Hey tweets, Yesterday morning at the Fill reminded me about why birding is
almost always better in the morning.

The past couple of days, I've been trying to get my life back on track after
having spent 9 months meeting a huge deadline (a 232-page book about flight;
it was published on June 2). After an effort like this, it takes a while to
become human again.

Of course, for me human means I go birding. But lately I've been getting my
required dose of Fill in the late afternoons. To be honest, I've spent the
mornings deluding myself that afternoon birding is just as great as morning
birding because the birds wake up from their midday siesta and become active
again. So I've been seduced into drinking the extra cup of coffee in the
morning, doing the NY Times crossword puzzle, puttering around the house
doing endless chores that you could do in 5 minutes if you knew company was
coming but that somehow tend to fill up the day when you know that you
should be working to meet the next big deadline.

The net result is, I'm not ready to leave the house until noon, and by then
I know there won't be any birds out except a few chickadees, crows, robins
and starlings. So I wait until 5 or 6. The Fill being the Fill, I still see
plenty of birds in the afternoon, but there are gaps. Big ones. Few
sparrows, no flycatchers, no warblers. And who knows what rarities I'm
missing, due to the fact that the university frowns on people setting up a
cot out there and living on-site all the time? (After numerous edgy
meetings, I am finally getting to be friends with the two bicycle cops who
patrol regularly and who took some convincing that I'm not a wacko out to
commit eco-terrorism or establish my own version of a tent city.)

I digress. Yesterday I decided I had had enough lazing. I got up at the
birder's hour (4 a.m.) and was out the door by 7. Immediately on arriving at
the Fill, I began to see birds: bright lemon GOLDFINCHES, the ANNA's male
who has been guarding his territory from the snag near the greenhouses,
WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS singing their mournful songs, two BEWICK'S WRENS
feeding babies in the decayed end of a dead tree located on the chip trail
that the Urban Hort folks are trying to build east of the greenhouses.

I hooked up with the COMMON YELLOWTHROAT male who delights in singing loudly
from the bushes around the main pond but who is uncommonly shy about showing
himself. All three TEAL species were hanging out there as well, although the
green-winged was obscured by the dense vegetation that dominates the edges
now. Five (!) BALD EAGLES were in the area: three immatures in the dead
beaver tree and two adults flirting with each other at the 3,000-foot level
of the blue sky. Over my head, an OSPREY flew home (wherever home is) with a
fish in his claws and with me hoping that his grip was strong. I've had
various bird-things drop on my head over the years, but I could do without a
dead fish joining the list.

Also overhead, I saw little flocks of CEDAR WAXWINGS flying all over to pick
the tree berries that are now ripe. Also in flocks now, the BUSHTITS are
doing their part to confuse my feeble ability to bird by ear. To me they and
the waxwings sound way too alike, making my head spin as my eyes
simultaneously search the bushes for a) tiny bits of dull-colored bird or b)
big bits of mandarin-style bird.

Best of all, a WILLOW FLYCATCHER was hawking bugs south of the Urban Hort
building, singing in between forays. Flycatchers at the Fill are migratory,
so it's always a treat to see one. Given the time of year, is this one here
for the season? I don't know. Just one more mystery to add to all the others
that birding has gifted me with.

All together, these are the great and beautiful reasons why I love birding:
the connections to things outside myself and larger than I am; the sheer
glory of creatures who can fly; the challenge of the hunt, wondering what I
will find; the intellectual stimulation trying to figure out the why of it
all. Which leads me to the biggest question of all: What the heck am I
doing wasting time in the morning drinking coffee and puttering when I could
be out birding?

Here's what I saw yesterday:
pied-billed grebe
great blue heron
Canada goose
mallard
gadwall
green-winged teal
northern shoveler
cinnamon teal
blue-winged teal
osprey
bald eagle
ring-necked pheasant
killdeer
glaucous-winged gull
rock pigeon
Vaux's swift
Anna's hummingbird
northern flicker
willow flycatcher
tree swallow
violet-green swallow
cliff swallow
barn swallow
American crow
Eurasian starling
American robin
willow flycatcher
black-capped chickadee
Bewick's wren
marsh wren
common yellowthroat
cedar waxwing
savannah sparrow
white-crowned sparrow
song sparrow
red-winged blackbird
brown-headed cowbird
house sparrow
house finch
American goldfinch - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com