID).

One nice thing about the heavy summer air is that it is still, at least it
was early this morning. That really helped to find the birds that would
plunge into the foliage and disappear, as well as the birds that like to
stay hidden in tall grass or reeds (such as an annoying marsh wren that
stayed out of sight just to taunt me on purpose). My favorite among these
plungers and hiders was the male common yellowthroat who was singing in the
tall grass next to the tallest cottonwoods down near the point. I finally
saw him, but it wasn't easy. No peeps. Here's a list of what I found:

pied-billed grebe
great blue heron
Canada goose
wood duck
gadwall
mallard
blue-winged teal
ring-necked pheasant
killdeer
glaucous-winged gull
rock dove
Vaux's swift
Anna's hummingbird
downy woodpecker
northern flicker (red-shafted)
American crow
tree swallow
violet-green swallow
cliff swallow
barn swallow
black-capped chickadee
bushtit
Bewick's wren
marsh wren
American robin
European starling
common yellowthroat
savannah sparrow
song sparrow
white-crowned sparrow
red-winged blackbird
house finch
house sparrow - Connie,Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com