Stopped by the Fill late this afternoon, mostly to pick through the sparrows for any oddities.? After an hour and a half of nothing more than Songs and a distant towhee, I was returning along the loop trail, when I paused to look through a large mixed flock in the burn area.? The ground there was littered with robins, starlings, blackbirds, flickers, and a pair of Western Meadowlarks.? While sorting through that mess, I came upon a Red-breasted Sapsucker; a Fill first for me!? The bird was in the lone cottonwood with the blackened base.? It only seemed interested in the burnt part of the trunk, never straying more than 4 feet off the ground in the minute-plus I watched it.? It then moved more or less northward, stopping briefly to investigate the bases of two of the crispy little hawthorn trees, then was flushed by the guys working at the main pond.
Also of interest today:? a beautifully patterned first-winter Bonaparte?s Gull working the shoreline between the point and the slough.
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Jeff Bryant
Seattlejbryant_68ATyahoo