Subject: [Tweeters] Fill today
Date: May 18 12:15:18 2009
From: Connie Sidles - constancesidles at gmail.com


Hey tweets, it's a beautiful sunny afternoon, but this morning was
cold and gray at the Fill - perfect weather for Black Swifts! Sure
enough, two showed up right on schedule early this morning around 7:00
a.m., flew around the field near the Youth Garden, and then
disappeared. I had them in my binoculars as they flew right over my
head, and one looked down into my eyes for all of one or two
nanoseconds. Just an instant, but the length of the look doesn't
matter: time stood still for me, so that look could just as well have
lasted an hour.

I remember when four of my writing students interviewed an astronaut
for our oral history book about flight. As I was recording the
interview, I kept noticing that the astronaut's eyes looked different
somehow from ours. He seemed to have a more distant gaze than we did.
I could almost imagine looking into his eyes and seeing space and our
little planet reflected back. He had looked upon things that few other
humans ever see, and he was changed by it. I feel a little the same
way now: I have seen something that few people ever do, and my eyes
will not be the same.

Also present today: a Blue-winged Teal on the Main Pond, along with a
late American Wigeon. A Northern Rough-winged Swallow was foraging
above Shoveler's Pond. The Brewer's Blackbirds nesting at the helipad
seem undisturbed by the softball diamond placed in their front yard,
thank goodness. Cliff Swallows have just begun to build a whole new
colony under the eaves of one of the athletic buildings, the one near
the tennis courts. There were dozens showing up with daubs of mud in
their bills, sticking them onto the walls. - Connie, Seattle

constancesidles at gmail.com