Hey tweets, Two Black Swifts slashed the sky like dark scimitars this
morning, perhaps on their way to South America. I've never before seen
Black Swifts at the Fill in fall migration, so what a treat.

Large flocks of shorebirds have been wheeling back and forth over the
lily pads on the lake. Some were definitely Dunlins; a couple were
Spotted Sandpipers; the rest were inscrutable. Main Pond has been
deserted by the shorebirds for the past couple of days, but two
Westerns and six Leasts decided to give it try today. To my human
eyes, the mud looks great, and this little flock of peeps certainly
seemed to find plenty to eat. So maybe we'll be seeing other
shorebirds on the pond soon as well. I hope so, because it's highly
frustrating to see shorebirds go by and not be able to tell what the
heck they are.

Our usual August promise of an immature Northern Harrier was fulfilled
again this week, as one appeared on Wednesday. It seemed to pop out of
a black hole centered over Southeast Pond, coursed the cattails for
about 15 seconds, and attracted the sole American Crow present , who
gravitated to the harrier and then stuck like a binary planet. The
poor harrier was trying to focus on its hunting, but the crow was so
obnoxiously omnipresent that the harrier spent all its time either
fending it off or looking around frantically to find it in order to
fend it off. The orbiting birds disappeared over the horizon, heading
north.

In other news: Pacific Slope and Willow Flycatchers are coming through
in good numbers now. A Western Wood-Pewee was demonstrating its skill
in aerial bug-catching at the west end of Sidles Swamp. It must have
impressed the heck out of a Black-capped Chickadee, who decided it
wanted a share of the flying insects too. So it dashed out from its
perch like the pewee had been doing, homed in on a bug, and missed
completely. Then it turned itself into an airborne corkscrew, twisting
around and around after the insect, all to no avail. Meanwhile, the
pewee sailed out again, caught a bug, and flew back without cracking a
sweat.

The Savannah Sparrows have pretty much all left (seems early for
that). The warblers have yet to show up, except for one Orange-crowned
and one Wilson's. Two immature Cooper's Hawks have been making pests
of themselves, though at least they had the brains not to bother the
male Belted Kingfisher who has staked out Main Pond. And a juvenile
American Coot was foraging among the Turtle Logs and unfortunately
hopped up atop a loose log. Most of the Turtle Logs are firmly
anchored by chains, mud, and vegetation, but this one log was a
floater. When the coot got on it, it started to roll. The coot had to
walk forward to stay on top. The log commenced to roll faster. The
coot walked faster. The log began to spin. The coot began to run.
Eventually, the coot went flying off like a dreidel and landed with a
giant splash among the lily pads. I nearly fell off my camp stool, I
was laughing so hard. A great day at the Fill, as ever.

I'm up to 144 species for the year, plus there are 8 more species that
other birders saw and I did not. A total of 152, and it's still only
August. - Connie, Seattle

constancesidles at gmail.com
www.constancypress.com


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