Hey tweets, The charming conceit of "Toy Story" is that the toys have their
own life when we people aren't around watching. I was reminded of this
thought today at the Fill, where, at 7:15 a.m., I was the only human among
hordes of birds, all doing their own thing. I entered their world as quietly
as I could, hoping to catch them living their lives without reacting to my
presence at all. Every now and then, I am privileged to be allowed to do
this, without sitting in a blind or a car or behind a window, but out there
breathing the same air, feeling the same breezes, smelling the same smells,
getting just as cold/wet/hot/sunburned. The times when this happens are
carved in my memory deeply. For example, there was the time when I stood
still at Bottle Beach and let the tide push thousands of sandpipers closer
and closer to me, until some leasts and westerns were feeding right under my
feet. When this kind of thing happens, I know I always wear the same
expression on my face: mouth grinning so widely it's a wonder the bugs don't
fly right in.

I felt like I was having some small success today when a black-capped
chickadee flew straight toward me. For a second, I thought he was going to
land on my head, thinking I was a new kind of tree. Instead, he perched on a
branch just above me and began to look for bugs, ignoring me completely. I
could see his every feather, even the little bristly ones around his bill.
Then a young Anna's hummingbird arrived and settled on the next branch. His
gorget was raggedy and half-fledged, looking almost like a calliope's (and
causing my heart to skip a beat), but then he turned his head so the light
caught the tiny patch of magenta just coming in on his crown.

Being at the Fill today gave me a small taste of what the planet must have
been like before people overpeopled the earth and made it into a supersized
version of Bellevue. Pardon my bitterness, but I found some litter left over
from the UW football crowd yesterday. Okay, I'm recovered now. Back to the
birds, which always restore my peace of mind.

Overhead, crowds of barn swallows were swirling around the cottonwood grove
near the east entrance. The house finches are back in force after a severe
population decrease last year and are finding plenty to eat in the fields
just south of the CUH buildings. They've also discovered a tiny hidden pool
near the parking lot, which they visit in huge numbers early in the morning,
along with American goldfinches, white-crowned sparrows and vireos (last
week, anyway). On the main pond, the greater yellowlegs who's been hanging
out there for nearly a week is still there, circling the pond slowly and
feeding, sometimes like a plover (picking), sometimes like a dowitcher
(stabbing) and sometimes like an avocet (sweeping). Today was a
picking/sweeping day. I was watching him work his way around the pond when
he climbed up on the bushy snag on the west side and almost poked a green
heron's foot. I hadn't seen the heron until then. I decided that I should
stay still and let the heron find his frog/fish in his own sweet time
without any disturbance from me. Have you ever tried to outwait a heron? My
legs were aching by the time I threw in the towel and walked off in a
different direction.

On Union Bay, the large flock (13-plus) of wood ducks is still there, out in
plain view. Green-winged teals are arriving in greater numbers, and the
northern pintails are still around, too. I haven't seen any spotted
sandpipers walking around on the lily pads yet, but I'm keeping my eyes
peeled. Last year these lily pads were a favorite of the spotties. The
Lincoln's sparrow duo at the point is still there, but these were the only
sparrows I found today. Yesterday's vast collection of savannahs had gone.

Here's everything I found today:

pied-billed grebe
double-crested cormorant
great blue heron
green heron (two on the main pond)
Canada goose
mallard
gadwall
green-winged teal
northern shoveler
northern pintail
wood duck
glaucous-winged gull
American coot
greater yellowlegs
belted kingfisher
Anna's hummingbird
barn swallow
American crow
black-capped chickadee
Bewick's wren
European starling
common yellowthroat
Lincoln's sparrow
red-winged blackbird
American goldfinch
house finch - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com