Subject: [Tweeters] Fill yesterday
Date: Sep 15 03:16:48 2013
From: Connie Sidles - constancesidles at gmail.com


Hey tweets, I led a little troop of Girl Scouts around the Fill yesterday, and we found a Sora, much to my amazement. This little guy was foraging in the marsh verge at the Turtle Logs near East Point, rummaging around in the grasses that grow along the edge of the cattails. Deeper in the cattails, two Virginia Rails were squawking at each other. There has been a partially albino Virginia Rail in here for some weeks now, and either it is excessively belligerent, even for a Virginia Rail, or it is being picked on by the others. In either case, it's loud. On the other side of the cattails, out in Water Lily Cove, a troop of American Coots has shown up. I think they must be returning now from their long migration to Green Lake. The Lincoln's Sparrows are back, as are the Double-crested Cormorants, who have taken up their favorite roost atop the light standards at the baseball diamond. A great day, and the scouts were utterly charming. I was a Girl Scout once, too, and they took me right back to my childhood.

On another issue, the new owners of Talaris (where the Bald Eagle nest has been for years, kitty-corner from the Fill) decided to put in a ginormous fence to fence off the property from all and sundry. I could see no building permit statement anywhere, and I think they might need one, as they were digging very large postholes with an industrial-sized auger attached to a Bobcat-like tractor.

The neighbors are mounting a protest on two fronts: no EIS (and this is a sensitive wetlands, as well as an eagle nest area), and possible compromise of a site that is under review as a landmark.

If you wish to register your objections to this development, please contact me off-line. I can give you a couple of places to send comments to.