Hey tweets, The Fill was pretty quiet in the early morning, but things began
to pick up significantly as noon approached. In fact, that famous fall Fill
fenomenon - the return of large flocks of pedoballus fanus huskiensis -
began in earnest this very day. It seems a little early, I know, but there
is just no mistaking the local variant (fanus huskiensis winnebagus) when
you see dozens lumbering up and down the dime parking lot, looking for a
place to roost among the smaller and more active subspecies, fanus
huskiensis pickuptrukus.

For some reason, when the flock arrives, it always arrives in large numbers.
By large, I mean 70,000 individuals per flock, although of course it's hard
to get an exact count. Suffice it to say that these birds literally cover
the ground surface from end to end. Typically, they feed in the parking lot
for a while and then, at some mysterious signal that ornithologists have yet
to determine, the whole flock rises as one and heads over to the stadium to
perch and preen.

I don't want to raise tweeters' hopes too much, but I'm pretty sure that I
saw an extreme rarity among the more common birds: a fanus michiganser. I
admit I got only a brief look, so you all better get yourselves down to the
Fill and see for yourselves. I think if we all cooperate, we should be able
to scare up that rarity. Maybe some of you WOS members can tell me how many
of these have been seen in the state since record-keeping began, but I know
it's got to be a small number.

I hesitate to even bother to mention the other birds I saw, since anything
but the most unusual bird would be lost in the excitement of today's event.
Still, I enjoyed seeing some other avian visitors, including the largest
number of common yellowthroats I've ever seen at the Fill at once (seven in
the bushes at the north end of the main pond), foraging with a yellow and an
orange-crowned warbler. Also on view, a sharp-shinned hawk actively hunting
between the main pond and the large cottonwood grove. Here's a list of
everything I found today:

pied-billed grebe
double-crested cormorant (coming back in numbers now)
Canada goose
mallard
gadwall
green-winged teal
cinnamon teal
wood duck (large numbers on Union Bay)
American coot
killdeer
greater yellowlegs
sharp-shinned hawk
rock dove
belted kingfisher
northern flicker
downy woodpecker
barn swallow
American crow
black-capped chickadee
Bewick's wren
American robin
European starling
orange-crowned warbler
yellow warbler
common yellowthroat
savannah sparrow
white-crowned sparrow
red-winged blackbird
American goldfinch
house finch - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com