Hey tweets, The Finns have a saying: There is no bad weather, only bad
clothing. My husband and I put that adage to the test yesterday at the Fill,
where we found few passerines (except for crows), a lot of cold wind and
eventually sleet. It was glorious.

There's nothing like foul weather to make you appreciate how well adapted
birds are, able to stay outside all the time and thrive. Bud Anderson was
the first one to point this out to me in one of his classes. He asked us if
we could do what a raptor does: stay outdoors in all weathers, find food at
least every other day, never put your feet up by a cozy fire, never pick up
the phone to order out. I have a feeling that the only thing that kept my
husband and me going yesterday, aside from our unrelenting optimism that we
will see a rarity (I'm putting my money on a smew), was the thought that we
were going home to a warm house and hot coffee.

In the end, we saw a few terrific birds, including one male and three female
HOODED MERGANSERS in full breeding plumage, a REDHEAD duck (also coming into
full bloom), and a magnificent GREAT BLUE HERON standing by his dining room
table (a little mud pile and pool near shore, where he brings fish to kill
and eat).

If you do brave the weather today, keep your eyes peeled for a Cooper's hawk
who has settled in for the winter I think, two Lincoln's sparrows who like
to hang out down by the point, and a Eurasian wigeon I was pretty sure I saw
the other day, but the backlighting was horrible and I could not relocate
it. Maybe you can?

Here's a list of everything we found yesterday:

pied-billed grebe
double-crested cormorant
great blue heron
Canada goose (including some near-cacklers)
mallard
gadwall
green-winged teal
American wigeon
northern shoveler
ruddy duck
redhead
ring-necked duck
greater scaup
lesser scaup
bufflehead
hooded merganser
ring-billed gull
glaucous-winged gull
American coot
rock pigeon
northern flicker (red-shafted only)
Steller's jay (heard, not seen)
American crow
black-capped chickadee (heard, not seen)
European starling
spotted towhee (heard, not seen)
song sparrow
golden-crowned sparrow - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com