Subject: [Tweeters] Fill for fun
Date: Dec 30 14:54:54 2005
From: Connie Sidles - csidles at isomedia.com


Hey tweets, In writing about her girlhood as a pioneer, Laurie Ingalls
Wilder described how, before one hard winter set in, her parents told her
and her sisters to run around outside as much as they could and soak up all
the sunshine. Her parents were trying to reconcile the kids to being cooped
up in a one-room cabin 24/7 once the snow began to fly. No TV in those days,
you know. On top of that, all they had to eat was turnips. And their teeth
were falling out.

I know the feeling. Yesterday, I spent hours and hours at the Fill, soaking
up the (feeble) sunshine, knowing that the rain would soon settle in again,
and I would have to start eating my turnips. Well, okay, somebody gave me a
package of Trader Joe's chocolate truffles, so turnips were not on the menu,
thank goodness. Nevertheless, like Laura, I felt like I was storing up
memories to last me until the weather turns good again and I can get back
into nature.

It won't be long now. We've passed the winter solstice, and every day is a
little longer than the one before.

The birds seemed to be reveling in the sunshine as much as I was. The leaf
litter, brush and trees of the cottonwood grove at the start of Wahkiakum
Trail were literally hopping with birds. White-crowned Sparrows,
Golden-crowned, Song, and Spotted Towhees were throwing up leaves with gay
abandon. American Goldfinches were flitting from cone to cone in the
poplars, sampling each one for a brief instant like a kid taking one bite
out of a coconut-creme and then putting it back in order to try the next
one. A Bewick's Wren popped out of the brush and swiveled his tail around so
jauntily that I was amazed the feathers didn't fly right off - Bewick's
wrens' tails never look like they're stuck on very well. A female Downy
Woodpecker ratcheted along a tree limb, while numerous male flickers
announced that they were fit and in fighting form, in case any flicker
female wanted to know. Three Yellow-rumped Warblers were foraging on the
ground, plunging into the leaves and getting lost from sight, then leaping
up into the air and plunging back down again. They looked like someone had
given them a trampoline for Christmas.

It was noisy, messy, lively - like life itself. Rich. Our planet is so very
rich with life, profligate even. Strong, too. As I walked under a branch, a
Ruby-crowned Kinglet made a beeline for my head, veering off at the last
moment and landing not three feet from my face. It looked at me with one
eye, then the other, chittered at me briefly, and then buzzed off. The
sunshine was already fading into clouds, and the kinglet had no time to
waste on me. Such a little creature needs to stock up on food and make lots
of fat to stay warm when the rain comes.

When you see a bird like that and realize that it thrives out in the cold
and rain, where we would perish without our civilized collection of
raingear, boots, space blankets, and prepackaged camp food, then you see how
strong nature really is. Yes, I know that birds and all the other wild
things need for us to be mindful of them, and especially they need us to
preserve their habitat. But yesterday, in the middle of a perfect explosion
of life, I wanted to soak it all up and feel glad that I share the planet
with umpteen thousands of bird species (though, I regret to say, I have seen
only 299 in Washington this Big Year; the 300th has eluded me).

As I trudged back to my car, a jogger and her dog passed me for the third
time. The Fill is a little place, one that a jogger can circle in under six
minutes, easy. Yet here in this little patch of nature, in the middle of
winter, in the heart of a city, I found 41 different species of birds. I
call that a wonder.

Here's everything I saw:
pied-billed grebe
double-crested cormorant
great blue heron
cackling goose
Canada goose
mallard
gadwall
green-winged teal
American wigeon
northern shoveler
ruddy duck
wood duck
canvasback
ring-necked duck
greater scaup
bufflehead
common merganser
hooded merganser
American coot
glaucous-winged gull
ring-billed gull
bald eagle
red-tailed hawk
Cooper's hawk
northern flicker
downy woodpecker
Steller's jay
American crow
black-capped chickadee
Bewick's wren
ruby-crowned kinglet
American robin
European starling
yellow-rumped warbler
spotted towhee
song sparrow
white-crowned sparrow
golden-crowned sparrow
WESTERN MEADOWLARK
red-winged blackbird
American goldfinch - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com