After a week and a half of looking at mud and Whimbrels on the Everett Waterfront, I got a real color treat in Snohomish the other day.

I like colors like gray and brown and their endless subtle variations. Earth colors. They make everything else look even better in my opinion. Imagine a world of nothing but bright colors - what an overwhelming drag that would be! However 'dull' those subdued earth colors - mud, dirt, grey-green grass, gray clouds , whatever - they really help showcase the brighter things in life, as well as having an inner glow of their own.

Such was the scene on 6/21 at Fields Riffle, just downstream from Snohomish, along the river. The late afternoon skies were largely gray, but with a lot of sunlight coming through, and around, the clouds. The subtle hayfield greens of June.

The first color blow-out was seeing a male Yellowthroat in a fruiting Red Elderberry bush. Then just down the gravel road a bit, the brightest Lazuli Bunting I've ever seen! It was just one of those perfect lighting moments - there were a whole lot of bright blues in that bird! This male was singing away from his perch on a blackberry hedgerow, when a male Goldfinch briefly perched nearby. Then the bunting took off like a rocket, heading across the hayfield and wound up surprisingly high in the air (about 100' up) in a territorial spat with another male bunting from the far side of the field, and after that brief air show returned to exactly the same blackberry perch.

So far I'd seen blue birds and yellow birds. Then I noticed some finches bouncing across the sky, and they landed low in an Alder along the dike. Four Purple Finches, and one male in particular, in a bit of an afternoon sun spotlight, looked as red as a Cardinal! (well, almost ) The brightest one I've ever seen. So there were my avian primary colors.

The buntings by the way have been here at Fields Riffle since 6/8 and are easy to find in the edges of the entry hayfield. Seeing the territorial dispute reinforces my idea that they most likely breed here - they've been at this spot for the past 3 summers at least.

Also, a thanks to Barry Riess, a tweeters "lurker" and Anchor Pub neighbor who after reading my Whimbrel and Bunting posts, brought in some very nice photo portraits of those two birds from Maulsby Mudflats in Everett , and Fields Riffle respectively. I'm gonna frame them and hang them up in the Anchor. Thanks Barry!

Jeff Gibson
Everett Wa