Subject: [Tweeters] Fill today
Date: Sep 1 14:23:10 2013
From: Connie Sidles - constancesidles at gmail.com


Hey tweets, The Fill was hardly quiet today, given the fact that it is the day after a football Saturday, and all the garbage cans are full to overflowing with delicious garbage - delicious to crows, that is. American Crows by the hundreds lined University Slough, which parallels Husky Stadium parking lots. Hundreds more were deployed on the tarmac, racing the groundskeepers to get to the best garbage first. I'm sure the crows must think rather poorly of us humans, grabbing so much more garbage than we can possibly eat, then stowing it away in big trucks that never share their bounty with the deprived crows. Being crows, though, they took their losses philosophically, if not quietly. After talking things over amongst themselves for hours ad nauseum, they finally quieted down a bit and decided to take turns bathing in the numerous potholes of the Dime Lot, all of which were filled with rainwater.

The crow conversations were so varied in tone and content, I almost felt if I listened long and hard enough, I would gradually learn the language myself. My husband's best friend in college, Tom Christiansen, tried that experiment with Japanese. For years he would leave his TV on, tuned constantly to Japanese-language films. He figured eventually the words and grammar would sink in and he would become fluent. Unfortunately, Tom has never learned Japanese and I have never learned Crow. But both of us keep trying.

Also on view today: The first Double-crested Cormorants are back! A Willow Flycatcher foraged in the shrubbery of Kern's Restoration Pond, a few Cinnamon Teals are still paddling about in the Lagoon, and a Greater Yellowlegs sampled food from lily pad to mudflat and back again. The blue sky was painted with streaks of cloud-white, the fall shadows have grown softly mysterious, and the rustling wind blew the occasional leaf off a tree, where it caught my eye as it drifted down like an exotic rare bird. No, I would realize, it's just a leaf. As though something so beautiful could be "just" an anything. - Connie, Seattle

constancesidles at gmail.com
www.constancypress.com