Subject: Fill feasant
Date: Jan 5 05:02:15 2004
From: Connie Sidles - csidles at isomedia.com


Hey tweets, Do you know that interminable joke about the rary, the
giant-bodied bird with the tiny head? My dad used to spin it out for me when
I was kid. He could make it go for ten minutes or more, so naturally I've
completely forgotten the joke, except for the last line, which was, "It's a
long way to tip a rary."

If I had been asked to draw a picture of a rary, I'm sure I would have drawn
something like a pheasant, another bird with a big body and a tiny head. And
I would have been right to do so. I base this conclusion on the fact that I
have missed seeing ring-necked pheasants at the Fill throughout the entire
month of December. I knew that they had had a good year, brood-wise, so
where were they? I concluded that, for reasons known only to them, they were
hiding.

Now for the stupid part: Although they could have chosen any day or time to
make an appearance, the time that one of them did choose was the same moment
that three PEREGRINE FALCONS came kik-kikking by overhead. The falcons
chased each other across the whole sky above the Fill, swooping, locking
claws, yelling and generally carrying on. In addition, just north of
Wahkiakum Trail, a MERLIN lurked, also casing the joint. Meanwhile, this
tiny-headed pheasant was unconcernedly foraging out in the open near the
fencing. What was he thinking? This is a question I often ask the other
males in my life; they return the same look that the pheasant did when I
asked him that question: a kind of slack-beaked, vacant stare, then back to
eating again. The answer will remain a mystery.

Here's what else I saw at the Fill yesterday:

pied-billed grebe
double-crested cormorant
great blue heron
Canada goose (plus a little flock of cacklers!)
gadwall (no mallards at all)
American wigeon
northern pintail
northern shoveler
ruddy duck
redhead
ring-necked duck
greater scaup
lesser scaup
bufflehead
common merganser
hooded merganser
American coot
killdeer (in large numbers: a flock of 13 at the driving range; 8 at main
pond)
Wilson's snipe (three!)
glaucous-winged gull
ring-billed gull
peregrine falcon
merlin
ring-necked pheasant
belted kingfisher
American crow
black-capped chickadee
bushtit
Bewick's wren
ruby-crowned kinglet
American robin
European starling
spotted towhee
song sparrow
white-crowned sparrow
golden-crowned sparrow
Lincoln's sparrow
red-winged blackbird
American goldfinch
house finch- Connie Sidles, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com