Hey tweets, Sorry for the late post; I've been swamped with work yet again.
I did manage to steal away for a brief time two days ago, when I pulled my
hat down low over my eyes, erased the telltale "Wash me, pleeeaasee" from my
dusty car, and headed over to the Fill, hoping that none of my editors would
be there to see me slacking off. If any did spot me, I planned to tell them
that my brains were leaking out - due to the recent spate of horrendous
weather we've been having - and that I needed to resolidify them by doing a
little communing with nature. I don't know about you, but I find hot, sunny
weather deeply depressing. That brassy sun, glowing down like a bedpan
heating up the orange smog that blankets our fair city at such times, makes
me long for fall.

Fortunately, despite anything that the calendar may say, fall comes early to
the Northwest. The birds know. Some of them have already begun their
migration south. I found a little flock of adult WESTERN SANDPIPERS and
LEAST SANDPIPERS foraging at the south end of the main pond. What a welcome
sight.

Also on view was a scruffy-looking BLUE-WINGED TEAL in the middle of a molt.
He took one look at me and dove for the bushes lining the pond. It wasn't
that he was scared of me - he's been seeing me all season. I think rather
that he just didn't want to be seen at all, and who could blame him?

Over on Union Bay, the WOOD DUCKS are coming out again. They're not as
flashy now because they too are molting into eclipse, but Wood Ducks in
eclipse are still quite a beautiful sight. There appear to be two males, two
females and a juvenile in the flock, but there could easily be others still
in seclusion. Look for them among the densely blooming water lilies.

Not as welcome was the sight of some major chopping going on in the
cottonwood grove near the east end of Wahkiakum Trail. More efforts by CUH
to get rid of nonnative species, I would guess, but my goodness I hate to
see the loss of dense cover. We have so little of that left at the Fill
anymore, and there are so many species that need it. I wish the CUH people
would plant dense native cover to replace the blackberries and other
nonnatives they remove, but that doesn't seem to happen, at least not very
quickly. In the affected grove, there is a little family of Bewick's wrens
and a family of Spotted Towehees. It's also a refuge for soon-to-arrive
Lincoln's Sparrows, not to mention resident Song Sparrows, Bushtits,
White-crowned Sparrows and such. I hope they can find enough cover
elsewhere, but most of the cover at the Fill now is already occupied. On the
plus side, the berry trees that CUH planted years ago are bearing fruit and
attracting hordes of CEDAR WAXWINGS. So two steps forward, one step back, I
suppose you could say, a condition that seems to almost define our species.

Dear tweeters, I will not be posting for a few weeks. I am off to Siberia
for the remainder of the month. Would you like to hear about my adventures,
when I get back? I'm going to be birding with Debi Shearwater. We are going
to Denali first, then Kamchatka, then up the Aleutian chain, then to the
Pribiloffs, and finally to Nome. I've never been on such a big adventure
before in my life. To prepare for this trip of a lifetime, I've been
studying and studying all the Asian strays. After a solid month of work, I
am finally beginning to make a little sense out of some of the cryptic
Siberian flycatchers, as well as some of the stint species that seem to
subscribe to the same philosophy as seventh-grade girls, i.e., dressing
alike is de rigueur. Despite all my studies, I have a feeling that when I
see the little beggars in person, they will look more like each other and
much less like the field guides. Luckily, I will now be able to tell myself
to be confident, stay calm, focus and all will become clear. For I am a Bird
Master of Seattle Audubon!! I'm doomed, aren't I? Oh well. Anything that I
can't identify on this trip will just be another reason to go again, and who
could possibly complain about that?

Here's everything that I saw the other day at the Fill:

pied-billed grebe
great blue heron
Canada goose
mallard
gadwall
blue-winged teal
wood duck
killdeer
western sandpiper
least sandpiper
Vaux's swift
Anna's hummingbird
northern flicker
tree swallow
violet-green swallow
cliff swallow
barn swallow
Steller's jay
American crow
bushtit
black-capped chickadee
Bewick's wren
marsh wren
American robin
cedar waxwing
European starling
spotted towhee
savannah sparrow
song sparrow
white-crowned sparrow
red-winged blackbird
brown-headed cowbird
house sparrow
house finch
American goldfinch - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com