Hiya tweets!

What a great morning for birding the Union Bay Natural Area/Montlake Fill. I got out there a little before 9:00am and my first bird was a Merlin! It was tearing something apart on the ground, and after about 5 minutes finished up and flew off. I inspected the area and found a pile of grayish-black feathers and little if anything else. A bit closer inspection revealed the one true identifier for me though: the metallic black & green head and yellow bill of a male European Starling. A head and a pile of feathers is all the Merlin left. Wouldn't you know I didn't bring my camera today?

After that, I proceeded to do my waterfowl monitoring for my Senior Thesis project, but kept paying attention to what else might be around. Glad I did, because I soon spotted a tree at the southeast corner that had a juvenile Bald Eagle and an adult Coopers Hawk - same tree! The Coop soon flew off, but the eagle hung around for a bit, stretching and spreading its wings before flying off to the west. I had thought the Merlin was going to be my best bird of the day, but on a hunch, I took a quick social trail to the end of the marshy area at the east end of the Fill and scared an American Bittern! It didn't fly, but I still backed off so I could get a prolonged look at the first Bittern of the year. Over the next 1/2 hour or so, I pointed the bird out to 3 pairs of birders, two of whom said it was a life bird for them. That was a nice to do for them. One of those folks also pointed out a great first of year bird for me: a Peregrine Falcon! This bird hung around for most of
the morning until at least 11:30.

Other good birds spotted at/from the Fill included Canvasback, the 6 Greater White-fronted Geese that have been hanging around all winter, a female Lesser Scaup on the Central Pond, and both Red-shafted and Yellow-shafted Flicker.

Finally, I walked around Conibear Shellhouse and picked up Wood Duck, Golden-crowned Sparrow and Fox Sparrow. As I got to the boat moorage area and the Montlake Cut, I added Common Merganser, Belted Kingfisher, Sharp-shinned Hawk and Mew Gull. My last species of the day, seen from Sakuma Viewpoint (behind the Agua Verde Cafe on Boat Street) was a Common Goldeneye.

All told, I had 47 species at the Montlake Fill and Union Bay Marsh, and with the walk home down the Montlake Cut, etc., I ended up with 57 species of birds this morning. A very Ful'Fill'ing morning indeed!

Brett A. Wolfe
Seattle, WA
m_lincolnii at yahoo.com


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