Rachel,

I've watched both Green and Great Blue herons for hours at a time. The
bill-cleaning is pretty common behavior, often combined with sipping water
and yawning.

I've seen Soft-Shelled Turtles in Lake Union, Juanita Bay, and Lake
Sammamish for three or four years. They are sometimes farmed for food, and I
imagine these were "liberated" from food markets by some misguided
humanitarian(s). Oddly, I haven't seen any this year, but in the past I've
seen up to a half dozen in a limited area.

Marc Hoffman
Kirkland, WA

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 3:21 PM, Rachel <RachelWL at msn.com> wrote:

> It was relatively quiet at the Fill this morning, so it was a nice
> surprise to find the VESPER SPARROW (see Evan Houston's post for details and
> photos). This is the first one I have seen on this side of the Cascades.
> I'm glad Evan was there to get some pictures. In addition to the other
> birds reported by Evan, there was a tailless BEWICK'S WREN in the cottonwood
> grove, looking like an over-grown Winter (Pacific) Wren, and a flock of
> 25-30 CEDAR WAXWINGS.
>
> Later, another birder and I watched one of the GREEN HERONS in the cove, a
> juvenile bird, catch four little fish in quick succession. After swallowing
> the last one, it stuck a long, snaky tongue out the side of its bill and
> licked it back and forth along both sides of the bill for at least ten
> seconds. I guess the heron was cleaning off the fish slime. I have never
> seen this behavior before, and I had no idea a heron tongue was flexible
> enough to do that.
>
> I also was surprised to see two huge soft-shelled turtles in the cove. How
> long have they been there, and how did they get there? Just
> what the Fill needs...another weird introduced species.
>
> Rachel Lawson
> Seattle
> rachelwl at msn.com
>
>
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