Subject: [Tweeters] winter wren at Fill
Date: Oct 25 14:28:56 2004
From: Connie Sidles - csidles at isomedia.com


Hey tweets, I was out and about at the Fill on Saturday and had the good
fortune to encounter a WINTER WREN in the cottonwood grove near the new CUH
building. It's only the third or fourth time I've seen a winter wren at the
Fill. It was busily hopping around in the bushes at the base of one tree,
making the kind of call note that caused Native Americans to name it "little
bird with the big voice." Its chip sounded like it was speaking through a
wren-megaphone. I quietly unfolded my stool and sat down to watch. As so
often happens, I was the only person around, and as also happens, I began to
feel that I had left my own world behind and had begun to share the wren's
world. I can do this only if I can make myself let go of my worries, stop
living in the past or the future, and just be still.

I can't get to this state of mind if I'm moving fast, which is probably why
I am never at peace in my workaday world. Many of my birder friends get
bored birding with me because my very fastest pace is an amble, and a pretty
slow one at that. They prefer to move briskly along, covering a lot of
territory and counting out the birds they spot as they vector through the
habitat.

One of the naturalists on my Siberian trip belonged to this school of
thought. He was designated as our guide on one of our stops in a birch
forest on Kamchatka Peninsula. He had heard that we could get to the tundra
if we hiked through the forest for 2 km. I wasn't sure I wanted to hike 4 km
there and back, but he assured me that we had 6 hours to make the trip, and
even I, with my arthritic knees, should be able to handle that. We set off.
Now, this guide was nearly six feet tall and built like a stork. I had to
take three steps to his one, and his one would have got him a speeding
ticket on my block back home. In other words, we walked along at a fast
clip. Skulking forest birds got no trouble from us - we whizzed by much too
fast for them to even begin thinking that maybe they should skulk away. Why
bother to skulk when the humans pass by so quickly that your feathers get
ruffled in the breeze? After jogging for what I thought was about 3 miles,
we were still no closer to the tundra. One of the other older ladies in the
group dropped back to join me in the rear. "My husband just told me that
never has he hiked so long and so far to see so few birds," she panted.

Another woman joined us. "I don't think I can keep up on this forced march
too much longer," she gasped.

"That does it - I'm going on strike," I said.

We all stopped and announced that we had hiked far enough. We were going to
eat lunch and then we were turning around and *birding* our way back. We
proceeded to sit down and glare at the leader. "I can't leave you here
alone," he said. "There are wolves in this forest."

"In my present mood, any wolf that finds me is going to be one sad puppy," I
said.

After lunch, I ambled back to base at my own pace. When I saw a bit of a
leaf lurch enticingly, I stopped and waited for the bird to come out. It was
a GRAY BUNTING, a life bird for me. When I caught a motion out of the corner
of my eye, I took the time to scan every tree trunk until I found a EURASIAN
NUTHATCH, another lifer. PECHORA PIPIT, RED-THROATED PIPIT and RUSTIC
BUNTING were all in that forest, along with several EYE-BROWED THRUSHES and
RED-THROATED FLYCATCHERS. It was only when I slowed down and tried to blend
into the habitat that I could see these birds.

I was watching TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) the other day, in my
perennial search to understand people different from me. The network ran a
little segment describing why one family left public school and began to
home-school their children. They did so because of an experience that their
little girl had in one class. An elementary teacher made the children sit in
a circle with a rock in front of each child. She then picked up her rock and
said that we are all one with the rock and with all of nature. This offended
the faithful in the class, including the little girl whose family pulled her
out of public school.

It was kind of embarrassing to realize that I might have to categorize
myself into the same camp as that teacher. Am I really that weird? While I
don't think I've ever felt any particular affinity with rocks, I do wish
sometimes that my spirit could at least go along for a ride with the birds
that I see. On especially good days, I can feel a kind up oomph inside my
heart as my spirit struggles to fly up on the wings of the beautiful birds.
On rare occasions, my spirit does lift with the birds. It bursts forth, and
I feel such joy that I think I must radiate it outwards.

I am not a religious person, but to me, nature is a very spiritual place, a
place where I go to renew my joy, regain my strength and count my blessings.
Do I feel at one with nature? Gosh no. How could I, sitting on my plastic
and metal stool from REI, holding my plastic and glass binocs from Nikon,
and wearing my who-knows-made-from-what running shoes from some knockoff
company in southeast Asia? But I do feel at peace in nature. And that is
quite enough.

Here is everything I saw at the Fill the other day:
pied-billed grebe
double-crested cormorant
great blue heron
Canada goose
mallard
gadwall
green-winged teal
American wigeon
northern shoveler
ruddy duck
greater scaup
lesser scaup
bufflehead (hurrah - they're back!!)
hooded merganser
American coot
glaucous-winged gull
bald eagle
Cooper's hawk
sharp-shinned hawk
rock pigeon
Anna's hummingbird
northern flicker (both red- and yellowshafted)
Steller's jay
American crow
black-capped chickadee
winter wren
Bewick's wren
American robin
American pipit (a flock of at least 20)
cedar waxwing
European starling
yellow-rumped warbler
spotted towhee
savannah sparrow (late)
song sparrow
house sparrow
Lincoln's sparrow (my favorite - 2 down by the main pond)
American goldfinch
house finch - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com