Hey tweets, The Fill was really jumping yesterday afternoon, though not
altogether with birds. For a change, everyone and his brother seemed to be
out strolling, taking plant classes, bike riding, walking the dog, and yes,
birding. Maybe it's all this human activity that's mostly focused on things
other than birds that gets the birds quickly used to people. I don't know,
but when a lesser yellowlegs flew into Shoveler Pond just before sunset, it
kept its wings upraised for a few seconds - just in case, you know - and
then settled down like an old pet hen, pecking and feeding along the pond
shore. Nothing seemed to bother it, so I got long and fairly close looks.
Also on the pond were a least sandpiper, and all three teals, the cinnamon
looking especially vivid in the bright sunshine.

The highlight of the evening for me, though, was watching an Anna's
hummingbird hawk small flying insects down near the main pond. It flew up
into a bug swarm and then just hovered there, sucking in bugs like I suck in
milkshakes. The bugs seemed totally unaware - that's what love will do for
you.

Another highlight happened down at the point. Ever since my master birding
class, I've been paying a lot more attention to bird sounds, in a vain
attempt to improve my identifying by ear skills. So I was thrilled to hear a
Virginia rail clicking away in the cattails on the north edge of Union Bay.
Well, at least something was clicking away. It didn't really sound like two
stones clicking together - I mean, it wasn't a mechanical sound at all. You
could tell something biological was making it. But was it really a Virginia
rail? I talked to Brian Bell, one of the master birder gurus, about this
issue of getting bird song to stick to my little gray cells. He said the
best thing to do was watch the bird as it was singing. Following that sage
advice, I now know how cattails sound during mating season. But not Virginia
rails, since I never did see the little guy. Also, no marsh wrens, which
seems odd. Usually we get at least two nests in those cattails, as well as
one nest on Cinnamon Teal Pond nearby, and a few nests along the cattails
bordering the south end of the Fill. As compensation, we're doing
exceptionally well with tree swallows this year. I think several have found
nest holes in the dead beaver trees.

Speaking of master birding, we finished up our first year of class with a
massive two-hour final exam on Wednesday. We were all very nervous. Well,
everyone except for me. I was so far past nerves that I was all the way to
resignation. I mean, how can you do well when you know, going into it, that
you're going to flunk a fourth of the test (the song ID part).

Sure enough, when the first song was played, I just sat there. I have never
heard that song in my life, I was sure. Neither had most of the class. We
all just sat there with expectant looks on our faces and our pens raised to
write. Then someone asked, "Was that the first song?" When Brian said yes,
we all just laughed. What else was there to do? As the rest of the test
progressed, though, most people did know enough to write down answers. I had
thought that I might try guessing, but the sheer embarrassment of not even
putting a bird into the right order, let alone genus or species, stayed my
hand. My second strategy, to write Bewick's wren for anything I couldn't
identify, backfired almost immediately when I heard what I was sure was a
robin's song. Unhappily for me, two more robin songs appeared later. Then a
dim factoid floated to the surface of my brain. During one of the birding by
ear lectures, I remembered one lecturer saying that it helps if you classify
certain songs according to how much they resemble better-known songs. With
robins, for example, you can put black-headed grosbeaks and western
tanagers. So for the second "robin" song, I put down black-headed grosbeak
and it was right!!! Now, that's what I call literally dumb luck. Dumb cluck?
(The first song, by the way, was western grebe, as someone told me later.)

For the rest of the test, we had a slide identification part, a short-answer
written part, and two bird topography maps to fill in (naming all the
feather tracts). For me, the rest of the test was a lot better. I mean, I
can always bloviate about something. I simply remember Lyndon Johnson's
advice to a young politician: If you can't or won't answer the question a
reporter asks you, simply answer a question he hasn't asked yet. Actually,
you really couldn't b.s. your way through any part of the test, but still it
was a lot more fun than the songs.

And now what do we do? No more going to class twice a week, sweating over
difficult homework assignments, trying to eke out a few hours here and there
to get into the field.

Well, even over the break, we're supposed to keep busy with the class. For
one thing, we "owe" Seattle Audubon 160 hours of community service (or more,
I can't remember exactly). It's to pay SAS back for offering this wonderful
birding class for free. In my case, I'll be leading two trips: one in June
to Reifel; one in July around the Fill (with a special segment component:
bringing in some real bird parts to show participants birds' ears, how wings
work, etc.). We're also supposed to get into the field and put into practice
the things we've learned in class. So there's a ton of fun in store for us,
just as there was in the class time, too. I feel so grateful to SAS for
sponsoring this program. I feel even more grateful to the wonderful master
birders who have poured countless hours into this year's class, merely for
the satisfaction of holding out a helping hand to the birders following
behind. I hope our class will do as well when it's our turn to serve. -
Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com

P.S. Here's a list of what I saw yesterday:
pied-billed grebe
double crested cormorant
great blue heron
Canada goose
mallard
gadwall
northern shoveler
green-winged teal
blue-winged teal
cinnamon teal
ring-necked duck
greater scaup
lesser scaup
common merganser
bufflehead
ruddy duck
ring-necked pheasant
American coot
killdeer
lesser yellowlegs
least sandpiper
glaucous-winged gull
Anna's hummingbird
northern flicker (red-shafted)
American crow
tree swallow
barn swallow
black-capped chickadee
bushtit
Bewick's wren
American robin
European starling
yellow-rumped warbler
Lincoln's sparrow
song sparrow
white-crowned sparrow
savannah sparrow
red-winged blackbird
house finch