Hey tweets, the Fill was a little quiet today, as we face yet another
dim, chilly morning. I found only 33 species (down from 52 three days
ago). I'm sure plenty more are there, but they had the sense to hunker
down, unlike me.

Still, the Fill always delivers some wonderful thing. Today it was a
juvenile Great Blue Heron!! I don't believe I've ever seen one at the
Fill before. The heronry around Drumheller Fountain is doing great,
and this youngling today must have been the result. It was perched
precariously on a branch overhanging SW Pond, looking hungry but
clueless. As a mother of 3 myself, how well I know that look. I still
get it these days, even though the "kids" are all in their mid to late
twenties. It was all I could do to keep myself from rushing out there,
fish in hand, to give to the young one. (Don't ask where I was going
to get my own fish - I haven't a notion, but then my own kids don't
bother their heads very much about where their next meatloaf is coming
from either.)

FYI, in case anyone is wondering about the massive amount of tilling
performed this week in the lawn north of the Youth Garden, it is a
mini-farm being put in for the benefit of youth. The kids in the
program have committed several hours of community service at the Fill,
in return for their use of the land. I'm hoping the kids will be put
to work pulling out Scots Broom, which is getting to be quite a problem.

I'm looking forward to seeing what will happen to this large strip of
land as it becomes a farm. I suspect it will benefit the birds a lot
more than the sod that was there before. Many, many years ago, an old
woman put in an illicit garden in a corner of the field on the north
edge of the Dime Lot. Her garden was screened from view by tall
blackberry bushes. In the fall, it was always loaded with sparrows. I
was sorry to see that garden go. - Connie, Seattle

constancesidles at gmail.com
www.constancypress.com


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20110525/c1e5c42c/attachment.htm