Hey tweets, sometimes the most awe-inspiring sights at the Fill are not the birds, but the light. Yesterday, the sun shone on Mount Rainier, lighting up the ice and snow, highlighting the crags that peek through.The high ceiling of the sky was deep blue, the edges an opalescent turquoise, a beautiful backdrop for the ruby-red osier and golden willow wands that are just now breaking into pussywillow buds. Birds there were, of course, seemingly as glad of the sun as I was. The dawn chorus has begun, with early-rising robins and Bewick?s wrens leading the way. It is good to hear the birds singing again, don?t you think?

Best birds of the day: Pileated Woodpecker, a Greater and a Lesser Scaup on Main Pond, Wood Ducks in breeding plumage, and a Glaucous-winged Gull that tried to walk up a slippery hillock of mud over by the new baseball stadium. The gull got halfway up, then slid back down like a ski-jumper going backwards, poles flailing wildly. Determined to get up that hill, the gull tried again, only to slide back down. Not one to give up, and apparently having made a bet with itself not to use its wings, it tucked in its chin, took a huff of air, slapped its flat feet down on the mud one after another and made it. A new Olympic winter sport has been born.

Here is a poem for you:

The winter sun shines
pale gold on the mountain's sides,
gilding the silver surface
that needs no gilding
to glow.

- Connie, Seattle

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