Hey tweets, Birders know that the Julian calendar is all wrong. For one
thing, the four seasons are definitely not divided into four equal
parts, nor do they change on the solstices and equinoxes.No, the
seasons are really more like a map I?ve seen that illustrates how New
Yorkers think of U.S. geography. New York is shown filling up a good
half of the map, while Seattle appears as a tiny needle, the Space
Needle to be precise.

Like that map, we here in Seattle could draw a similar chart of the
four seasons, showing some huge and others teeny. This year, for
example, spring lasted exactly one day. It was last week, when the snow
finally quit but the sun refused to come out. By this week, summer has
already arrived. I could tell this yesterday, when all the college kids
playing frisbee and baseball on the fields north of the Fill were all
dressed in shorts. I could also tell summer was here when I found a man
who had set up a beach chair by the Wedding Rock. He was reading a book
while tanning his bare fish-belly, a quintessential though somewhat
painful Seattle view. I had to turn my head away - some things ought
not see the light of day, and men's bare fish-bellies are one of them.

The birds, however, still think it is spring. Migration has finally
picked up, and rivers of birds are coming through. A few droplets stop
off at the Fill, strays from the mainstream. One such droplet yesterday
was a golden-breasted NASHVILLE WARBLER, as bright as a drop of
sunlight. John Wallace found it in the glade east of the greenhouses,
where I was parked on my camp stool. Together, we watched it forage
busily among the willows. Like the sun itself, it warmed my heart.

Other birds of note: Solitary Sandpiper still there; 3 Least Sandpipers
sharing the same pond; a Cooper's Hawk hunting; both Ruby-crowned and
Golden-crowned Kinglets coming through; Orange-crowned Warbler, both
Yellow-rumps, and a Common Yellowthroat added to the Nashville made it
a four-warbler day. - Connie, Seattle

constancesidles at gmail.com