Subject: [Tweeters] Hot day at the Fill
Date: May 15 20:24:53 2009
From: Connie Sidles - constancesidles at gmail.com


Hey tweets, today was extra hot at the Fill, even though the morning
started off so cold I found one puddle frozen solid. I began with two
BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAKS foraging in the Lombardy poplars along
University Slough (the slough that parallels the Dime Parking Lot). As
I was watching them, a shorebird flew in from who knows where. It had
a very stiff-winged flight, so naturally I thought of Spotted
Sandpiper, but when the bird courteously flew right over my head, I
could inspect its pectum (or whatever the Latin is from which PECTORAL
SANDPIPER gets its name) - anyway, the stripy breast that cuts off
like someone took a ruler and drew a line between it and the bird's
white belly. It headed over to the Main Pond, so I leaped into my car
and hit the maximum speed limit out of the parking lot - a whizzing 15
mph. When I got to the Main Pond, I saw my friend and fellow birder
Alex MacKenzie on the west side of the Main Pond. She was just about
to step on the little guy, so I began to shout and gesticulate wildly.
I'm telling you, it's a wonder I'm not followed around by a keeper, I
look so ridiculous trying to see birds sometimes. But it was worth
looking silly because Alex and I had the great pleasure of sharing
this beautiful bird. I haven't seen a Pectoral Sandpiper at the Fill
for four long, dry years.

Walking on air, the two of us headed for the CUH building and
encountered Evan Houston on the way. We told him about the sandpiper,
and so he promptly went off down the trail and found a WESTERN WOOD-
PEWEE. I ran after him as soon as I saw him set up his scope down by
the cottonwood pond where the Solitary was first seen. I knew he had
something good, but I don't run as fast as I used to, so I'm glad the
bird was obliging enough to stick around until I recovered from
apoplexy.

Later on, Doug Parrott pulled his favorite trick of showing me a
picture he had "just taken not five minutes ago; I'm sure the bird is
still there." It was a SPOTTED SANDPIPER in breeding plumage. Knowing
how futile it was to try to find this bird (having experienced so many
other times when I looked in vain for one of Doug's birds), I hurried
off back to the Main Pond, hoping some kind birder was carrying a cell
phone in case we had to call 911 to come and revive me. Luckily the
sandpiper was still there, foraging on the west side of the pond. What
a beauty - I could see all its spots, although I had to wait awhile
for my pulse to slow down to be sure the spots I was seeing were on
the bird and were not just me having an attack.

Other great birds today: Yellow Warbler, Wilson's Warbler, two
Ospreys, a late American Wigeon, and a bird that Bob Kothenbeutel
assured me was an immature male Lady Amherst Pheasant. This guy was
skulking under the willows at the south end of the Main Pond.

Other birders told me they had also seen Black Swifts and one male
Lazuli Bunting today. - Connie, Seattle

constancesidles at gmail.com