Tweeters,

Yesterday, I'd just parked on NE 60th north of Carnation hoping to see
my lifer Rusty Blackbird when Mark Johnston pulled in right behind me.
The flock was in and out of the locust trees just east of the farm and
we had difficulty pinning down each of a few candidates long enough to
make a positive ID. We were distracted by a rear view of the wing of a
beautiful variant female Red-winged BB enough to continue with her a bit
even after we were finally able to see the black eye. A gorgeous male
Kestrel in the sun was also distracting, and Mark enjoyed the dark morph
Red-tailed. When we finally saw a male Rusty long enough to be positive
of the ID, we felt much better practiced in both genders and variants of
the local winter species of blackbird. Mark even saw some Meadowlark in
the field north of 60th. Icterid City. Knowing we could have to work
for this species, we'd both studied up on the pictures posted to
Tweeters and our field guides, but our mantra for the occasion was an
excellent caveat that Gina heard Ruth Sullivan say, "If you think you
saw the bird, you didn't see the bird."

Positive IDs to you all,
Patricia