Hey tweets, well, the rain came back, and it's supposed to snow (!!)
on Thursday, but for a few brief hours this morning, the Fill was
hopping. Best bird for me: a VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOW, the first of the
year at the Fill. The immature male Anna's Hummingbird who has been
faithfully guarding his tree near the Wedding Rock has burst into
flame: his whole head was alight today with a magenta so stunning I
had to look away. I call him His Magentaness. Royalty, you know.

The chickadee flocks are breaking up into twosomes or argumentative
singles. I got in a chickadee fight earlier in the week. I was sitting
on my camp stool on Surber Drive when a flurry of Black-capped
Chickadees swirled over to the tree above my head. They were arguing
over territory. The fight started with chirps but soon escalated into
a smackdown, with six chickadees going at each other all at once. The
fight became so intense that they lost sight of the dangers a human
might pose. The next thing I knew, the fight was churning around my
head, and I was ducking and weaving as fast as the chickadees. One
bird almost biffed me in the eye. ?Hey,? I said.
The fight stopped. Each chickadee retired to his own branch and
fluffed his feathers. ?Behave yourselves,? I started to say, but a
hidden bell must have rung, and they were at it again. Luckily, the
ball of fighting chickadees rolled off over the treetops, and I was
alone. Their hormones had carried them away. - Connie, Seattle

constancesidles at gmail.com
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