Hey tweets, Have you ever noticed that there are two kinds of birders? One
kind likes to rush swiftly through the ecosystem, spotting birds left and
right, moving so fast that the birds don't have time to hide. The other kind
likes to amble, racing snails to a tie on a good day. I call these types the
flitters and the sitters.

Flitters are the kind of birder you want when your local Audubon society
holds a birdathon fund-raiser. Flitters are never so happy as when they skid
to a halt in the parking lot at a birding site, burst out of the car, fan
out to spot every avis in sight, be it rara or otherwise, pile back into the
car like college kids trying to set a telephone booth record and burn rubber
on their way to the next site.

In my experience, flitters often volunteer to be leaders of birding trips. I
was with such a group on a bus trip to Falcon Dam during the Harlingen
Birding Festival in Texas one year. The bus left town in the pre-dawn and
drove 70 miles to the dam. Most of us slept on the way. When the bus pulled
in, the leaders crowded around the door. If you've ever seen video of how
competitive skydivers leave an airplane, you'll be able to imagine how those
guides exited the bus. While the rest of us were rubbing the sleep out of
our eyes and asking, "Are we there yet?" the leaders were calling out birds.
"There's a cave swallow," shouted one. "Gotta green jay," shouted another.
"Black vulture," said another. "Muscovy duck," said the first.

There was a silence. Muscovy duck was a good bird. Unfortunately, it was
flying along the river bank just across the Rio Grande on the Mexican side.
The leaders started muttering like bowlers trying to steer their ball to the
sweet spot on the bowling pins. "Come on, come on, fly over here a little
more." Flitters, it turns out, are almost always listers, and you can't
count a bird on your North American list unless it's halfway across the Rio
Grande on the US side.

I have mixed feelings about that trip. As a birder, I am definitely a
sitter. I do not rush my birding, and I do not race to identify whatever I
see. I once took three days to travel from Illinois to my husband's folks'
house in Iowa, a distance of 70 miles. The folks got so worried they almost
called the state patrol. When I told them I had been birding my way to their
place, they simply could not believe their ears. How could anyone take three
days to drive 70 miles? Why, a person could walk faster than that. I tried
to explain that in new habitat, a birder cannot be expected to drive more
than a hundred yards before stopping to bird. It did not register.

One reason it takes me so long to bird anywhere is that I like to identify
the birds myself, without anyone helping. If this means that I must stare
through my scope at a nondescript plover for an hour, as I try to decide
whether it is an American or a Pacific Golden-Plover, so be it. Another
reason I am slow is that I get inordinate pleasure out of the thought that I
am existing in the birds' habitat, not the reverse. I love the feeling that
I am a part of the ecosystem, just one more piece of the foliage, and that
the birds take me as such if I am patient enough.

I was patient enough at the Fill yesterday. At first sight, the Fill has
become a quiet place. With the blackbirds gone and few swallows left, the
Fill can appear to be almost birdless. This is especially true now because
the prairie-style fields are so overgrown with plants that you cannot see
the ground. If you listen, however, you can hear birds in the fields,
although it's almost impossible to see any. This is just as true at the
ponds, where the plants grow too thickly to see migrating shorebirds very
easily. They are there, however. I found them while sitting on my camp stool
at the north end of the main pond. They were also on the lily pads that
cover Union Bay. Least Sandpipers were foraging busily at both locations,
along with two Short-billed Dowitchers on the main pond. All flew off when a
Cooper's Hawk swooped in and perched on the wooden pole near the point. A
Green Heron, unflapped by the hawk, glided leisurely over the lilies. I
heard the rough-voiced chips of numerous Common Yellowthroats in the
cattails and irises. Eventually they all popped out to forage near me. Two
Bewick's Wrens in the cottonwoods were more discrete, but after checking me
out for 15 minutes, they too came into the open. Meanwhile, seven Wood Ducks
paddled among the lily pads, not even looking up when little flocks of
shorebirds flew in formation over their heads.

I wish I could have sat there forever.

Here is everything I found yesterday:
pied-billed grebe
green heron
great blue heron
Canada goose
wood duck
mallard
green-winged teal
American wigeon
Cooper's hawk
American coot
least sandpiper
short-billed dowitcher
glaucous-winged gull
Anna's hummingbird
Vaux's swift
American crow
barn swallow
tree swallow
cliff swallow
northern flicker
downy woodpecker
black-capped chickadee
Bewick's wren
American robin
European starling
yellow warbler
common yellowthroat
American goldfinch
house finch
- Connie, Seattle
csidles at isomedia.com