Hey tweets, yesterday, amidst the rain and wind and sun and wind and
just plain ol' wind, my husband and I kept returning to the Fill, the
perfect respite from our tax preparation. No new species to report for
the year (I'm up to an even 100 now, and other birders would make that
a total of 105), but great behavior. The local red Red-tailed Hawk
caught a coot by the shores of the Main Pond. She (I assume the gender
on account of size) was standing on her prey when I caught sight of
her. A group of rolly-polly kids was sneaking up on her just after she
had caught her meal. She wanted to flee, but I think the coot was too
heavy, so she stood on it and waited. John managed to run over and
offer the kids a chance to watch everything through our scope. We had
a riot. The kids were full of energy, didn't mind the gore, and wanted
to know everything. Later on, a clueless adult and child tried
creeping up on the feeding hawk, and "my" kids hurried over to tell
them to move back. I don't think anyone in that group will ever bother
birds again.

In the course of watching the hawk, I pointed out to John how high the
Main Pond has become, and how little mud there is. I'm worried about
another poor shorebird migration season - last year's was the worst in
memory. My thought was to get John to head up a bucket brigade. I was
thinking that we could get volunteers to line up between the pond and
the lake and hand buckets of water down the line until the pond was
low enough to make mud. Five hundred buckets, or maybe a thousand
would do, I figured. John, my mathematical husband, did some
calculations in his head and announced that 500 buckets would lower
the pond approximately 1 millimeter. I questioned his math. Not that I
am in his class when it comes to algebra. On the contrary, I can
barely add and subtract my checkbook, but when did mere facts ever
stick in the way of a good argument? After all, there is factual
right, and then there is moral right. Right?

John, usually the most deliberate of deliberative thinkers, gets quite
nimble when he perceives he's going to be on the receiving end of one
of my schemes. Thinking faster even than usual, he proposed fixing the
outlet pipe at the south end of the pond. The pipe seems to have been
blocked, possibly by mud, possibly by something more sinister, such as
a hibernating snapping turtle. Anyway, the pipe has been just sitting
there uselessly, while a trickle of outflow nearby has been carving a
small runlet out of the overflowing pond. To fix the pipe, John said
he would reach in, turtle or no turtle, and haul out the mud that he
was sure was blocking the pipe. I thought my bucket idea was better,
but it's impossible to stop an Iowa man once he points his tractor
down the row. In short order, John executed his plan, and with a
whoosh, water started gushing through the pipe and out to the lake.
Within a couple of hours, the pond lost enough water to create a rim
of mud all along the shore.

This morning, although it's raining now, I hope to take a look at the
pond and see if any shorebirds were attracted by the new mud. The mud
we saw emerging from the waters yesterday looked terrific: gooey and
full of nutrients. What shorebird could resist?

Lastly, I want to thank the birder who stopped by and dropped a $10
bill into my hands, telling me to forward it to the white board
project. I was so touched I almost burst into tears on the spot.
Thanks to all of you who are contributing. You make me proud to be a
part of such a caring community. - Connie, Seattle

constancesidles at gmail.com