Hey tweets, I have long debated with myself over which conditions are
the very worst for birding: high winds (birds hunker down out of
sight); steady rain (birds hunker down out of sight); or thick fog
(birds just plain out of sight).

Today I didn't have to make any decision about which was the worst
because I got all three at the Fill. Bands of rain alternated with
howling wind, followed by fog rolling in, which gradually turned to
drizzle, and then another band of rain would appear. I tried humming,
"Just Singing in the Rain," while I was hunched upon my camp stool on
Wahkiakum Lane, but I kept getting odd looks from the people passing
by. Most of them had umbrellas, but all I had was my floppy hat, which
became increasingly floppy as the morning progressed. At one point, a
young man walked past with the world's biggest umbrella. It was the
size of a small tarp. You'd think such a large contraption would have
kept him dry, but the rain was coming in sideways by then, and he was
nearly blown away like Mary Poppins.

Ordinarily, I stay home on such mornings. But every now and then, I go
out into the howling weather, on the theory that we should
occasionally experience how difficult it is to live a life completely
outdoors, as the birds must. Plus, I could hear my mother's long-go
voice echoing in my mind: "You won't melt, you know."

My reward was a truly wondrous day for bird-finding:
? a COMMON TEAL on Main Pond
? a flock of more than a dozen Dunlins on "Atlantis" (the mud island
that has risen from the depths out in the middle of the Cove)
? a Wilson's Snipe out in the open on the edge of the cattails between
SW Pond and the Lagoon
? a California Gull among the scores of Mew, Ring-billed, and Glaucous-
winged Gulls marching, marching, marching across the playfields in a
hunt for worms. - Connie, Seattle

constancesidles at gmail.com
www.constancypress.com
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